Simon Jenkins parrots a cry that I have heard a few times during my career as a research scientist in high-energy physics (Pluto trumps prisons when we spend public money, 17 July). He is unimaginatively concerned that the £34m a year spent by the UK at Cern (and a similar amount per year would have been spent on the New Horizons probe to Pluto) is not actually money well spent.
Yet I read his article online using the world wide web, which was developed initially by and for particle physicists. I did this using devices with integrated circuits partly perfected for the aerospace industry. The web caused the longest non-wartime economic boom in recorded history, during the 90s. The industries spawned by integrated circuits are simply too numerous to count and would have been impossible to predict when that first transistor was made in the 50s. It is a failure of society that funnels such economic largesse towards hedge-fund managers and not towards solving the social ills Mr Jenkins rightly exposes.
Let me suggest that before we so quickly cut off one of the few avenues of true investment in society (scientific research) that the wealthy are willing to fund, we should ask where one might expect that money would go instead. I submit that the £34m certainly would not go toward prisons nor to any other worthy cause, social or scientific. The money would simply disappear as an almost invisible blip in George Osborne’s deficit account … it takes even less imagination to figure out how many people’s lives that will improve.
Professor Todd Huffman
Particle physics, Oxford University
• Simon Jenkins dares to examine the use of resources for remote space explorations to the neglect of less glamorous or telegenic human needs. Dare we ask to take this even further? Analogous to the Hippocratic oath for medical science, is it conceivable that scientists might put some of their less immediately beneficial programmes on hold and work together on an unprecedented scale until every child on the planet has running water, every family a shelter, all have appropriate medical care and education, and food provision for everyone is prioritised. This, let us say, for just the next 50 years or so? My own qualifications are in science, which I love and cherish. Somehow, though, however foolishly, I love my fellow humans even more.
Dr Ian Flintoff
Oxford
• Simon Jenkins asks: “The cost of ‘finding’ the Higgs boson has been estimated at $13bn. And what for?” Given that the production and usage of fossil fuels are major contributors to wars and pollution, the best hope for a sustainable future is finding a clean and abundant energy source, which is likely to require a deeper understanding of the atom. That’s why research at the LHC is necessary.
Dr Mark Richardson
Brighton
• Three cheers for Simon Jenkins’s moving piece on the Pluto expedition. I was still a boy when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. Tremendously exciting at the time, but has that “giant leap for mankind” or any subsequent similar endeavour made any difference to my life in the succeeding half-century? Not one iota. Instead, I find myself living in a world where the gap between rich and poor is even more obscene than in 1969, where decent housing is beyond the dreams of many, where Neanderthal religious beliefs still tear us apart. It would be fantastic if we had the resources to achieve every wonderful thing of which humanity is capable, but we don’t. So let’s forget about exploring distant planets and black holes and spend our time, money and, above all, intellect on trying to save our fellow human beings from the black holes of incurable illness, poverty, climate change and war. Let’s shut down Nasa and similar places and force its brilliant scientists to work on projects with tangible social benefits for everyone down here on Earth. Oscar Wilde said: “We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.” Very poetic, but wouldn’t it be better to raise people out of the gutter, so that they can stand tall and see the stars even better?
Alan Clark
London
