Question

How does particle physics reasearch help the society?

Answer 1

Compared to most scientific endeavors, though not to space exploration or to some defense-related technology research, high-energy physics is an expensive enterprise. Modern accelerator facilities capable of expanding the high-energy frontier, such as Fermilab or the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project, are big science, involving the concerted efforts of thousands of people and costing several billions of dollars. High-energy physics has been supported almost entirely by government agencies and thus ultimately by taxpayers. It is entirely appropriate that scientists who promote these expenditures should be expected to justify this investment by society as a whole, by explaining its benefits to society as a whole.