Pedro Lilienfeld

Written in the mid 2010s as a draft, but not submitted

Recently, in reading an article in an Astronomy magazine about the Kepler space mission I was made aware that the continuation of that – so far very successful mission – was endangered by federal funding retrenchments. Although the extension of this mission – beyond its initially intended three-year duration – is deemed essential by NASA because of clearly identified scientific imperatives, the US Congress is threatening to stop the required financial support amounting to a few tens of millions of dollars. 

The Kepler mission is but one example of many scientific programs that are likely to be cut in the near future as a result of the mindset of the present House of Representatives. One of the salient reasons for that attitude is the lack of understanding  of the majority in Congress of the importance of fundamental scientific research as opposed to so-called “practical” technological pursuits. 

Past history is replete with cases wherein what initially appeared as esoteric and abstruse scientific pursuits eventually resulted in unforeseen and extremely important technological advances. I can think of several examples. A case in point is the postulation of the Generalized Theory of Relativity, published by Einstein in 1915. At the time it was comprehended only by a handful of scientists and was considered as an intellectual achievement with little or no practical technological consequences. It took almost a half a century until some of the useful implications of that theory were to become obvious and crucial to the dynamics of artificial satellites, and later on, to the feasibility of high accuracy Global Positioning Systems. In fact the positional accuracy of our present military GPS devices – of the order of less than one meter – could not be achieved without the rigorous application of the Einstein’s crowning theory.

If the current congressional mentality were to have been applied to the support of the work of physicist Albert Einstein our military would be unable to achieve the present accuracy of our guidance systems and other crucial remote location techniques.

We don’t know at this time what future practical implications may result from programs such as the Kepler mission but we endanger our already precarious techno-scientific leadership if the anti-science climate of Congress is allowed to control budgetary allocations. It is thus imperative that the public at large be enlightened about the need for continuing support to scientific research that the science community deems worthy of pursuit. 

With the above purpose in mind, I would like to suggest that the New York Times, a highly respected and widely distributed newspaper – in all its present and future incarnations – publish a series – perhaps weekly – of articles written by recognized scientific authorities in various fields, about specific cases of scientific research that, initially, were considered to be of questionable practical use and that later lead to – largely unforeseen – important scientific and technological advances.

For that purpose, I suggest that the editorial staff of the Times contact major scientific organizations, here and abroad, such as the National Academy of Sciences, the New York Academy of Sciences, the Max Planck Institute in Germany, etc. Members of these organizations could be asked to contribute articles illustrating the above mentioned cases in their own field of expertise. 

I believe that a series of publications in the NY Times with specific examples of initially viewed as abstruse intellectual pursuits that eventually contributed to momentous progress in medicine, nutrition, security, quality of life, etc. would provide that much needed enlightenment that, ultimately, should be guiding the budgetary decisions of our legislators.

Last but not least, I must mention that it is, perhaps, unfortunate that the requirement of practical applicability be the sine qua non criterion for federal support of scientific research, but faced with the realities of our current political climate only pragmatism appears to hold the promise for our continued world leadership in innovation and intellectual wherewithal.