Manufacturing firsts in physics

First collisions at particle accelerators tend to be carefully managed public-relations exercises rather than scientifically important events. Many newspapers reported about first collisions on the initial operation of the relativistic heavy ion collider (RHIC) at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in the USA. The problem is that the detectors were not ready to record such events. This procedure happened also at other accelerators. The first moments in science- as in other human endeavours- are often manufactured, defined by social and political forces. The working practice, values and interests of science administrators, politicians and scientists are usually so far apart that they are effectively quite different cultures. In this one artifice, these groups have found finally an opportunity that jointly satisfies their need without requiring any group to compromise. This opportunity may well be a, ah, first. (U.K.)