Collisions, collusions and clones

摘要

In texas there lies an epitaph to big physics—several miles of underground tunnels that were once to be the home of protons colliding at monumental energies. Now the tunnels are home to nothing more exotic than mushrooms. The Superconducting Supercollider was junked after years of work and $2 billion of spending. Cost overruns and doubts among the physicists and members of Congress who fund them brought the project to a grinding halt in 1993. Mutter the acronym "SSC" at the Department of Energy now and you're likely to draw a glance as icy as, well, cold fusion.