After several years of the Chinese government’s wavering over whether to fund a major upgrade of an electron–positron collider or a new state-of-the-art synchrotron light source, China’s scientists are getting both facilities.
In going ahead with both the collider in Beijing (see the story on page 22) and the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, the government was helped by China’s scientists having convincingly argued that the country has enough scientists to build and use both facilities, says Zhao Zhentang, head of accelerator construction for the SSRF. But perhaps most important is that the local Shanghai government is donating land plus ponying up about a third of the $150 million tab for the SSRF; the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the central government are splitting the balance. The price of the SSRF is “relatively cheap,” says Zhao, “because we can build the linac, magnets, vacuum chambers, and power supplies here in China.”...
