Whither the Endless Frontier: Strategy After P5

Thursday 20 Nov 2025, 11:00 → 12:30 US/Central

WH11E Sunrise

11:00 → 12:15 Whither the Endless Frontier: Strategy After P5

Vannevar Bush cast science as an 'Endless Frontier'—a wellspring of discovery, which if properly supported would provide the basis for US security and prosperity through sustained federal support for basic research. For particle physics, this vision translated into building larger accelerators to reach shorter distance scales. Today, geopolitical, fiscal, institutional, and societal challenges make that model harder to sustain—not just for particle physics but across all of science. This talk traces how U.S. support for accelerator-based particle physics took shape and provided a model for federal support of all fields of science. It examines how physics' role, its social contract, and its funding structures have shifted over time. The Snowmass community study and P5 reports offer a roadmap and clear priorities for the future of US particle physics. Making choices going forward will also require realistic calibration of scale, international partnerships, and the alignment of investments in each scientific subfield with a broad national agreement on a balanced portfolio for basic science. This talk attempts to develop a framework that could help us understand where we are now and, based on lessons from how we got here, what we will need to consider as we move forward.

Speaker: R. Sekhar Chivukula (UC San Diego)

GMT20251120-170054_Recording_1646x746.mp4