Meaning of Big Science | Babel Free

Definitions

Scientific research that is high-profile, large in scope, and so expensive that it requires government funding.

uncountable

Examples

“A basic model of the phenomenon of Big Science as a style of organization is captured by the five 'M's: money, manpower, machines, media and military.”

“The growth of Big Science has been accompanied by changes in the sources of scientific patronage.”

“In the 1960s, Big Science was identified as a new phenomenon, associated with changes in the organization of scientific research in the aftermath of World War II.1 As the Big Science mode of research blossomed and expanded in the second half of the twentieth century, it became a widespread mode of scientific research in the natural sciences.”

“Already in 1961 Weinberg asks the scientific community to consider not only the reasons behind the expansion of science into Big Science, but also the price it was willing to pay for it. He asked three broad questions: "first, Is Big Science ruining science?; second, Is Big Science ruining us financially?; and third, Should we divert a larger part of our effort toward scientific issues which bear more directly on human well-being than do such Big-Science spectaculars as manned space travel and high-energy physics?"”

“Big money is not a sufficient, but it is a necessary condition for "big science;" therefore, it is not surprising that the big science era in physics coincided with the increase in government funding.”

“The HGP is the first genuine example of big science in the biological sciences, with an estimated original price tag of $3 billion.”

“Big science has replaced traditional science, which was little, and had little public concern. Today big science has new, exciting tasks. This should not be at the cost of a loss of little science. There is a need to revive and protect it, in order to insure the continued well-being of science as a whole. For this a new system is required, since the old one transformed into big science and is thus no longer adequate.”

“Much big science is concentrated in a single huge machine. But distributed big science in this case consists of missions (also called projects) that make up an extended, multidecadal program of exploration”

CEFR level