More Confirmation of the Impending Death of US Experimental Particle Physics

I think many people have long suspected something like this would happen sooner or later. After all, we have some precedence of Congress abruptly cutting HEP funds despite previous positive signs, and the funding trends of the last decade don’t bode well for the field. Read the gory details here.

The brutal summary:

• HEP funding for FY08 has been cut 10% from last year, despite recommendations from the Bush administration to increase it a by a few percent.
• The cuts coming abruptly three months into FY08 mean that the International Linear Collider, which had not anticipated this, has already spent all of its [revised] FY08 budget.
• NOvA was allocated no funds at all, and it has already spent some money.

I learnt many, many things as an undergrad doing an experimental particle physics project, but the lesson to avoid the field like the plague (even though it has its fun aspects) might turn out to be the most valuable of all. You could smell the negative vibes from grad students in the field — most were preparing to get out of science and become quants instead.

Update:
More from the Chicago Tribune. It seems that Dennis Hastert’s resignation had something to do with the HEP budget cuts falling squarely on Fermilab.