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News from ICTP 112 - Features - KR Sreenivasan
The World Year of Physics 2005 offers an opportunity for physicists to illustrate the central role that physics plays in our world. ICTP director K.R. Sreenivasan explains why.
Today's Physics Tomorrow
As the recent tsunami disaster
illustrated, we live in an interconnected world.
The earthquake that triggered the tsunami originated in the Indian
Ocean, 350 kilometers off the northwestern tip of the island of
Sumatra, Indonesia. The wave thrusts that the earthquake generated
barreled quickly and silently across the Indian Ocean, killing
some 300,000 people along an eight-nation coastline in southeast
Asia and ultimately reaching as far away as east Africa where
200 people fell victim to its wrath.
But it's also important to remember that the impact of the tsunami
was felt well beyond the range of its fast-moving waves. Citizens
from more than 30 countries fell victim to the wave thrusts. Sweden
alone lost more than 550 citizens who were unfortunate enough
to be vacationing or working in southeast Asia at the time of
the earthquake.
We do indeed live in an interconnected world where we travel far,
communicate easily, conduct business with distant customers and,
yes, share the tragedies of disasters.
But even as the tsunami revealed our interconnectedness, it also
cast a cold deathly pale over our divisions as well. The death
and destruction that it left in its wake was due in part to the
absence of warning systems in the countries that were affected
and partly due to the poor construction and planning that characterises
housing and land-use in the impoverished isolated areas that were
struck.
But we don't need a tsunami to tell us how divided the world is.
The average per capita income in developed countries is US$27,000
per year; the average per capita income in developing countries
is US$2040. Life expectancy in the developed world is approaching
80 years of age, while life expectancy in several developing countries
is slipping towards 40. Literacy rates approach 100 percent of
the adult population in developed countries; in half of the developing
countries, it is less than 50 percent. Internet connections, while
rising virtually everywhere, remain widely disparate between rich
and poor nations---and between rich and poor people in all countries.
All of this has led Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of Columbia University's
Earth Institute and special advisor to UN Secretary-General Kofi
Annan on the Millennium Development Goals, to refer to the 'silent
tsunamis' that afflict the world's least developed countries---endless
tragedies created by poverty, disease, environmental degradation
and, yes, lack of access to science and technology.
The rich nations of the world---and the scientific communities
within rich nations---must seek to mitigate this imbalance not
merely as a moral imperative, as ICTP's founding director Abdus
Salam often said, but also as a practical necessity. This imperative
is driven by the reality of the world in which we live and by
global trends that are intensifying at an ever-accelerating pace.
The simple yet compelling fact is this: A large part of our globe
belongs to the developing countries, which means that everyone
must be involved in devising solutions to sustainable development.
From a more ominous perspective, if we leave a sizeable portion
of the world too far behind, we are all likely to suffer adverse
consequences.
What is the role of science in all of this? In a word, it is 'central.'
Science, of course, cannot solve all of humanity's problems, and
not all scientific advances have been beneficial to society. Yet,
on balance, science's contributions to society have been both
fundamental and significant.
What accounts for the positive role that science has played? First,
the pursuit of science, to a large extent, is devoid of political,
economic, religious and other divisive issues. Therefore, science's
proposed solutions, unadorned by ulterior or hidden motives, have
the power to forge consensus. Only science, moreover, can give
an authoritative assessment of which technologies are appropriate
for solving a particular problem in a particular place. Finally,
great ideas in science have had an enormous impact on culture
and humanity's perception of its place in the universe. In other
words, science's most significant findings have the ability of
transforming our spiritual sensibilities. Think of Newtonian determinism,
quantum mechanics, or relativity.
At a more practical, down-to-earth level, science---and, particularly,
physics---has laid the foundation for the 'transforming technologies'
of the past two centuries. The advent of electricity in the early
20th century would not have been possible without the breakthrough
experiments on electrolysis conducted by Michael Faraday. The
computer and internet revolution of the past few decades rests
on a broad swatch of theoretical studies and experiments in condensed
matter and statistical physics. And now what many view as the
next great thing in science---nanotechnology---is based, in some
measure, on our understanding of quantum mechanics.
