Tevatron shuttered after 27 years due to lack of funding
Formerly the world’s most powerful particle accelerator (before CERN, of course), the Tevatron at Fermilab in Chicago was responsible for discovering the top quark, among other contributions to particle physics. According to scientists at Tevatron, the group was closing in on the elusive Higgs boson, an undiscovered particle tying the Standard Model of particle physics together. Friday marked the last time the particle beams would be turned on at the facility, due to a decision by the federal government to cease funding the lab. The annual budget of the Tevatron? $35 million.
Just for reference, $35 million would fund the Afghanistan war for 144 minutes.
