A billion dollars to study neutrinos?

A billion dollars to study neutrinos?

Surely our poor heavily in debt Uncle Sam could find something more worthwhile to spend a billion dollars on than the elusive neutrino.

A "committee of experts" wants to beam neutrinos 800 miles underground from Fermi National Accelerator Lab in Batavia to South Dakota to study this subatomic particle.

The project would take some 10 years to build. A 50,000 ton detector would be able to spot "an incredibly minute fraction of the particles."

Scientists say the nearly massless neutrinos are everywhere and that some 100 trillion zip harmlessly through us each second. They are said to be so fast and small that science has barely detected them for study.

Just think of the many other projects a billion dollars could finance. For starters, how about a cure for macular degeneration, cancer and mental illness?

Joe Schrantz

Villa Park