Particle physics benefits:
Adding it up
Stories abound about how particle physics benefits
education, the economy, and society as a whole.
Quantifying those benefits would help particle physics
better demonstrate its value to the country.
By Elizabeth Clements
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Photos: Reidar Hahn, Fermilab |
Frank Meyer
recognized the need for industry to supply complex equipment for scientific
research. So in 1966 he started Meyer Tool & Manufacturing on a part-time
basis in his garage. Three years later, he left Argonne to expand his
machine shop into a full-time manufacturing facility.
Around the same time, Fermilab, then called the National Accelerator
Laboratory, began construction. The fledgling Meyer Tool became the
lab’s key supplier of cryogenic equipment needed to cool the accelerator’s
superconducting magnets.
Today Meyer Tool’s list of customers includes CERN in Geneva,
Switzerland; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California; the
National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center in Taiwan; and the
Canadian Light Source in Saskatoon, Canada.
|
Meyer Tool & Manufacturing
made key components for the
cooling system in the Large
Hadron Collider at CERN. |
Photo: Fred Ullrich, Fermilab
|
Particle physics has many episodes like this. They are real and sometimes
very powerful stories. But in a time of severe fiscal challenges, individual
stories are not enough.
“What does the US lose if we trade away elementary particle physics?”
asked Mike Holland of the US Office of Management and Budget at
Fermilab’s Users’ Meeting in June. “My guess is that the nation would be
less competitive and innovative without you, but I don’t have anything
other than a few anecdotes to make that case.”
The Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5) believes that an
objective and rigorous study of the benefits of particle physics on the
nation’s economy could help make the case. Economic impact studies
quantify the amount of new income that a facility or service adds to the
economy. In a report published in May 2008, the panel stated:
“At this time there exist few quantitative analyses of the economic benefits
of particle physics applications. A systematic professional study would have
value for assessing and predicting the impact of particle physics technology
applications on the nation’s economy.”
As envisioned by the P5 group, the proposed study would not focus on the
local effects of just one laboratory or institution. Rather, it would cover the
broad impacts of the entire field of particle physics across the United States.
The ripple effect
Some economic impacts are easy to quantify, such as dollars spent on
payrolls and equipment. Then there are the non-fiscal impacts that add
social value, such as training teachers and maintaining open space.
“The waves of that pebble going out into the water must be huge,”
says Dave Brummel, mayor of Warrenville, a town of 14,000 just to the
east of Fermilab.
Fermilab, for example, employs about 2000 people with a total payroll
of $148.7 million. Ninety percent of the lab’s employees live in the local
area surrounding Batavia, a suburb 40 miles west of Chicago, and pay
an estimated $4 million annually in Illinois income tax. On average, the lab
spends about $115 million each year in procurements—purchases of
everything from high-tech equipment to paper clips. A significant percentage
of that total goes to small businesses in Illinois, such as Meyer Tool and
Manufacturing.
“Projects can range from a few thousand dollars to large ones for hundreds
of thousands to millions,” says Ed Bonnema, vice president of operations
at Meyer Tool. “Depending on the year, national laboratory work can vary from
50 to 80 percent of our work.”
While the numbers are easy to count, Bonnema believes they are small
compared to the indirect effects that should be appraised. “A direct line
of descent between the basic research done at particle physics labs and
things like the World Wide Web, MRI machines, cancer therapy, and
superconductors can be made,” he says. “That’s the stronger case of economic
impact that should be described.”
Brummel also recognizes the ripple effect that particle physics has on
society. Warrenville and West Chicago will each soon be home to $200 million proton therapy treatment centers that together will care for 3000
cancer patients each year. The development of this technology, he says,
“would not be possible without particle physics.”
