New York Times Op-Ed
July 23, 1999
Wanted: American Physicists


By ALAN CHODOS

T he most important lesson of the recent suspected Chinese spy case
is not that we must guard against foreign nationals who are
conspiring to infiltrate our national laboratories. Rather, it's
that American scientific pre-eminence is at risk because there are
so few good young American physicists and labs must fill their
ranks instead with foreign-born scientists.

The golden age for physics in this country was the 1960's, when
university budgets were ample and young people considered physics
to be a challenging and worthwhile career. Today, even though
American graduate schools still provide the world's best education
in physics, the classes are half their former size and are filled
mostly with foreign students.

Only 3,826 bachelor's degrees in physics were awarded in 1997 (the
last year for which statistics are available), the lowest figure in
40 years. And half the entering graduate student class in 1998 was
foreign, compared with 42 percent 10 years ago.

In Yale University's physics department, for example, this year's
eight theoretical physics graduate students include a Russian, a
Georgian (the former Soviet republic, not the state), two Indians,
two Chinese and a Greek. And, oh yes, one American.

Any American undergraduate today who considers physics as a career
soon realizes that after finishing five or six tough years of
graduate work, he or she would be faced with a tight job market in
which low salaries are the norm.

Many physics Ph.D.'s end up on Wall Street, where they do computer
work and data analysis for much better pay than they would get as
physicists. Others go into industrial labs at companies like Lucent
or Exxon, where the scientific work often doesn't involve physics,
or into lines of work that don't require any scientific training at
all.

It is no wonder that a bright, technologically oriented
undergraduate is likely to be seduced by the computer industry
instead of the more intellectually challenging (and, some would
say, more satisfying) but less economically secure choice of going
on to graduate school in basic science.

Of course there will always be a few highly dedicated and talented
individuals who will go into physics no matter what. But without
additional incentives, there will not be enough American physicists
to staff the universities and national laboratories where basic
research is done. Although foreign physicists may make excellent
scientists who can fill these openings, concerns over spying will
make the national laboratories want to hire American-born
physicists, a group that is continuing to shrink.

In the wake of the Cox report, there has been a lot of
finger-pointing, mostly at the Departments of Energy and Justice
and the White House. But Congress is at fault for the severe
shortage of American physicists. It has cut the budget for basic
research every year since the 1970's, and especially in the 1990's
with the end of the cold war, sending a message to potential
physicists. These people do not demand exorbitant salaries, but
they do want a measure of job security and a reasonable assurance
that years of specialized training will not be squandered.

We are still basking in the twilight of our investment in physics
in the 1960's. It will take a long time before the damage done by
years of inadequate budgets becomes evident to the general public.
The current spy scandal is perhaps the first real indication of a
serious weakness that can be cured only by a sharp reversal of the
policy of diminished support for basic research.

Congress seems inclined to address the problem with calls for heads
to roll and security to be tightened. Some of these measures are
undoubtedly necessary, but we also need to approximately double the
number of Americans who are being trained at the graduate level in
the basic sciences. This can be done only by providing the
resources to restore the image of the profession after years of
erosion and neglect. One hopes that when the current frenzy of
fear, loathing and political recrimination subsides, the serious
work of rebuilding basic American science will begin.

Alan Chodos is a senior research physicist at Yale University.
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