At a Fermilab users meeting in June, OSTP Director John Marburger discussed
the future of high energy physics and the nation's science enterprise
in general. He shared his views on how particle physics might compete
- and collaborate - with other fields of science, other federal science
programs, and international projects. He emphasized that, with continued
funding constraints likely, strategic planning is crucial to ensure
the best mix of facilities and most effective leveraging of efforts.
Selections from Marburger's speech follow:
IMPACT OF OTHER SCIENTIFIC FIELDS ON HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS: "[The]
exceptional opportunities for high energy physics are occurring simultaneously
with other profound changes in science. The same advances in computing
and instrumentation that have been important for your field are having
a profound effect on all other fields of science.... For the first time,
it is possible to image, analyze, simulate, and manipulate ordinary
matter at the atomic level. This is the domain of nanotechnology and
biotechnology.... This is also the domain in which structures of astounding
complexity emerge, and its exploration requires the ability to store,
analyze, and visualize very large amounts of data. This new domain of
complexity has its own new frontiers, new paradigms, and new social
structures within the scientific community.
"Two important aspects of these emerging opportunities elsewhere
in science are important for the future of particle physics. First,
some of the new capabilities require investments in apparatus on a scale
that formerly occurred only for high energy and space physics. Thus
there are new competitors on the scene for large scale, expensive facilities.
These include intense photon sources based on electron accelerators,
intense neutron sources such as the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak
Ridge, scanning electron microscopy, high field NMR devices, and specialized
super-computing facilities. Second, the science opportunities created
by these facilities are also fundamental, exciting, and demonstrably
of greater relevance to human-scale issues than particle physics or
astronomy. The phenomena they deal with are closely linked to the technologies
important for national issues such as health care and economic competitiveness.
They are important for homeland and national security. In short, they
deserve, and are likely to receive, high priority for funding even in
an era of tight budgets."
NEED FOR STRATEGIC PLANNING:
"The opportunities in high energy physics have increased, not diminished,
in importance during the past decade. But at the same time the opportunities
in these other very attractive fields of science are also increasing,
and very rapidly. What this suggests to me is that federal budgets for
high energy physics are not likely to grow substantially faster than
in the past. The United States is investing approximately $800 million
per year in high energy physics research, and slowly increasing. I do
not think the rate of increase is enough to satisfy the current appetite
for big projects in this field, including new accelerators, neutrino
detectors, and space-borne observations. Some of these projects would
seem to have very high scientific payoffs. Which ones? We have to answer
that question quickly and carefully because there is danger of saturating
the available budget with lower priority activities.
"The conclusion I draw from these observations is that there
is a need for a new emphasis on, and perhaps even a redefinition of,
strategic planning in high energy physics. As a first principle of planning,
machines and instrumentation must be subordinated to a broader view
of the field. Priorities for projects need to be justified by the expected
science payoff in breadth and/or depth of discovery potential. Justifying
accelerator construction on the basis of technology spinoffs has become
a weak argument, in view of the much greater relevance to technology
of the new bio-, nano- or complexity-oriented fields. By far the strongest
argument for pursuing high energy physics is the human imperative to
discover the nature of the physical universe. Even the discovery of
the Higgs is not an adequate justification. It is the value that observing
the Higgs adds for the elucidation of the whole picture that is important....
Now we have something even more exciting than the Standard Model. We
have a set of cosmological mysteries including inflation, dark matter,
dark energy, and matter-antimatter asymmetry, all of which must be related
in some way to a bigger picture of which field theory and the Standard
Model are a part. Choices of what activity to fund need to be related
to their impact on filling in this picture. Theory, and a wide variety
of experimental approaches all need to be evaluated together in this
context."
NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS:
"A second principle of strategic planning must be to acknowledge
the impact of one area upon another. Expensive projects in one field
definitely affect the chances of support for other fields, or for other
less expensive activities in the same field. A rational science policy
considers the complementary capabilities of agencies, and seeks to avoid
duplication. This requires comparing the big science programs in NASA,
NSF, and DOE.... It makes no sense for DOE to be building space-borne
instrumentation designed to probe the mystery of dark energy, for example,
without strong coordination with NASA. Nor does it make sense for NASA
to be flying space-based experiments relevant to particle physics without
strong coordination with DOE."
"A third important component of a new approach to strategic
planning is the international dimension.... Today each developed nation
understands the need to invest in the sciences that undergird their
technologically intensive economies. Their choices of how to make that
investment are influenced by the same forces I described earlier. One
consequence of this that I foresee is that there will be less duplication
of large facilities devoted to high energy physics, and more equal sharing
of the burden of building and operating these facilities among nations....
I would like to see closer coordination in the planning of large-scale
experiments in fundamental science among nations. We are all going to
have to invest competitively in the science infrastructure for our technology-based
economies. We should invest non-competitively in the science infrastructure
for large scale basic science."
"National science policy responds ultimately to the needs of
the science community. We are going to depend upon you and your colleagues
for ideas about how best to plan the future exploration of nature, and
how to use scarce resources wisely in the endeavor."
The entire text of Marburger's June 2 speech is available in PDF format
at: http://www.ostp.gov/html/06-02-03%20jhmFermilabUsers.pdf
.
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