The $21,000,000,000 hole in Texas

So there's this hole in Texas...This is a story about the greatest failure in American physics: The Superconducting Super Collider. This video is a super-sized compilation of all three parts of America's Missing Collider, from the Ronald Reagan era, to George Bush Sr., to Bill Clinton.

My Twitter and Patreon:

Thumbnail created by @ChipmunkuChan

The primary source on all things SSC is the fantastic book "Tunnel Visions", which I used as a blueprint to map out the series. Details involving budgets and congressional votes I accessed from the official government websites, and inflation calculations were done by myself using an online tool. There are a bunch of other documents I read through such as "The Global Research and Development Landscape and Implications for the Department of Defense", "A TIMELINE OF MAJOR PARTICLE ACCELERATORS", "United States nuclear forces, 2019", "High Energy Physics Advisory Panel's Subpanel on Vision for the Future of High-Energy Physics May 1994", "The Intellectual Spoils of War? Defense R&D, Productivity and International Spillovers", "Accessory to War by Neil DeGrasse Tyson", "The Mission" by David W Brown, "The God Particle (The Higgs boson) by Leon Lederman".

Music by @WhiteBatAudio unless otherwise noted:
Part 1:
Brave New World
Endless Night
Home
Arcadia
Rain City
Forgotten Planet
Edge of Tomorrow
Night Crawler
Black Rainbows
Empty City
The Drop
Virtual Death
Prince of Darkness
Astral Projection
Afterglow
Hackers

Part 2:
Tryst by @REPULSIVE
Alliance
Moonlight
Endless Night
The Drop
Agent Cooper
The Heist
Last Stop
Empty City
New Beginnings
Sentimental
Mysterious Green Fluid
Sycophant
Virtual Death
Lucid Dream
Echoes
Crash Site
Night of the Creeps
Dangerous

Part 3:
Fortress Europe by Futuremono
Akanes Regret by @REPULSIVE
Dangerous
Miami Sky
The Showdown
The Night Dweller
Slasher
The Guardian
The Traveler
Nightscapes
Melt

Credits song: Hard Times Come Again No More by the Westerlies

0:00 Part 1: Reagan
1:02:52 Part 2: Bush
2:13:06 Part 3: Clinton

[BobbyBroccoli]

Since this series originally released Roy Schwitters has since passed away. RIP

Footnotes: Part 1

1. All monetary values have been adjusted for inflation and are expressed in constant 2021 US dollars. I’ve researched to the best of my ability based on the dates and values I was able to find, but there are likely a few instances where the inflation calculation is off by a year or two. However, the orders of magnitude are what’s important in this story, and minor calculation mistakes should not detract from the story. Occasionally I will reference funding for Fiscal Year 19XX. For example, Fiscal Year 1989, this refers to funding allocated by congress in 1988, but which was made available to the project in 1989.

2. I often use the terms “accelerator” and “collider” interchangeably. It would be most accurate to say that all colliders are accelerators, but not vice versa. Colliders are any device that speed up two beams of charged particle going opposite directions, and smash them into each other.

Edit: "Most modern accelerators tend to be colliders." I read this line somewhere (or some variation of it) and as pointed out to me it is likely not correct.

3. Oftentimes particle physicists will express a particle mass in terms of electron volts, or eV. This is because mass is directly related through E= mc^2, and is the widely adopted convention. The total collision energy that can be generated by a collider is often much higher than the mass of a particle that the collider is trying to create. This is because much of the collision energy is lost in the collision to other factors, and only a small amount goes towards the creation of a new particle.

Edit: The point regarding total collision energy far exceeding the particle energy is only true for hadron colliders, not all colliders (i.e. lepton colliders).

4. I’m making a lot of generalizations when boiling collider design down to just 3 components. The balancing act between collider size, magnet strength, and max energy is also a simplified picture, but mostly holds true. For further reading look up braking radiation or Bremsstrahlung radiation and how it limits collider design.

5. Although it’s called the November Revolution, the work leading up to the joint discovery took place over the summer at both SLAC and Brookhaven. And the standard model was first shown off at a conference in July. The November part comes from the joint announcement on November 11th. If you know your science history you may know that evidence of the 3-quark model actually dates back as far as 1968, however even though it was enough to convince some physicists there were still some conflicting interpretations, with many preferring Feynman’s model. It was the discovery of the charm quark in 1974 though that united most of the community on the quark model.

6. Also as a point of clarification, the particle discovered in the November Revolution was a hybrid particle consisting of the charm quark and its antimatter equivalent. This bound state is known as a meson, and it’s the meson that was named J/Psi, not the quark on its own. The meson’s discovery was considered sufficient evidence for the 4th quark, hence why it was such a big deal. For reference, a hadron is any combination of two or more quarks, which can be further categorized into mesons and baryons. Mesons consist of even numbers of quarks and anti-quarks, most often 1 and 1. Baryons consist of odd numbered quark combinations, and include protons and neutrons, among many more exotic ones.

7. I considered including the hypothetical graviton to the standard model as it would be the boson that mediates the force of gravity. However I’ve found that many versions of the standard model exclude it as there have been no successful attempts at unifying gravity and quantum mechanics as of yet. Since it never comes back into the story I decided it was better to leave it out.

8. The cost to build America’s previous 4 major accelerators are difficult to estimate as some were built at pre-existing labs, and others from the ground up. However regardless of how the costs are calculated they were still “baby” machines in comparison to the proposed SSC. Also, I mention that the old colliders never crossed the billion dollar threshold, they technically go past 1 billion now if you adjust for inflation in 2021 US dollars, but just barely.

