The President’s budget proposal appeared this week, and funding for scientific research was largely protected from the budget freeze on discretionary spending [1][2]. There are losses, but primarily where it’s especially hard to justify the expenditure (e.g. returning people to the Moon). It’s remarkable when words meet actions, but the work has only now begun. The President has laid out a vision, one that actually supports programs important to long-term U.S. leadership and competition. Two parties now have their work cut out for them: Congress needs to show its own leadership (and backbone) and preserve the support for science, and scientists need to show gratitude AND a vision for what will come from this continued investment.
Our job is both hard and simple. The benefits of physics are everywhere; we need only point them out. Be careful when pointing to future benefits from the investment in the field, but do not shy from saying that basic research in the physical sciences is predictably unpredictable – that “black swans” rise from the field every decade or so, many of them improving our health, our economy, and our philosophy.
Our job is hard because we have to deliver on the investment, which means not getting distracted by the opportunity, but rather seizing it. Pursuing our research in a responsible and determined way is the best means we have to repay the trust and the money. We can talk when we’ve succeeded, so now is the time to put our heads down and dig into the research.
Let’s do everything we can to prevent science from being sacrificed for political expediency. And while that’s in progress, let’s go figure out this universe.
[1] http://aip.org/fyi/2010/014.html
[2] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7281/full/463587b.html
