Discovery Is Always Political

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Discovery is always political David Kaiser traces the roots of government support for science, in the first of a series of essays on how the past 150 years have shaped the research system.

ate in August 1609, the Italian astrono- “scaled the stairs in the highest campaniles annual salary of 1,000 florins — back when mer Galileo Galilei wrote excitedly to in Venice to observe at sea sails and vessels 1,000 florins really meant something1. his brother-in-law, relating the fast- so far away that … two hours or more were Galileo was only getting started. Turning Lmoving events of that summer. A few weeks required before they could be seen without his new telescope towards the heavens, he earlier, Galileo had heard rumours that a my spyglass.” The senate voted immediately discovered (among other things) four moons spyglass had been invented in Flanders (now to grant Galileo an appointment for life at orbiting Jupiter. Craftily, he named them part of Belgium). He quickly produced an the University of Padua in Italy, with an the Medicean Stars in honour of Cosimo improved version, setting off a new wave of II de’ Medici, the grand duke of Tuscany. rumours. Soon, the Venetian senate called 50 YEARS OF NATURE The gambit worked: within a year of that on him to demonstrate his device. Galileo Anniversary collection letter about his Venetian success, Gali- boasted to his family about the “numer- go.nature.com/nature50 leo had landed an even larger salary (and ous gentlemen and senators” who had shed his teaching duties) as the official

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natural philosopher of the Medici court heavily in academic research across the career are emblematic of the expanded roles in Florence2. natural sciences4. of science and technology in the era. Before Galileo had a knack for convincing Even amid such support, however, leading long, he was consulting for the Ministry of government officials and courtly patrons to industrialists such as Werner von Siemens Finance and the Russian Navy, ultimately support his research. Tracing his exploits, as feared that Germany was losing its edge. serving as director of the country’s Chief he darted from one benefactor to the next, Concerted lobbying led to the establishment Bureau of Weights and Measures, in which we might recognize glimmers of today’s of a new government-funded institution in capacity he helped to introduce the metric enterprising scientists. A good 250 years 1887: the Physikalisch-Technische Reich- system in Russia. Much like Otto von Bis- after Galileo’s time, however, a rather differ- sanstalt in Berlin. Headed by the physicist marck and other nation-builders in Ger- ent relationship between government and Hermann von Helmholtz, its mandate was many, Tsar Alexander II was eager to bolster science began to take hold. to accelerate work at the intersection of basic industrial development throughout his Just when astronomer Norman Lockyer science, applied research and industrial country. Central to those efforts was invest- was founding Nature in 1869, major shifts in development. Within a few years, pioneer- ing heavily in precision metrology; the tsar the government–science nexus were unfold- ing efforts there to evaluate competing pro- found eager and skilful natural scientists ing across many parts of the world. posals for large-scale street lighting — which such as Mendeleev to help7. required careful In the same decade, Japan underwent EMPIRE BUILDING “Spending on measurements of enormous changes, too. The Meiji Resto- During the middle decades of the nineteenth science became the radiation out- ration of 1868 marked a period of open- century, the British Empire swelled to include an investment put from various ing up for the formerly isolated country. about one-quarter of Earth’s land and to hold in hearts and devices — yielded The emperor’s Charter Oath proclaimed dominion over nearly one-quarter of its minds.” such precise that: “Knowledge shall be sought all over population. At this time, several prominent recordings of the the world, and thereby the foundations of British politicians — including former and spectrum of blackbody radiation that pre- imperial rule shall be strengthened.” The future prime ministers — sought to boost vailing physical theories could no longer government began investing in manu- the fortunes of science and technology. In accommodate the data. Inspired, physicist facturing and other industrial reforms. It the 1840s, Robert Peel, Benjamin Disraeli, Max Planck reluctantly broke with Maxwell’s instituted new public schools and funded William Gladstone and others donated electromagnetic theory and took his first, fellowships to send students abroad to study funds from their own coffers to help found tentative steps towards quantum theory5. advances in science. The central govern- the Royal College of Chemistry, convinced Meanwhile, a different war with Prussia ment brought senior scientists from other that focused research in this field would triggered significant changes in government countries — such as Britain and