somebody wrote:
> * Side effects and peripheral benefits does not justify an endavour of this
> magnitude. If you are going to suggest grid computing as a benefit, why not
> suggest pouring all 10 billion dollars into it? That would give much bigger
> and surer yields.

	Actually, 10 billion dollars is small if a few side effects end up 
being very profitable.

	As for pouring 10 billion dollars "directly into it", it's a case of 
necessity. I can't ask for 10 billion dollars to create a system for 
handling huge amounts of data if I can't give a reason to handle huge 
amounts of data to begin with. That, unfortunately, is how funding works.

> * Laymen are, unfortunately, impossibly confused about the depth and breadth
> of physics and media and publicists prey on this. HEP (high energy physics)
> is a deep, deep end, far removed from mostly applied branches of physcis
> such as quantum optics, quantum computing, condensed matter, solid state...

	Actually, some of your questions would be *quite* valid for some of 
those items listed above, just around the time they were being 
discovered. Go back to the late 19th century, and try to justify 
spending any money on the study of atoms - other than for chemistry's sake.

	It's easy to look back now and say research in those areas was worth 
it, but it wasn't obvious back then.

 > I would much welcome a 10 billion dollars investment in any or all of
 > those fields, that have proven or at least feasible returns on 
investment.

	Science is not compartmentalized that easily. You can't study things 
independently of one another. Progress in one field often gives insight 
on others. Are you suggesting the study of HEP thus far has not 
furthered areas like condensed matter physics and quantum computing?

 > Science without regard to the human factor is just stamp collecting.

	Actually, science *is* without regard to the human factor. Science, at 
least the physical sciences, is the study of nature. Not the study of 
nature to benefit humanity. All benefits are incidental. People seem to 
forget that.

	Which is why I say: Don't expect any real professional scientists to be 
concerned about issues of practicality. It's simply not their goal nor 
their job. Real science has no ordering where one discipline is more 
valuable than another. That has to be enforced from beyond, not from within.


-- 
For Sale: Parachute. Only used once, never opened, small.


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