Big science is a term used by scientists and historians of science to describe a series of changes in science which occurred in industrial nations during and after World War II, as scientific progress increasingly came to rely on large-scale projects usually funded by national governments or groups of governments. Big Science is characterized by large-scale instruments and facilities, supported by funding from government or international agencies, in which research is conducted by teams or groups of scientists and technicians. Some of the best-known Big Science projects include the High energy Physics facility CERN, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Apollo Programme. The term Big Science first appeared in a 1961 article in Science magazine, titled “Impact of Large-Scale Science on the United States,” by physicist and Oak Ridge National Laboratory director Alvin Weinberg. The article described Big Science as part of the new political economy of science produced by World War II, during which the U.S. government sponsored gigantic research efforts such as the Manhattan Project, the American atom bomb program, and the Radiation Laboratory, a centre for radiation research at the MIT. Weinberg was not only describing a new form of scientific research; his concept was an expression of Nostalgia for “Little Science,” a world of independent, individual researchers free to work alone or with graduate students on problems of their own choosing. Whether or not the world of Little Science as imagined by Weinberg ever existed became irrelevant; high-technology warfare had turned support of scientific research into a national security priority and promised to turn scientists and engineers into beneficiaries of Cold war largesse.
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