Austrian About Face on CERN Involvement
Austrian chancellor Werner Faymann overruled the science minister, Johannes Hahn, and said that the founding member of CERN will remain involved with the organization. In no small part, this may have been motivated by the 32,000 signatures opposing the withdrawal. The Austrian contribution of $27 million (annually) covered about 2% of the LHC budget, but 70% of Austria's own budget toward international research. The goal of the withdrawal was to take the money they were paying for membership in CERN and spreading it over a wider diversity of projects (which, according to our favorite conservative physicist Lubos Motl includes "climate whackadoodles")
Unfortunately, Minister Hahn is a conservative and Chancellor Faymann is a social democrat ... and while they have to work together in Austria's coalitition government, that does mean when Hahn made such a politically disastrous move, the Chancellor could look the hero by stepping in and supporting the nation's involvement in CERN ... winning him the adoration of at least the 32,000 petition signers, and much of the hard science community the world over. The withdrawal of CERN could have triggered other nations to begin rethinking their research priorities and pulling out of the project. While the removal of Austria's 2% wouldn't have crippled the project a landslide of withdrawals could easily have caused the ultimate decimation of the program.
With Austria back on board, there's little that can be done among physics enthusiasts but wait for word about what physicists discover when the LHC starts back up in September. Who knows, maybe an Austrian physicist will be the one who first notices the Higgs boson.
Related Articles:
- About.com Physics Blog - Austria to Leave CERN
- Reuters - Austria to stay in particle physics lab after all
- PhysicsWorld.com - Austria performs U-turn over CERN pull-out
- Telegraph - Austria opts back into CERN, Big Science survives
- The Reference Frame - Chancellor Keeps Austria in CERN
Comments
Man, that guy is scathing regarding the climate whackadoodles — “we must do something about the power of poop … the power of poop … the power of poop-poop-poop-poop-pooooo” Awesome!
Maybe there are causes we don’t know. Maybe CERN money is not being properly spent.
in 2003 for no well known reasons (at least for me) Austria becomes auditor of CERN budget. Taking into consideration that this country represents only a 2% of the whole CERN budget, one can believe that There Must Be A Good Reason For The Rest Of The Countries to agree on the fact.