From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: Supercollider "For" or "Against"
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 18:27:59 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <1992Jul28.152551.27518@dscomsf.desy.de> hallam@zeus02.desy.de writes:
>In article <Bs3qCo.77A@apollo.hp.com>, nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter
>Nelson) writes:

>|>                     *Why* should we taxpayyers fund this?   
>
>
>|> Last week John Silber had an editorial in the Wall Street Journal 
>|> in favor of the Supercollider.  He cited spinoff's in areas of 
>|> transportation, energy, construction and subcontractor spending, etc.
>|> But none of his suggested advantages were a result of the high-energy
>|> physics research itself; they were engineering and economic results
>|> of *building* the project!  

>To accept that spinoffs from projects like the SSC can be as valuable as
>the "direct approach" it is necessary to consider the areas in which
>spinoffs are to be expected. One major area is in investigating how
>large and complex systems can be designed and manufactured, this has a
>host of spinoffs in the areas of CAD/CAM.

  But why do this on a "spinoff" basis?   Why not then design and
  manufacture a "large and complex" system that has some DIRECT
  social or commercial benefit?  
                                 
>phenomena on a small scale, build small protoypes and claim that the
>job is done. Techniques need to be developed to cope with complexity, my
>own research into building reliable software systems for large, complex
>systems is one example of this.

  Agreed.  But as long as we're doing that, why not do it in the context
  of some practical, directly beneficial project, e.g., a high tech re-
  placement for the Internet, a modern mass-transit system or whatever,
  if we feel that government *has* to spend the money on some kind of Big
  Engineering project?   Or why not distribute the money to US engineering
  companies such as Boeing, Ford, Motorola, (ahem) Hewlett Packard, etc
  with the proviso that it be spent on corporate R&D?   I'm not actually
  advocating, this, just suggesting that we could spend the money in 
  ways that would be more likley to to ensure US technological leadership
  and jobs in the years to come.  



>argument. One of the major things you learn during an engineering
>course, aside from the technical detail is your own capabiities. You
>discover that you are capable of designing and building a machine
>costing several million pounds and be reasonable sure that it will meet
>certain criteria. Large projects like ZEUS serve as a proof that it is
>indeed feasable to build and run machines of a very high degree of
>complexity reliably.

  But I'm still unsure of your point -- if there is a societal or
  commercial need to "build and run machines of a very high degree of
  complexity reliably" then why not gain our experience meeting whatever 
  that need is.   And if not then why spend the money at all?     Note
  that some US companies such as Boeing with their development of their
  777 or Motorola with their proposed satellite network are already
  spending thousands of millions of dollars on daring, large-scale,
  bleeding edge, high-complexity design and manufacturing projects.  



>One important benefit that international projects bring is bring is
>technology interchange. Usualy such interchange is at the corporate
>level, this is demarcated on commercial lines. We have Japaneese,
>German, US and British engineers working in the same rooms on the same
>projects. The various strengths and weaknesses of the different
>approaches becomes apparent.

  But private industry already does this.  Here at Hewlett Packard 
  this sort of collaboration is a routine occurence, as I'm sure it 
  is at most other multinational corporations.


>Technology interchange is even more crucial when one considers the need
>to industrialise the third world and modernise eastern european
>industry.

>                 Once again you may regard this as a demand for US
>philanthropy,

  Yup.

>                  if so I would point out that unless the third world
>drasticaly improves it's industrial performance, the West will never get
>it's loans repaid.

  There was an article in the Wall Street Journal recently about US banks'
  exposure to 3rd world loans.  Apparently between building up their loan
  loss reserves and better repayment performance than expected, the whole
  worry about this scenario has greatly declined.



> Secondly I don't think that the flow of benefits will
>in fact be one way. Just as the Japaneese demonstrated that a primitive
>agricultural nation had a lot to teach the world about being an
>industrial superpower, there will be intangible benefits from the
>developing world.

  Maybe, but this is an item of faith.  $8 billion is very tangible so
  I'd like a similarly tangible justification of it.


>benefits. If you want the thing to serve as a gateway between different
>expertise and cultures like CERN has done for over 40 years then it may
>be worthwhile.

  But again, I claim this happens on a huge scale, routinely in private
  industry.


>I have only touched upon some of the spinoff benefits, there are rather
>more tangible ones for the state of Texas itself, not least the SSC must
>be seen there as a bid to create a successor industry to support the
>state once the Oil runs out.

   But what is that industry?    People drill oil up out of the ground, 
   refine it, and sell it.  There's an industry.  It produces oil and
   refined petroleum products and people pay money for these things.   
   What will people pay for from the supercollider?   The only obvious
   (to me, anyway) way that the supercollider will bring money into Texas
   is by attracting tax money to the region.   If that's the philosophy then 
   spend the money instead on building up some of Dallas' already fine 
   teaching hospitals into world-class centers for research on cancer,
   AIDS, etc.  This way you get a generalized social benefit (curing dread
   diseases) and a long-term local financial benefit from the stream
   of patients who go there for treatment.      



---peter


Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc