[ben_w]

While you are correct to say that scarce resources means we can’t do everything, pure/fundamental research like the LHC tends to have extremely high payoffs several decades after it is completed. Nobody knows what exactly, if we did we could focus on that stuff in particular, but its one of the best things we can do to grow the economy.

(Also, if everyone in the EU paid $80 for the Higgs, that’s about three LHCs depending on where in its history you take the exchange rate).

[mjfl]

Actually, good basic research has a much quicker payoff scale, like 10-20 years. Transistors, fiber optics, lasers, paid off almost immediately- and were invented ON PURPOSE by the way, in order to facilitate better communication for AT&T. And I would pay $80 because I'm personally interested, but I'm the 1%, and I don't think you should force people to pay for it, therefore you should revise your estimate to .03 LHCs.

[ben_w]

You’re taking a bunch of things deliberately invented to solve an existing problem as an example of fundamental research paying off quickly?

Counterexamples: one of the early prime number researchers was proud that his work had no use at all, and now it’s the foundation of a major class of encryption. That was a century or two.

Or, Maxwell published “A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism” in 1873, and it took another 30 years to become voice radio.

Of course, as the LHC only discovered the Higgs in 2012, even your 10 year lowball would be four years in the future.

[mpfundstein]

I think you have no idea how (fundamental) research works...