The particle physics community is abuzz with the surprising news that Austria plans to pull out of CERN, a move that dampens the rising enthusiasm for the looming restart of CERN's Large Hadron Collider. The Austrian science minister attributed the decision to budget issues—Austrian scientists, however, had thought the latest budget brought good news. On his Web site, Austrian physicist Daniel Grumiller published an open letter about the importance of CERN to Austrian science and called himself "speechless" at the decision. He notes that 173 Austrian scientists are now actively working at CERN. Whether the weakening European economy could make other countries question their financial commitments to CERN will be an important question to follow. Some physics blogs are wondering if non-European states, such as China or the United States, might now be allowed full membership in CERN.
—John Travis
Austria made a good decision. Last year the British were questioning the value of further funding this project. And there are serious signs here in America of the same. The LHC is enormously expensive. But that is not the real problem. The problem is that it is delayed perpetually and with out end in sight. For those who think it will start in September think again. So it is not producing any results or any new science but it is absorbing massive amounts of money. It is time to think about funding other science projects. In France and Switzerland the LHC is a job creation tool not a science experiment. That is why some seriously suspect that the delays are not unintentional but intended to avoid the dreaded "point of diminishing returns." Kudos for Austria. Hopefully other nations will follow suit. The LHC is not really science so Idoubt science will suffer.