Sir, - Recently I attended a talk given by Chris Llewllyn Smith, the director of CERN, the largest physics experiment in Europe and, in the near future, the world. He described the search for a deeper understanding of the laws of nature, the advances in technology required to probe matter at the smallest scales imaginable and, of course, the financial support that such a grand enterprise needs.
I watched with growing embarrassment a map of all European countries that cough, up some cash to support this project. The only non contributors were Ireland, Luxembourg, Andorra and the Vatican State. Even supposedly impoverished ex communist countries, such as the Czech Republic and Hungary, can find the room in public expenditure to support this ongoing search for the answer to one of the most fundamental of questions: what is everything made of?
This embarrassing lapse on, behalf of the Irish Government is at odds with the tradition of scientific research of Irish people, recognised, for example, by a Nobel Prize in Physics. Despite the recent White Paper on Science, it seems that politicians are interested only in spending money where votes are to be garnered in not too distant elections.
Long after the ballots have been cast, counted and forgotten, Irish people will be embarrassed that we chose not to spend our money in more enlightened ways. I hope the politicians will reconsider and increase our contribution to scientific research. - Yours etc.,
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology,
Cambridge MA 01239, US.