Comment from Paul Grannis

[200.202(e), 200.220] To Whom it May Concern: I am a Distinguished Professor working on experimental particle physics. I am writing in my personal capacity to oppose the proposed revisions to sections 200.202(e) and 200.220 that would restrict international scientific collaboration and isolate American scientists. I led the D0 Collaboration that studied the fundamental forces and constituents of matter at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. A collaboration that included over 3000 scientists over four decades that built the apparatus (for about $300M in today's dollars), operated it from 1992 to 2011, and analyzed data until today. The contributions, both financial and in manpower, from people in 20 nations and over 80 institutions, were essential to the success of the collaboration. Major outcomes of the research include the discovery of the top quark, precision measurements of the carriers of the weak force, studies of the quark composition of protons, evidence for the Higgs boson that gives mass to all matter, demonstration of differences between matter and antimatter, and discoveries of new particles. Over 500 publications in scientific journals detail the findings from the experiment. The contributions from scientists from all collaborating nations, including Russia, China, India and numerous European and South American countries, were essential to the success of the experiment. Without them, major components of the detector would be missing and many important discoveries would not have been made. The $300M D0 experiment and its extensive collection of scientific findings would have been significantly impacted if restrictions on participation by some foreign nations were imposed. Russia supplied the tons of steel plates in the D0 calorimeters were used to measure particle energies and the magnets and detectors that measured particles emitted in cones around the beam directions. India supplied the 100 square meters of scintillation counters that flagged backgrounds due to cosmic rays. China conducted world leading studies on the electroweak force unification and on the contributions of various quark types to the structure of the proton. The Ukraine made precise measurements of the top quark properties. The Ukraine made precise measurements of the top quark properties. Brazil built the detectors allowing the measurement of particles within a fraction of a degree of the beams. Colombia led the measurement of the elastic scattering of beam particles. France provided electronics for selecting events of interest and led the studies that provided evidence for the Higgs boson. Contributions like these and many others were essential for the success of the D0 project. Research in fundamental science in the past fifty years has known no national boundaries. New knowledge is obtained through international collaboration and is made available publicly for all to use. The personal relationships forged through scientific collaboration play an important role in fostering understanding between nations and cultures that may be politically estranged. Today's colleague is tomorrow's science minister and having built trust together may be crucial in managing relationships in future. Fracturing the openness intrinsic to today's research endeavor will fundamentally weaken science and the benefits for the US from it.