Centuries of extraordinary sustained human endeavor erased today. Imagine the kind of unity of purpose it takes to plan a project spanning centuries. Generations lived, labored and died without the satisfaction of seeing it even close to complete. How many hundreds of skilled craftsmen willingly gave their lives to build it? Is there any project comparable today? The LHC is probably the most ambitious I can think of and that was done in a few decades. Think of how many wars, rebellions, conflagrations and other close scrapes it survived. Truly a major loss to our common heritage.