9. Reagan’s plan to eliminate the Department of Energy was not as simple as just eliminating it, as its functions would have to be absorbed by other departments. Pitches were put forward for the department of the interior and the department of commerce to take over responsibilities, even including control of the nuclear arsenal believe it or not. However the plan ran out of steam as eliminating the DoE required a review of the department’s performance to be submitted to congress, and ultimately it was found that the DoE was meeting its objectives. Additionally, with no more urgent energy crisis, and no clear plan for what to do with the nukes, it would have been a tough fight with congress, and Reagan had other policy battles to fight. And besides that, Reagan was mostly able to achieve his energy policy goals without eliminating the department, namely: deregulation, prioritizing the private sector, and eliminating renewables research in favour of fossil fuels and nuclear.

10. The end of the SDI program (Star Wars) is hard to pin down, mostly because it was never officially cancelled, just renamed, repurposed, and scaled back. I think most would agree though that 1993 was the last year that Reagan’s original vision for SDI died. This is similar to what happened with the Space Station Freedom project. Some figures place the total cost of SDI as low as $30 billion, some put it as high as $200 billion if you consider its spiritual successor programs as continuations. My $60 billion figure is based on the confirmed congressional budgetary appropriations since its announcement in 1983 and cancellation in 1993.

11. To consider the Reagan admin as “peacetime” you have to neglect the Iran Contra scandal, bombing Lybia, funding the Mujahideen, chemical weapons sales to Iraq, the invasion of Grenada, etc. etc.

12. The most expensive skyscraper, stadium and bridge from my research were, respectively: The One World Trade Center, SoFi Stadium, and the East Oakland Bay Bridge.

[phenk]

Watkins is a funny character in my opinion because 3 times he was put in a position he was absolutely unqualified for or ideologically unaligned with but still tried his best to do something about it.

[Darkerfoxtech]

"He became non-linear" that is a new type of anger, imagine being so angry you cause a time paradox.

[candledapple]

One of the saddest parts is the ending about Lederman. The whole video is talking about projects in the tens of millions to billions of dollars, but we can't spare even a tiny tiny fraction of that to help one the greatest minds cover his medical expenses. This truly is a country of all time.

[mightypoocheyena]

Watkins: "I am completely unqualified for this."
Also Watkins: *throws his being into said work to try his best*

[MadeInChinaLoI]

Leon lederman having to sell his nobel prize is just tragic.

[humphreyspellingbee]

I forgot how this one ended since I last watched it, hope the SSC stays funded and they get it built and everyone is happy and Admiral Watkins stays linear the whole way through!

[thsand]

I am genuinely touched by admiral watkins' actions here. He might not have been the best at managing the SSC, but seeing a conservative military man systematically put his beliefs aside to advocate for what the evidence suggests is the right thing to do (both during the aids crisis and when advocating for better ocean regulations) really does something to me.

[Christiaan-qjfi]

“They had to make a deal with the devil” with a quick pan over to Reagan is INSPIRED. Incredible stuff

[ParadoxGavel]

That part in the beginning about Ting and Richter both presenting Psi/J together always makes me smile. I half-expected there to be a competition over it, but... the fact that they choose to share it and call it by both names is just... really nice, yknow?

[lambda]

Former physicist from the 90s here. Just wanted to give you some kudos on the presentation here, you captured the (defeated) spirit of the US particle physics community well.

[SurprisinglyDynamicAnimeSideC]

All I want for Christmas is to experience the kind of rage that transforms a man into non-euclidean geometry.

[Lettuceking]

I actually live in Waxahachie and seeing my town at 10:51 genuinely gave me chills. I knew about the particle accelerator but never thought one of my favorite creators would ever comment on it. Thank you for making this video man.

[jacobbass]

Part 1 – Reagan

0:00:00 – Chapter 1: The November Revolution
0:11:47 – Chapter 2: How the sausage gets made
0:22:53 – Chapter 3: Mount Gipper
0:37:09 – Chapter 4: Maury, Magnets and Mayhem
0:44:43 – Chapter 5: Nothing Personal
0:52:48 – Chapter 6: The Great American Lottery

Part 2 – Bush

1:02:53 – Chapter 7: Call Me Tex
1:14:03 – Chapter 8: The Revolving Door
1:21:20 – Chapter 9: All Hands On Deck
1:33:11 – Chapter 10: The Three Pronged Attack
1:49:43 – Chapter 11: Burning Bridges, Mending Fences
2:02:12 – Chapter 12: Swords Drawn

Part 3 – Clinton

2:13:07 – Chapter 13: The Day Physics Ended
2:16:17 – Chapter 14: Revenge of the C Students
2:24:22 – Chapter 15: A Bridge Too Far
2:35:03 – Chapter 16: Buried in Waxahachie
2:44:17 – Chapter 17: Fewer Ribs, More Fondue

[kittycat]

I had a professor in Texas who was a bitter man about moving to Texas for the super collider. The college paid for him to go back and forth to CERN. This gave me a lot of perspective on his dilemma. Thank you.

[PieDivide]

"He became non-linear" fucking destroyed me

[noyesnoyesnooooo]

Perfectly happy with tax dollars going towards scientific discoveries instead of senator golf courses

[shayt]

I grew up in Waxahachie and it is really interesting how this project changed the area and people's lives even though it wasn't completed. So many people threw everything at this project that many choose to stay. My chemistry professor was one of those people.

[FlaviusTheGrumpyCat]

"We like Tigner because he inspires loyalty and motivation in his employees"

Tigner *inspires loyalty among his employees and is loyal to them in turn*

"No, wait, not like that!"

[pieterpennings]

CERN’s new FCC: FUCKING COLOSSAL COLLIDER.