the United benefit the nation and its imperial ambi- and science to the east, when the Austro- States — to Japan to build up training in tions. By the 1860s, many researchers were Hungarian empire formed in 1867. Very state-funded facilities. Here, too, leaders hard at work formalizing such arrangements. quickly, the imperial authorities launched began to prioritize government-sponsored Construction began on a spate of laboratories epic efforts in meteorology and climatol- research institutions as part of the modern at universities throughout the United King- ogy. The aim was to create extended insti- state-building effort8. dom, each built on the promise that precision tutional networks that might foster a new, measurements of physical quantities could common sense of purpose across the hotch- ENTER THE UNITED STATES advance fundamental scientific understand- potch of local legal, religious and linguistic The United States remained a stubborn out- ing and spur industrial development. traditions. Universities, museums and other lier. The timing was far from promising for Electrification, telegraphy, the expan- government-supported institutions began new investment. The bloodiest conflict in US sion of railways and large-scale production to collect and standardize weather record- history sputtered to an end in 1865, punctu- of steel were the signature developments ings, with a goal of understanding how local ated by the assassination of President Abra- of an era often called the second indus- patterns related to larger-scale phenom- ham Lincoln. (More US soldiers died during trial revolution, which began around 1870. ena. The imperative to unify the far-flung the civil war of 1861–65 than during the Each demanded standard units and meas- empire catalysed cutting-edge research on First and Second World Wars and the wars ures. New synergies emerged as leading such modern-sounding concepts as regional in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq researchers, including James Clerk Maxwell interactions and interdependencies across combined.) Support for scientific research and William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin), scales from microclimates to continents6. and institutions at the federal level remained plied their understanding of electromagne- By that time, Tsar Alexander II in Russia scarce until the end of the nineteenth cen- tism and thermodynamics as members of was busy pursuing a modernization project tury. Indeed, several leading policymakers high-level government commissions, aim- of his own. Beginning in 1861, he issued were scandalized by the nation’s comparative ing to tackle the challenges of transatlantic a series of proclamations that came to be lack of scientific and technical preparation communications, electrical standards, ocean known as the Great Reforms. Emancipat- during the First World War. navigation and steam power3. ing the serfs was followed quickly by over- Efforts by reformers in the United States In some ways, the British were play- haul of the state-run universities, as well as to shore up government support for research ing catch-up. Since the mid-nineteenth changes to regional governments and the was stymied by the long-standing US tradi- century, local universities throughout the judicial system. The vast bureaucracy that tion that education should remain the prov- German-speaking states had been recruit- was created meant new opportunities for ince of state and local authorities, rather than ing academic talent in contests for pres- ambitious intellectuals, including chem- the federal government. Across the United tige — latter-day Galileos were snatched up ist Dmitrii Mendeleev. After two years of States, individual colleges and universities by government-funded institutions. The study in Heidelberg, Germany, Mendeleev gradually placed greater emphasis on origi- pattern escalated rapidly after the Prussian returned to his native St Petersburg in 1861 nal research and built up infrastructure for defeat of France and the establishment of to teach chemistry at the local university. He laboratories. But the impact remained a unified Germany early in 1871. Under a published his now-famous version of the uneven at best. As late as 1927, when the centralized education ministry, and with periodic table of the elements in 1869, the young physicist Isidor Rabi travelled to even grander ambitions for rapid industri- same year that Nature was launched. Germany to study quantum theory, he found alization, the German government invested The next steps in Mendeleev’s remarkable that university libraries tended to order one