He adds that the most immediate benefits of having a research facility like
Fermilab next door are the simplest. “I raised two kids biking out at Fermilab,”
Brummel says. “A lot of the benefits, such as the open space, are esoteric. But
then there is the prestige of having this kind of place right there.”
|
The semiconductor
industry relies on
accelerator technology to
implant ions in silicon chips,
making them more effective
in consumer electronic
products, such as computers,
cell phones, and MP3 players. |
Photo: Reidar Hahn, Fermilab |
|
Researchers used the
Advanced Photon Source
at Argonne National
Laboratory to develop
Kaletra, one of the world’s
most-prescribed drugs
to fight AIDS. |
Photo courtesy of Abbott
Laboratories
|
Boosting schools and businesses
Fermilab’s cutting-edge research has attracted world-class scientists for
decades. In the 1970s, when physicist Bob Kephart was a postdoctoral
researcher at Stony Brook University in New York, the prestige of working
at the nation’s premier particle physics laboratory drew him to Illinois.
“After working at Fermilab for two years on an experiment, I had offers from
several universities,” he says. “However, I realized that I could either live at
the place where I was doing research, or I could be on planes all the time.
So I chose to live here.”
Like many staff scientists who came to Fermilab early in their careers,
Kephart stayed. He married another Fermilab employee, built a house in
nearby Elburn, had two kids who went to local schools and is now one of
the directors at the lab.
Not every scientist will relocate to Fermilab, but thousands visit every
year to attend meetings and workshops. They stay in local hotels, eat
in local restaurants, and shop at local stores. During peak times at the lab,
the Comfort Inn in Geneva estimates that 25 percent of its business
comes from Fermilab.
“Fermilab is one of three or four companies that we consider our base
business,” says Mary Bonner, general manager of the inn. “A facility like
Fermilab stays busy all year long. It always drives traffic to us.”
As a result of that steady business, the Comfort Inn is able to reinvest
money into upgrading the hotel.
For Robin Dombeck, a middle-school science teacher at Northbrook
Maple School in the northern suburbs of Chicago, a laboratory like Fermilab
adds social values that indirectly benefit the economy.
In 1983, Dombeck participated in a Fermilab pilot program called “Beauty
and Charm,” a professional development course for teachers, which was
named for the two types of quarks now usually known as bottom and charm.
At the time, she was in her second year of teaching science at a middle
school in LaGrange, Illinois. “As a result, my little school got affiliated with
a world-class institution like Fermilab,” she says.
The following year, the program leaders asked Dombeck to come back
as a workshop instructor, combining her teaching experience with
Fermilab’s expertise in particle physics to create a strong, ongoing program.
“The idea of teaching middle-school students particle physics was
a new concept then,” Dombeck says.
Because of Fermilab’s professional development courses, teachers like
Dombeck learned how to bring hands-on lessons and inquiry-based learning
practices into their classrooms. She says, “The strategies that I learned at
Fermilab enable me to look at a lesson that is less than exciting and make
it into something good.”
Better teachers improve schools. Good school systems attract people to
live in the area. While placing a numerical value on a service like professional
development would be tough, and not advisable according to economists,
the social benefit is significant.
“Laboratories like Fermilab create social values that are being made
available to many other organizations. They are hard to trace, but they
are very real,” says Bill Batte, president of Capital Management Solutions,
a financial consulting firm in St. Charles, Illinois.
|
Artificial human joints, such
as those for the hip, last
longer when industry uses
particle accelerators to
implant ions and harden the
metal material. |
Illustration: Sandbox Studio
|
The need for numbers
On the local level, particle physics laboratories create jobs and support small
businesses. As a field, particle physics helped develop cancer therapies,
medical diagnostic tools, and the World Wide Web. All of these add value to
particle physics, but their benefits have never been properly assessed.
Holland, who reviews the budget for the US particle physics program,
told an audience of Fermilab scientists that he hears examples like these
every day, but needs better data to make a convincing case for physics.
“Equip me to make your case,” he said. “Ideas and tools are your calling cards,
but you need robust theory to help explain them. An avalanche of spin-offs
is not enough.”
A systematic study would go beyond a mere list of examples and demonstrate
how the knowledge and highly skilled workforce that particle physics
produce percolate through the US economy. It would document the
connections between particle physics and the science and technology that
other fields of industry use today, and it would quantify how the national
economy would suffer if funding for particle physics continued to diminish.
Holland stressed that for such a study to achieve street credibility,
particularly on Capitol Hill, the process—which should be rigorous, expert,
and independent—is more important than the outcome.
