United Kingdom.
In a private home on the outskirts of Edinburgh.
An old man sat at a wooden table by the window, facing a somewhat outdated computer. He painstakingly typed on the keyboard with one finger at a time, concentrating on composing an email.
A newspaper lay at the corner of the table, dated two weeks earlier.
The news printed on the open page was about Brookhaven National Laboratory's announcement some time ago that it would temporarily withdraw from IMCRC, an incident that had sparked heated discussion.
An investment of over ten billion US dollars, a scientific project involving more than dozens of countries, and such a major mishap had occurred just as it was getting underway. The matter had caused an uproar not only in the Physics community, but also beyond it.
With mixed feelings, the old man wrote in the email.
[...Physics should have been an open-minded discipline. It is precisely because we respect every viewpoint that we have achieved today's prosperity. I cannot yet judge whether Lu Zhou's choice was correct, but even if he may be wrong, that would only be academic immaturity. It should not be answered in such an irrational manner.]
[...In conclusion, withdrawing from the experiment at this time is absolutely not a rational choice. Whether for Brookhaven National Laboratory or for the long-standing unity of the Physics community, it will be a tremendous blow... I do not know whether political considerations lie behind this, but regardless of the purpose, it should not gamble with the trust we have spent a century building.]
[I hope you will reconsider this matter. Perhaps it is not too late.]
[--Peter Higgs]
Peter Higgs.
An honorary retired professor at the University of Edinburgh and recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded for the well-known Higgs