Future Circular Collider:
Plans for the Future Circular Collider (FCC), a proposed $30 billion project by CERN, have led to significant divisions within the scientific community.
- Project scope is a 91 km circular tunnel beneath the Swiss-French border, designed to accelerate and collide particles at unprecedented energies.
- Purpose is to generate Higgs bosons in large numbers (Phase 1, ~2040) and later to collide protons at extreme energies (Phase 2, ~2070).
- Estimated cost: $30 billion (initial), with long-term funding implications for the next decades.
- Supporters: CERN leadership, senior physicists like Fabiola Gianotti and Mark Thomson, claim it will be the most powerful instrument to study nature.
- Many physicists fear the project will drain funds, limiting investment in other scientific advancements.
