The Big Crunch

MATERIAL MATTERS The period 1950-1970 was the Golden Age of science in the United States. There The Big Crunch was a proliferation of science PhD stu dents, whose research led to the founding of journals, to the acquisition of prizes David Goodstein and awards, and to increases in every other measure of the size and quality of science. At the same time, U.S. corpora The following article is an edited version of a straight line in the plot extrapolates to tions such as AT&T, IBM, and others cre plenary lecture given at Pittcon in New one million journals by the millennium. ated or expanded their central research Orleans on March 8, 1995. Previous versions Instead, the current number of scientific laboratories to solve technological prob of this article have been published as "Scientific journals is a mere 40,000. lems, and also to pursue basic research Ph.D. Problems," American Scholar, 62 The era of exponential growth in sci that would provide ideas for future (1993), and "Scientific Elites and Scientific ence is already over. The number of jour developments. The federal government Illiterates," Ethics, Values and the Promise nals is only one measure. Another is the established a network of national labora of Science, Forum Proceedings, Sigma Xi, number of PhD degrees in physics pro tories that also became a source of jobs The Science Research Society (February 25--26, duced each year in the United States. The and opportunities for aspiring scientists. 1993) p. 61, and Engineering and Science 56 graph in Figure 1 shows that the first PhD And, in 1957, the Soviets gave expansion (Spring 1993) p. 22. David Goodstein is vice degree was awarded soon after the Civil another boost by launching Sputnik and provost, professor of physics and applied War, around 1870. By the turn of the cen convincing us we weren't producing physics, and the Frank J. Gilloon Distinguished tury the number was about 10 per year; enough scientists and engineers. Teaching and Service Professor at the by 1930 about 100 per year; and by 1970, During the past 20 years exponential California Institute of Technology. 1,000 per year. The curve extrapolates to growth had ended, but federal funding of According to modern cosmology, the about 10,000 a year today, and one mil scientific research, in inflation-corrected Universe began about 10 billion years ago lion a year in 2050. But the growth dollars, still doubled, and the number of with the Big Bang. It has been expanding stopped cold around 1970, and the num academic researchers had also doubled. ever since. If the density of matter in the ber has fluctuated around 1,000 per year The fraction of the best U.S. students who Universe is sufficiently large, gravitation ever since. In physics, the Big Crunch decided to go to graduate school started al forces will eventually cause the Uni happened around 1970. In other scientific to decline around 1970, and it has been verse to stop expanding, and then to start fields, the timing may be a bit different, declining ever since, but the Golden Age falling back in upon itself. If that hap but the basic phenomenon is inevitable. of academic science produced excellence pens, the Universe will end in a second in our universities that attracted students cataclysmic event that cosmologists call from all over the world. Over the past 20 the Big Crunch. years the missing American graduate stu A vaguely similar theory applies to the dents have been replaced by foreign stu profession, or business, of science. The dents. In addition, these years have seen scientific enterprise, which exploded into 1,000,000 the burgeoning of postdoctoral research being around the year 1700, began to run positions, a kind of holding tank for sci into the limits of growth around the year entific talent that allows young research 1970. Exponential expansion is now in the 100,000 ers to delay confronting reality for three process of ending, not really in a Big or six years or more. These are the Crunch, but in something much more like 10,000 changes that have permitted U.S. research In universities to pretend that nothing a whimper. the meantime, we are still Scientific trying to maintain a social structure of sci (i; Journals changed when the Big Crunch came 25 ence-research, education, institutions, E 1,000 years ago. ::J ,. funding, and so on-that is based on the z ' The real crisis coming has started to unexamined assumption that the future f produce a number of symptoms, some will be like the past. Since I believe that to 100 -I alarming and some merely curious. One be impossible, I think we have some of these is what I call the Paradox of interesting times ahead of us. Scientific Elites and Scientific Illiterates. 10 The situation is illustrated by the As a lingering result of the Golden Age, graph in Figure 1 by Derek da Solla Price. we still have the finest scientists in the It is a plot, on a semilogarithmic scale, of world in the United States, but we also the cumulative number of scientific jour 1700 1800 1900 2000 have the worst science education in the nals founded world-wide on the vertical Year industrialized world. Students in the scale, versus time in years on the hori nation's schools consistently rank at the zontal. A straight line with positive slope Figure 1. The upper curve was first pub bottom of all those from advanced on this kind of graph means pure expo lished in historian Derek da Solla Price's nations in tests of scientific knowledge, nential growth. It shows that science book, Science Since Babylon (Yale and furthermore, roughly 95% of the U.S. University Press, New Haven, 1961). seemed to spring into being around 1700, public is consistently found to be scientifi The lower curve is based on data from and it expanded exponentially, growing the American Physical Society, the cally illiterate. about a factor of 10 every 50 years, until National Academy of Sciences, and U.S. science education is like a mining about 1950. other sources. As explained in the text, and sorting operation, designed to cast Price correctly predicted that this be both curves illustrate the long era of aside most of the mass of common human havior could not go on forever. The exponential expansion of science. debris, but at the same time to discover MRS BULLETIN/OCTOBER 1995 7 MATERIAL MATTERS and rescue diamonds in the rough that entists, undoubtedly because the perpe good that must be supported from the are capable of being cleaned and cut and trators have felt themselves under intense public purse. The second is that the min polished into glittering gems just like us, pressure to compete for scarce resources, ing and sorting operation described must the existing scientists. This analogy even by cheating if necessary. Peer review be discarded and replaced by genuine accounts for exponential growth, since it is another practice becoming increasingly education in science, not just for the scien takes scientists to identify prospective sci dysfunctional as referees take advantage tific elite, but for all U.S. citizens who entists. It explains why women and of their privileged anonymity to advance must form that broad political consensus. minorities are woefully underrepresented their own interests. Basic research is a common good for among scientists, because we white, male For science to survive, we must find a two reasons: It helps to satisfy the human scientists have difficulty perceiving that radically different social structure to orga need to understand the universe we those students, cleaned, cut and polished, nize research and education in science inhabit, and it makes new technologies will look like us. It also resolves the after the Big Crunch. The new structure possible. Because basic research in science Paradox of Scientific Elites and Scientific will come about by evolution rather than flourishes only when it is fully open to Illiterates. The United States has the best design because, for one thing, neither I the normal processes of scientific debate scientists and the most poorly educated nor anyone else has the faintest idea of and challenge, the results must be avail students in the world because that is what what it will tum out to be, and for anoth able to all. Thus, it must be supported the system of science education is er, even if we did know where we are from the public purse because it does not designed to produce. going to end up, we scientists have never yield profits if it is supported privately. To most of us who are professors, find been very good at guiding our own des Not everyone wants to be a scientist. It ing gems to polish is not our principal tiny. Only this much is sure: The era of follows that in order to serve the need of problem. Exponential growth has neces exponential expansion will be replaced satisfying human curiosity, we scientists sarily ceased, but we have pretended that by an era of constraint. Because it will be must find a way to teach science to non it only paused. We've continued to turn unplanned, the transition is likely to be scientists. One possibility is for our excess out PhD students, and the solution of the messy and painful for the participants. In of PhD students in science to teach in present-day leaders of science to the fact, as we have seen, it already is. high schools, but first the financial status problem of excess PhD production is to Ignoring the pain for the moment, how and prestige of high school teachers advise our PhD graduates on alternative ever, I would like to look ahead and spec would have to change dramatically.

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