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expenditures were often justified in terms of broader ‘preparedness’: creating a large pool of trained personnel who would be available to work on focused military projects should the cold war ever turn hot13. In the meantime, enterprising scientists made use of opportunities that came from close ties to military sponsors. US Navy concerns about submarine warfare drove intense exploration of the ocean floor. Geoscientists, /GETTY GLOBE DOPKEEN/ THE BOSTON JOYCE capitalizing on new data and instruments, found compelling evidence for plate tecton- ics14. Similarly, physicists consulting on clas- sified missile-defence projects spurred the development of new areas of study, such as non-linear optics15. DIVERSIFIED PORTFOLIOS That ‘new normal’ held for about a quarter of a century. Just as Nature marked its 100th anniversary in 1969, military auditors in the United States released a lengthy analysis, dubbed Project Hindsight. It argued that the federal defence agencies had received a poor return on their investment in open-ended science. That year, Democratic Senator Michael Mansfield (Montana) — who would soon become the longest-serving majority leader of the senate in US history — intro- duced a last-minute amendment to the federal Military Authorization Act of 1970. It stipulated that no funds from the Depart- ment of Defense could be used “to carry out any research project or study” that did not have “a direct and apparent relationship to a US students protest in 1969 over links between university scientists and the military. specific military function”. On university campuses across the full year’s worth of US journal the Physical founding of the civilian US National Science country, debate over the government’s role Review at a time. There seemed to be no Foundation — that proportion had risen to in supporting scientific research became reason to receive copies with any greater 98% (ref. 10). even more raucous. Amid the escalation of frequency, given their undistinguished Thereafter, policymakers in the United the Vietnam War, scientists and students contents9. Science was even largely ignored States found new reasons to support grappled with the proper place of defence in the grips of the Great Depression of the research: it helped to meet domestic goals spending in higher education. At Colum- 1930s, when the federal government central- for industrial development and military bia University in New York City and the ized so many other things under President defence, and was a key element in inter- University of Wisconsin–Madison, radicals Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. national relations. Federal investment in targeted military-funded research labora- Only in the early 1940s, amid emergency scientific institutions across war-ravaged tories with explosives. On many other cam- wartime mobilization, did the US federal Europe — so the thinking went — might puses, police resorted to tear gas and billy government undertake large-scale support fend off scientists’ flirtations with commu- clubs to disperse angry protesters16. for research and development. Radar, nuclear nism in countries such as France, Italy and During the 1970s and 1980s, scientists weapons, the proximity fuse and dozens of Greece. Major reforms of the Japanese uni- forged partnerships with private industries other military projects required billions versity system under US occupation after the as well as philanthropies. These relation- of dollars and close coordination between Second World War likewise helped to spread ships were accelerated by steep cuts in fed- abstract studies and practical development. the US model. Spending on science became eral spending on defence and education in The effectiveness of the wartime arrange- an investment in hearts and minds11,12. the United States and in many other parts of ments impressed politicians, military plan- In the United States, the steady federal the world. Biotechnology and nanotechnol- ners and university administrators alike. investment drove an unprecedented growth ogy emerged in those years, buoyed by sys- When peace came, they scrambled to build in scientific research and infrastructure. tems of support that were different from the a new infrastructure that could maintain the More young people were trained in the government spending that had underwritten war-forged relationships. Budgets across natural sciences during the 25 years after research in nuclear physics after the Second the physical sciences and engineering in the the end of the Second World War than World War 17. United States continued to rise thereafter, had been trained in total throughout all Recent, hybrid patterns of support still sourced almost entirely from the federal gov- of previous human history. The US gov- depend heavily on central-government fund- ernment. In 1949, 96% of all funding in the ernment developed a national laboratory ing — just consider how closely scientists United States for basic research in the physi- system and supported a broad spectrum of follow each year’s appropriation cycle in the cal sciences came from defence-related fed- research at universities, most of it with little US Congress and elsewhere. But support for eral agencies. By 1954 — four years after the direct connection to military projects. The research today is rarely sustained by the kind

