Individual physicists don’t ask for a lot for Newtonmas. Big collaborations ask for more.

This year, CERN got its Newtonmas gift early: a one billion dollar pledge from a group of philanthropists and foundations, to be spent on their proposed new particle collider.

That may sound like a lot of money (and of course it is), but it’s only a fraction of the 15 billion euros that the collider is estimated to cost. That makes this less a case of private donors saving the project, and more of a nudge, showing governments they can get results for a bit cheaper than they expected.

I do wonder if the donation has also made CERN more bold about their plans, since it was announced shortly after a report from the update process for the European Strategy for Particle Physics, in which the European Strategy Group recommended a backup plan for the collider that is just the same collider with 15% budget cuts. Naturally people started making fun of this immediately.

There were more serious objections from groups that had proposed more specific backup plans earlier in the process, who are frustrated that their ideas were rejected in favor of a 15% tweak that was not even discussed and seems not to really have been evaluated.

I don’t have any special information about what’s going on behind the scenes, or where this is headed. But I’m amused, and having fun with the parallels this season. I remember writing lists as a kid, trying to take advantage of the once-a-year opportunity to get what seemed almost like a genie’s wish. Whatever my incantations, the unreasonable requests were never fulfilled. Still, I had enough new toys to fill my time, and whet my appetite for the next year.

We’ll see what CERN’s Newtonmas gift brings.