Big versus small science

I wrote a comment on this blog post regarding big versus small science. I'm re-posting my comment here. In summary, big science is not a trickle-down effect (for the benefit of small science). Rather, small science is a trickle up to supporting big-picture projects. (Would anyone fund a space mission unless they were not already > 99.9999...% certain of the basic principles involved?). Big science's job is to see how all the small parts fit together; there's always a surprise or two lurking about, not to mention the satisfaction of seeing the visible fruits of many labors. This is also why the moon mission ended so abruptly, as so little 'new' was discovered. Ironically that means it was a success. Here's my comments, as related to big-budget movies:

Absolutely agree there should be a mix of the big and small science projects. I like to use the Hollywood film industry as an example; they fund medium-to-big productions, which sometimes flop but overall make a profit. If art (movies in this case) can make money, we sure as heck should expect science to think along the same lines.

Small budget films get their funding from a multitude of sources, government grants, private donors, collected donations, personal cash etc. If a small-budget director shows promise, he/she is often given the chance to work with bigger projects (Peter Jackson), or at least more grants. Some prefer to stay small (Jim Jarmusch or Guy Maddin) and others actually do worse with more funding (think of David Lynch with his 'Dune'). It's a pyramid, but a stable one that satisfies a maximum of tastes and talents (big-budget films are necessarily fewer in number). And no matter how many small movies you fund (even 1000s of them), a production like "Avatar" or LOTR will never spontaneously appear from the mix; Bollywood for instance is scant on mass-appeal epics.

Small and big budget science will forever maintain certain distinctions. Funding both means we get the benefits from both. Big science takes fewer chances but the results are less contested (the Manhattan project, for one). How much does the world 'need' another moon mission or Avatar film? Maybe that's a philosophical question. I'm happy with some of each. 

Once the moon missions were over, there was so little 'new' discovered that it was clear the next big science project would have to look along very different lines. In a similar vein big-budget films do not signal the beginning but rather the end to a style/special effects era. Mars rovers are technically 'small' science, in that the only new, scientific portion came with the rover itself (and they had a comparatively small budget: $250 M). Before the space race was the invention of the A and H bombs; scientists were excited by these for 10 years (1939-1949). Afterward they moved on to the moon missions and rocket design (which were very challenging). After the mid 1970s when space became less interesting (and rockets were standardized) it was particle colliers that took over our big-science interest. Now we're at the tail end of this too. What could be our next big budget production? Likely space probes will grow in scale (MESSENGER, Cassini, Mars rovers, or the planet-finding Kepler), as they have all been very successful medium-budget ventures. But the question remains unanswered: how will we try attempt a big budget version of any one of these?

Despite the power of the LHC it is already falling off the logarithmic curve. No larger projects lurk on the horizon, which would take 20+ years to build anyway. We have reached the zenith of this technology.