Ask the next 10 people you see on the streets, "" Hey, do you think it's worthwhile to spend billions of Swiss francs looking for the Higgs boson? "" And I bet the answer you're going to get, is, "" Well, I don't know what the Higgs boson is, and I don't know if it's important. "" And probably most of the people wouldn't even know the value of a Swiss franc, okay?