COMMENT of saturation model that had seemed so natural early in the nuclear age. Fewer than 20 countries currently invest more than 2% of their gross domestic product in research and development, accord- ing to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Develop- ment and the World Bank. In several of those countries, meanwhile, the nature of government support has shifted, often prioritizing projects with short-term goals and practical applications over longer-scale inquiries. When Lockyer was sending the first issue of Nature off to press, many elements of the modern scientific enter- prise were being forged across Britain, the European continent and parts of Asia. But to fully grasp the range of mon- etary relationships that scientists now navigate — scouring today’s equivalents of the Venetian senate for funds, while courting private donors in Kavli Insti- Some urban authorities are developing digital copies of cities, as portrayed in this artist’s impression. tutes and Simons Foundation centres that are no less sparkling than a Medici palace — we would do well to keep Gali- leo in mind. ■ Make more David Kaiser is professor of the history of science and professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, digital twins Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. e-mail: [email protected] Virtual models boost smart manufacturing by

1. Drake, S. Isis 50, 245–254 (1959). simulating decisions and optimization, from design 2. Biagioli, M. Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism Ch. 2 to operations, explain Fei Tao and Qinglin Qi. (Univ. Chicago Press, 1992). 3. Morus, I. R. When Physics Became King (Univ. Chicago Press, 2005). igital twins — precise, virtual copies information on its materials and structure, 4. Clark, W. Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University (Univ. Chicago of machines or systems — are revo- while the manufacturers keep data on how Press, 2006). lutionizing industry. Driven by data the vehicle is produced and garages retain 5. Cahan, D. An Institute for an Empire: The Dcollected from sensors in real time, these information on sales and maintenance. Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt, 1871–1918 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989). sophisticated computer models mirror The result? Confusion. A digital twin can 6. Coen, D. R. Climate in Motion: Science, almost every facet of a product, process or fail to echo what is going on in the real world Empire, and the Problem of Scale (Univ. service. Many major companies already use and lead managers to make poor decisions. Chicago Press, 2018). digital twins to spot problems and increase Here we set out the main problems 7. Gordin, M. D. A Well-Ordered Thing: Dmitrii 1 Mendeleev and the Shadow of the Periodic efficiency . Half of all corporations might be and call for closer collaboration between Table (Basic, 2004). using them by 2021, one analyst predicts2. industry and academia to solve them. 8. Kikuchi, Y. Anglo-American Connections in SOLUTIONS ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRATED Japanese Chemistry: The Lab as Contact Zone For instance, NASA uses digital copies to (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). monitor the status of its spacecraft. Energy DATA DIFFICULTIES 9. Rigden, J. S. Rabi: Scientist and Citizen 4 companies General Electric (GE) and The first step is to decide what types of data (Basic, 1987). Chevron use them to track the operations to collect3. It is not always obvious. To model 10. Forman, P. Hist. Stud. Phys. Biol. Sci. 18, 149–229 (1987). of wind turbines. Singapore is developing a a wind turbine, for example, might require 11. Krige, J. American Hegemony and the digital copy of the entire city to monitor and monitoring of vibrations from the gearbox, Postwar Reconstruction of Science in Europe improve utilities. Machine intelligence and generator, blades, shafts and tower, as well as (MIT Press, 2006). 12. Kaiser, D. Drawing Theories Apart: The cloud computing will boost such models’ of voltages from the control system. Torques Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar power. and rotation rates, temperatures of compo- Physics Ch. 4 (Univ. Chicago Press, 2005). There is much to be done to realize the nents and the state of the lubricating oil must 13. Kaiser, D. Hist. Stud. Phys. Biol. Sci. 33, 131–159 (2002). potential of digital twins. Each model is also be tracked, together with environmen- 14. Oreskes, N. Nature 501, 27–29 (2013). built from scratch: there are no common tal conditions (wind speed, wind direction, 15. Wilson, B. Hist. Stud. Nat. Sci. 45, 758–804 methods, standards or norms. It can be dif- temperature, humidity and pressure). (2015). 16. Moore, K. Disrupting Science: Social ficult to aggregate data from thousands of Missing or erroneous data can distort Movements, American Scientists, and the sensors that track vibration, temperature, results and obscure faults. The wobbling Politics of the Military, 1945–1975 (Princeton force, speed and power, for example. And of a wind turbine, say, would be missed if Univ. Press, 2008). 17. Mirowski, P. Science-Mart: Privatizing data can be spread among many owners vibration sensors fail. Beijing-based power American Science (Harvard Univ. Press, and be held in various formats. For example, company BKC Technology struggled to 2011). the designers of a particular car might hold work out that an oil leak was causing a steam