Friday, 21 October 1988
1.
THE 1988 NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS WAS AWARDED TO THREE AMERICANS
in belated recognition of their classic neutrino experiment,
conducted more than a quarter of a century ago. Leon Lederman,
Melvin Swartz and Jack Steinberger conceived the experiment at
Columbia and carried it out at Brookhaven. The work provided one
of the keys that led to the "standard model," the implications of
which are expected to be tested using the super collider.
2
. ANDREI SAKHAROV WILL VISIT THE UNITED STATES IN NOVEMBER,
according to the International Foundation for the Survival and
Development of Humanity which is sponsoring the visit. The board
of the pro-detente Foundation includes such notables as Jerome
Weisner, Robert McNamara, Susan Eisenhower, Theodore Hesburgh and
Armand Hammer. Sakharov is one of the Soviet trustees of the
Washington-based organization. The head of the Soviet trustees
is Yevgeny Velikov, vice president of the Soviet Academy of
Sciences, who is also expected to make the trip. Sakharov's
reinstatement is a highly visible demonstration of glasnost. The
Soviet Government has reportedly returned Sakharov's medals.
3. A SHAKE-UP IS ALSO EXPECTED IN THE SOVIET ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.
In a speech to scientists in Krasnoyarsk, Gorbachev assailed Guri
Marchuk, the hard-line president of the Soviet Academy, for
failing to provide scientific leadership in the development of
Siberia. Marchuk, moreover, has been closely associated with
Ligachev, who recently fell from grace. It is rumored that
Marchuk will be replaced at the next meeting of the Academy by
Roald Sagdeev, the charismatic former head of the Soviet space
program, who surprised many people by his resignation from that
post in July. The Academy meeting was scheduled for the end of
September, but it has been delayed one month without explanation.
4. THE NSF'S PLAN FOR ALLOCATING ITS FY 89 APPROPRIATION
was revealed at a meeting of the National Science Board. Overall the
NSF budget is up a healthy 10% over FY 88. Congress did mandate
certain uses, such as a 23% increase for science and engineering
education, but nevertheless Research and Related Activities got
an overall increase of 9%. Good news? Not for principal
investigators supported by the Directorate for Mathematical and
Physical Sciences, who may have been expecting some relief after
several years of severe austerity. MPS got only a meager,
cost-of-living, 4% increase. By contrast, Engineering got a 9.5%
increase, and Computer and Information Science and Engineering
got a pulse quickening 18%. Eric Bloch uses a different
arithmetic. He argues that Supercomputer Centers and Science and
Technology Centers benefit the physical sciences and that a
portion of such programs should therefore be counted as support
for MPS. The principal investigators are more likely to view the
new allocation as confirmation of their claim that the Science
and Technology Centers would be taken out of their lunch pail.
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