science masterclass OUTLOOK

profile l Based at NASA Goddard Space Flight John C. Mather Center, Greenbelt, Maryland l Born on 7 August 1946, in Roanoke, Virginia into a family of scientists and teachers Politics and l Earliest memory is having his tonsils removed, aged 2½ l Came first in a state-wide physics contest in 1963 prophecy l 1974 received a PhD in physics from the University of California at Berkeley and John Mather and George Smoot’s discovery of the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave started working with NASA in Goddard background radiation won the Nobel Prize in Physics 2006. l Married Jane Hauser in 1980 l The $160 million COBE (Cosmic Are scientists under-represented in politics? clocks of extraordinary precision would be fly- Background Explorer) satellite was launched And do established scientists, especially Nobel ing in space to run the GPS systems that people by NASA on 18th November 1989 laureates, have a duty to become active in use to pilot their cars and planes? Let’s not be l Since 1995 has been senior project politics and science policy? shy. Although apocryphal, the quote attrib- scientist for the James Webb Space Yes, I do think scientists are under-represented uted to Faraday is apropos: “Someday you can Telescope at NASA in politics, as are most professional groups. At tax it.” More directly, least in the United States, most politicians “We need everything we have in are lawyers with little or no background in people who modern society, from time. That would not surprise me a bit. technical subjects. But being a Nobel laure- have the special food to shelter to jet ate conveys no expertise in political matters, combination airplanes to iPhones, What is the most practical and relatively safe and I think it’s important for any newly-active of talents to is the result of discov- alternative energy source? political person to be cautious before jumping be politicians eries that were once So far none is the obvious winner. Solar and into debate. I have spent a little of my Nobel as well as seen as having no wind power are widely distributed and could prize money, working through the American scientists.” applications in sight. become dominant with additional economies Institute of Physics, to start summer intern- of scale and with subsidies comparable to ships for undergraduate physics students to What is the future of the standard model if those given for fossil fuels. Neither solar nor gain experience working on Capitol Hill. There the elusive Higgs boson and the even more wind power is intrinsically polluting (though are currently three physicists working in the elusive neutrinoless double-beta decay are they disturb the neighbourhood and alter the House of Representatives and the Senate, but discovered? landscape), but both technologies currently to increase that number we need to find people Hard to guess. Maybe it will still be the stand- use exotic materials that themselves could be who have the special combination of talents to ard model, but with frills. The bigger question in short supply. be politicians as well as scientists. is always quantum gravity, or the alternative Moreover, we have become accustomed to possibility that there is no such thing and we the extremely inexpensive energy of fossil fuels; ngs What would be the one discovery that would have no clue about the nature of space and I suspect we are already living well beyond the i

herald a scientific revolution in the 21st meet level of energy consumption that century? can be sustained in the long run. So

Room-temperature superconductivity people should not be too surprised aureate could enable efficient sharing of elec- if dramatic and disastrous changes l trical power around the world, chang- occur in the global economic system ndau ./li c

ing the economic balance dramatically. as energy becomes scarcer. Perhaps , ng It could also enable magnetic levita- it would be good to plan for change? i

tion for transportation, changing the But Tiresias and Cassandra, given emm l entire structure of nations. Similarly, the gift of prophecy, were cursed so f any other discovery or innovation that that people did not believe them. changes the availability of energy for Exercise for the reader: why is that? food, transportation and shelter would have extraordinary impact. What valuable advice would you give all young researchers who are How can the public be convinced of the starting their research life so as to importance of fundamental research become a good scientist? with no applications in sight? Number 1: study reading and espe- I don’t think ‘convince’ is the right cially writing! And then, practise word. How about ‘inspired’? I think public speaking. The ability to every researcher has the opportunity explain logically, intuitively and to show members of the public how viscerally why something is true is exciting new discoveries are, and how essential to planning research strat- they lead to knowledge that may even- egy, explaining results and obtaining tually be applied. There are many sto- funds for future work. There’s really ries about fundamental research that no substitute for good communica- led to world-changing applications. tion. And it will be valuable wher- Who would have thought that atomic ever life takes you.

14 OCTOber 2010 | VOL 467 | NATURE | S9