Where's the beef Human curiosity about nature has surely been a major force in the progress of our civilization. History has been shaped by the irresistible urge to find out how the world works, and how we can use that knowledge to better our lives. These questions particularly the first two, but increasingly the last two as well fall within the domain of high energy physics upon which our knowledge of the other sciences ultimately rests. As biology and medicine are founded in chemistry, and chemistry in physics, so physics is founded in the study of the elementary particles and the forces that govern their behavior. Although the tree of knowledge will continue to be explored fruitfully at many levels, it is only by uncovering its deepest roots that we can fully comprehend the branches above.
Particle physics is perhaps the most fundamental of sciences, but astronomy is the oldest.
Throughout history, nothing has so stirred our imaginations, scientific and poetic alike, as contemplation of the heavens. Until very recently, it could scarcely have been foreseen that some of the age-old mysteries of astronomy might be solved by looking in the opposite direction, into the world of elementary particles. Yet this is precisely what is now happening. Particle physicists in company with nuclear and atomic physicists, astrophysicists and cosmologists, are beginning to understand not simply what matter is, but where it came from, and when, and how. Finding answers to such questions is important because everything else we want to know more about, space and time, energy and entrophy, life and death, the rocks of Earth and the fire of the stars is bound up with them.