Urban Decay: Exploring an old abandoned particle collider facility

What I mean by a low level theory is something that deals with the very lowest level building blocks of the universe--things that are locked away inside the "elementary" particles, or that mediate forces like the strong force. We can, with enough energy, coax them out to play--for microseconds, and in small quantity.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be doing research into the low level stuff. I'd just like to see something more concrete than "game changing potential for us as a species" to justify the argument that the SSC would have been a better project to fund than the ISS, given that we couldn't have both.

To understand semiconductors properly, you need quantum mechanics - once an obscure theory that Einstein never accepted.

Today's hard discs rely on the Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR), an effect based on the spin polarizations of electrons. Spin is a property that can only be understood with quantum mechanics, there's no proper classic theory (and I guess there never will be) of spin.

Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be pushed back by scientists with particle accelerators. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for the funding, and you curse the Higgs boson. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That the funding's expense, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while nerdy and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me pushing on that wall, you need me pushing on that wall. We use words like spin, fermions, color. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent figuring out something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very theory that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a textbook, and learn some theory. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.