Educating Scientists for the New Millennium
A conversation with Brian Schwartz
As the millennium approaches, eleventh-hour reckonings flourish in every field. While literary critics debate the 100 most important novels of the century, for example, scientists debate some cosmic questions: Have we reached the end of science? Does science have a future?
The future of science lies in the future of scientists, according to Brian Schwartz, Professor of Physics at The Graduate School and Brooklyn College and Director of Centennial Programs for the upcoming 100th Anniversary of the American Physics Society. Accordingly, as he explained in the conversation excerpted here, we must pay attention to the scientists of the future.
How confident are we about what we know now?
People have speculated: On another planet in another universe, would the science be the same? Would there first be a Newton, explaining everyday mechanics, and then an Einstein, explaining motion near the speed of light? And then they ask a second, separate question: Would the technology be the same? Many people feel that on another planet, in another universe, the laws of motion would be discovered in much the same way--first the laws of motion of the Newtonian kind, then as physics grew more advanced, things like relativity and quantum mechanics.
On the other hand, what's done with technology might be very much culture bound. Can you imagine another world where everyone gets along and they never need or think of building an ICBM? Throughout history the military has played an important role in developing technology. How a society funds science tells you a great deal.
How has the funding picture changed, and what are the results?Graduate education in the United States is a gigantic enterprise. Prior to World War II, it was really a gentleman's degree; as in the arts, graduate education in science was funded by patrons. And it was small time: Early on, it was conducted mostly at the leading institutions, the Harvards, the Columbias. It was all tabletop, relatively simple experiments, despite the fact that it concerned big league people, big league thought.
But when World War II came, there were urgent wartime problems to solve, so governments supported scientists--and through ingenuity and hard work the nation developed radar and isotope separation and the atom bomb. It was a new era. After the war, the next big funding push came with the Sputnik scare in the mid 50s. Fearing a missile gap, the U.S. developed ways to support talented young people in the sciences. By the late 60s, the number of Ph.D. programs in the U.S. in all the sciences increased maybe threefold, and the thirty or forty departments of physics had grown to nearly 180 departments--and all were encouraged to produce Ph.D.s, overwhelming the job market.
The number of Ph.D. scientists could not keep increasing at an exponential rate; it had to level off. When the collapse came in the 70s, pure, brutal, economic forces ultimately brought back a balance of supply and demand.
I was among those who believed that many of the Ph.D. programs in science in the U.S. would collapse because they wouldn't attract or be able to support any more students. But the departments proved resourceful: They turned to active recruitment of first-rate foreign students.
Our universities opened up their graduate programs worldwide, found all the very best students, and got them to study and do research at our graduate schools. It enhanced our national research capabilities--with all that young talent coming into the U.S., we stayed at the forefront of science. The influx of students from abroad continues, though the areas they come from vary with the times; after Tiananmen Square, for example, many mainland Chinese students moved here, and now students are coming from the former Soviet Union and from Eastern Europe.
How can the universities best serve this pool of talent--and society?Now is the time to look back at the history of graduate education in science and also to try to give the future a more coherent shape and meaning. I remind my students of what science has done for us: As a parent, I regard it as a great gift to raise children without fear of polio, for example. We have seen that plague eradicated. But we have also seen the power of science especially in the military with the atom bomb superceded by the hydrogen bomb and then the neutron bomb.
The great, egalitarian nature of science is that we teach it in our universities: Students register in my course, I teach them science. I don't ask you if you are a good and ethical person: You registered for the course and I teach you science. But too often teachers of powerful technology do not address ethical questions. When the course ends, the students go out to work. They may have studied ethics, but it's not required for a science degree.
What can be done that will not restrict pure scientific inquiry?When I teach, I always inform the students that science is very powerful knowledge, and its use is their responsibility. Anyone who's earning a Ph.D. in science is an incredibly talented person, someone in the top 1 percent of brains in the nation of a certain kind.
I wish that every course and every book could be stamped with a caution: "Very powerful knowledge inside. Caution must be exerted." More practically, I think that 10 percent of every science course should be devoted to the ethics of doing science. I'm not concerned about what the professor's specific politics are: If every teacher would explain why they do science, and require the students to devote some thought to the consequences, that would be enough.
What's the next step?In March of 1999, in Atlanta, we're celebrating the 100th anniversary of the American Physical Society. It will be the world's largest meeting of physicists ever, with about 10,000 physicists, including more than fifty Nobel laureates, in attendance.
I'm in charge of the gala, a physics festival, and of a huge wall of panels displaying the history of 20th-century physics. We decided to end that panorama in the most fantastic way: With the future, the graduates in the 90s, young people who are Westinghouse Science Talent Search finalists or Physics Olympiad medal winners. It's their job to be the Nobel Prize winners and do the science of the future and answer the big questions: How did time begin, how did life begin, where does mass come from? The big questions. I can hardly wait to see where they will take us.
