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.



Bob Park can be reached via email at whatsnew@bobpark.org
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the University, but they should be.