But science---with physics sometimes as the lead player and sometimes
in concert with such disciplines as biology, chemistry and computer
science---is impacting the full range of critical human activities:
agriculture, communication, electronics, advanced materials, pharmaceuticals
and public health.
Here are just a few examples.
-- When the Bt gene is incorporated into corn and cotton, the
new plants are resistant to many harmful insects, enabling farmers
to reduce pesticides use.
-- The spread of telemedicine links---created in part by the US
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) satellite
system---has brought advanced health-care services to remote areas
of the developing world.
-- Radiogenic isotope 'fingerprints', championed by the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have helped villages and regions
in the developing world trace sources of contaminated water to
their points of origin---an essential first step in addressing
the problem.
-- Nylon and silicon filters have helped bring safe drinking water
to places where water was once polluted and electricity-generating
solar panels to remote areas where electricity did not exist.
And now advances in nanotubes and nanocoatings promise to make
both water-filtering systems and solar panels more efficient and
less expensive.
The point is that the demands placed on science---and, more specifically,
physics---have grown as the demands on our planet and global resources
have grown.
This suggests that society will continue to depend on science---and,
more specifically, physics---as problem-solving forces in the
years and decades ahead, a dependency that is likely to intensify.
Yet society's investment in science, particularly in the developing
world where arguably the investment is most needed, remains woefully
inadequate. In the developed world, the percentage of the gross
domestic product devoted to research and development averages
between 2.5 and 4 percent; in the developing world, it is less
than 0.5 percent. Indeed only a handful of developing countries---notably,
Brazil, China, and India---have recently increased their investment
in research and development to more than 1 percent of their GDP.
For the world's least developed countries, the percentage often
hovers between 0.2 and 0.3 percent.
What accounts for this disparity? The major force driving a wedge
between North-South investments and capabilities in science has
to do with differences in the culture of science and the governments'
disparate commitments to scientific research. Specifically, too
many developing countries suffer from a:
-- Lack of entrepreneurship and a debilitating alienation of scientists
from their societies, which too often view science as a product
of the North.
-- Monetary policies that are driven by regressive forms of taxation
and a dependence on entitlements that undermine both investments
in science and incentives to pursue scientific careers.
-- Political environments that cultivate corruption, instability
and exploitation by rich countries.
-- Inability to appreciate the connection between science and
wealth creation.
While several developing countries---notably, the large and relatively
rich developing countries of Brazil, China and India---have recently
taken important steps to rectify their shortcomings in investing
in science (with promising results), the developing world as a
whole will not be able to take advantage of what science has to
offer their economic development strategies unless they address
the following broad concerns.
First, developing countries must be willing to invest in promising
young scientists to ensure that they fulfil their potential. The
focus must be on the most talented young students regardless of
their institutional affiliation, and the level of funding must
be adequate and sustained. Second, developing countries must make
a concerted effort to create transparent institutions that reward
excellence. This effort must extend across the broad landscape
of scientific institutions to include universities, research institutes,
science academies and science ministries. And third, developing
countries must foster active networks of institutions centered
on concerns of critical importance to their nations. Such knowledge-sharing
networks will help to maximise the scientific talent and know-how
that exists within their borders.
As study after study has shown, sustained public investments in
science generate rates of returns running between 20 and 65 percent.
But even more importantly, investments in science improve people
lives by addressing health and environmental concerns; by providing
solutions to energy needs; by enhancing security and combatting
terrorism; and by generating wealth and potentially reducing the
disparities in well-being that exist between various regions of
the globe.
The devastating tsunami that struck southeast Asia last December
led to a call for scientists to lend their expertise to efforts
intended to minimise the possibilities of a repeat of this tragic
event (see "Tsunami Physics,"
p. 2). But science and physics play key roles in our everyday
lives as well. The world knows that. It's up to physicists during
the World Year of Physics 2005 to reaffirm this fact and to do
so in ways that illustrate just how central the pursuit of science
is to our shared desire to make the world and particularly the
developing world a healthier, wealthier and more secure place
in which to live.
K.R. Sreenivasan
ICTP Director
Abdus Salam Honorary Professor