Tevatron atom smasher shuts after more than 25 years (BBC)

By Paul Rincon
Science editor, BBC News website

One of the world's most powerful "atom smashers", at the leading edge of scientific discovery for a quarter of a century, is about to shut down.

The Tevatron facility near Chicago will fire its last particle beams on Friday after federal funding ran out.

Housed in a 6km-long circular tunnel under the Illinois prairie, the Tevatron leaves behind a rich scientific legacy.

This includes finding nature's heaviest elementary particle: the top quark.

Since 1985, engineers have been accelerating bunches of proton and antiproton particles around the Tevatron's main ring at close to the speed of light, then smashing them together in a bid to unlock the secrets of the Universe.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15079119




So now the US can't afford $105 million over 3 years for top priority research that employs hundreds? I guess that money was better spent on tax cuts for billionaires anyway.

but even Bush had a better record on funding for scientific research.

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