“Get professional help,” he says. “Engage economists, sociologists, science
policy scholars, and historians. They will have the tools and credibility to help.”
The Office of High Energy Physics in the US Department of Energy
has already conferred with economists and supports the idea of conducting
an economic impact study.
“The innovative ideas and technologies of particle physics have helped
transform the way we live,” says Dennis Kovar, associate director for the
Office of High Energy Physics. “A rigorous and honest study is necessary
to fully appraise and attribute the contributions of particle physics to the
economic impacts associated with these transformations.”
|
The auto industry uses particle
accelerators to treat
the material for radial tires,
eliminating the use of
solvents that pollute the
environment. |
Photo: Reidar Hahn, Fermilab
|
Economic methods
Economists acknowledge that conducting an economic impact study on
particle physics will not be simple. But the right tools and an objective
approach make it possible.
“We find it interesting. You could make an entire academic career out
of a study like this one,” says George Tolley, a professor of economics
at the University of Chicago and president of RCF Economic and Financial
Consulting.
Tolley explains that one possible way of approaching the study is to select
four or five technologies that have come from particle physics. Economists
could analyze specific case studies that represent the benefits of particle
physics research to society and illustrate the ongoing innovation process.
Tangible products that economists can count, such as ion-implantation devices,
make it possible to quantify their impact on the national economy.
Don Jones, vice president at RCF Economic and Financial Consulting,
advises that a study should try to identify things that could not have been
done without key contributions from particle physics. “This kind of study
hasn’t been done yet in particle physics, but it is the kind of aggregation
that economists have the techniques to do,” Jones says.
For example, accelerator technology made it possible to create ion
implantation devices, which generate ion beams that scientists use to modify
semiconductors and harden materials for hip-replacement joints.
Using the case-study method, economists would work closely with scientists
and members of industry to determine which products to analyze and
just how much of their economic impact can be attributed to particle physics.
Then, to quantify the value that a technology such as ion implantation contributes
to the marketplace, economists would subtract the cost of producing
it from the total sales reported by US companies.
“You know that you are going to get a low estimate because you’re not
going to capture everything, but this number will be credible,” Jones says. That is important because credibility has been an issue for some previous
attempts to quantify the impact of scientific development.
In many instances, particle physics cannot claim full credit for creating
a new product, but economists can measure the impact the field had in
speeding up its development.
For example, if particle physics didn’t exist, it is likely that sooner or
later someone would have invented the World Wide Web. But because
particle physics collaborations needed a way to quickly share large
amounts of data, a computer scientist at CERN invented it and physicists
pushed it forward.
“Particle physics may have accelerated its introduction by 10 years,”
Jones says. “What is the value of having something like the World Wide Web
for those 10 years?”
|
Superconducting
wire developed
for particle accelerators
made it possible to create
powerful magnets for medical
diagnostic tools such as
magnetic resonance imaging,
or MRI. |
Photo: Reidar Hahn, Fermilab |
In 1985, John Kay, a leading economist in Great Britain, and Sir Chris
Llewellyn Smith, the former director general of CERN, published a paper
that estimated what the economic impact would have been if electricity
had been discovered one year earlier. It worked out to 5 percent of the
annual income in Britain, or the equivalent of $40 billion at that time. Put
another way, the economic benefit of accelerating the development of
electricity by just one year exceeded the cost of all fundamental scientific
research undertaken in Britain since the time of Newton.
“That is an astounding result,” Jones says.
Naturally, a single study such as this one should be taken with a grain
of salt, as it is just one example and this is a difficult problem to study. But
it provides an approach that could be useful.
Making credible assessments
John Crompton, an economist at Texas A&M University, says that economic
impact studies “are useful policy tools, but unfortunately they are often
not used correctly.” He considers most of these studies nothing more than
political shenanigans: “Every now and then you find an honest one.”
Crompton warns that certain methods make it very easy to manipulate
a study to produce desirable numbers. An economic impact study on particle
physics would need to steer clear of the pitfalls that have tarnished
other efforts.
Ultimately, the study should illustrate what the national economy would
lose if the field no longer existed.
“An economic impact has a technical meaning for economists—new
money coming in,” Crompton says. “It’s powerful stuff when done correctly.”
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