In a development that parallels those in other areas of western culture innovation in science itself has undergone a number of adaptive transformations. Post world war two science development has been dominated by the technical application of one of the greatest scientific innovations in our century, quantum theory and nuclear physics. This discovery made it possible to build a tremendous weapon from uranium ore that had been without any significance in the past. The political and psychological impact of this innovation was so enormous that it instantly changed the status of physics in modern society. The miracle of creating a super-bomb out of a handful of metal was so beyond everyday experience that for decades government funding for elementary particle physics had top priority. It might not have been a coincidence that this branch of physics was named " high-energy physics " supporting some secret hopes for even more powerful weapons.
Today it is known that elementary particle physics worked with several multi-billion dollar accelerators and that the discovering a new particle was an almost certain strategy to win a Nobel prize. The physics community adapted to this new environment by turning the discovery of new particles into an industry with some of the experimental facilities named "beauty factories" after one of the quark particles. Research teams consisted of hundreds of scientists and publications with author lists for scientific articles longer than the article itself. But hopes for the anticipated new super-weapons evaporated with the SDI/"star-wars" program. The dwindling hopes that these huge particle accelerators would one day lead to an innovative new weapons system is well expressed in a comment to a demonstration of how high energy particle beams can punch holes into metal plates: "The only remaining problem is: How do we get the Soviet ICBMs into the tunnels with the accelerators?"