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July07-editorial-eng.pdf

The CAP Congress is the event of the year in the life of the Association. It brings together both member and non-member physicists from one ocean to the other covering most of the physics disciplines in which Canadian physicists work. The profile and quality of the Congress has improved regularly over the past few years. What distinguishes the CAP Congress from others, like the APS March meeting, is the opportunity it offers its delegates to discuss important issues facing the community. When NSERC was engaged in the reallocation exercises, it was at the CAP Congress that physicists were able to recoup their enthusiasm after the first exercise held in 1994. Rightly or wrongly, a discipline associated with a specific Grant Selection Committee (GSC) needed to show clear, cohesive objectives in order to be successful during the reallocation exercise.  This was obviously easier for certain disciplines.  The CAP Congress provided the forum that enabled the community to prepare for the reallocation exercises of 1998 and 2002. The physics-related GSCs did very well during those exercises. Following the 1994 reallocation exercise, the CAP approached NSERC with some very constructive comments, which ultimately resulted in the creation of the CAP-NSERC Liaison Committee, a unique committee within the operations of NSERC; there is no other discipline that has a similar committee. Every year since the formation of that Committee, NSERC has sent a delegation of staff members to the CAP Congress, each of whom has participated in a number of meetings throughout the Congress. The benefits that the NSERC staff gained through attendance at these Congresses inspired them to abandon their annual site campus visits in favour of participating in the annual congresses of the various Canadian scientific disciplines.

At this summer’s CAP Congress in Saskatoon, NSERC announced two internal review activities they were undertaking: a review of the structure of the Grant Selection Committee, and an international review of the Discovery Grants Program. The second review appears to have been motivated by the need to justify the higher success rates of the discovery grant competitions. This program is the envy of scientists around the world. The high rate of success compared to other programs and other agencies is perceived by many as a sign of mediocrity; however, this interpretation, in my opinion, demonstrates a lack of understanding of the purpose of these grants.

The Discovery Grants Program subsidizes research programs but not research projects. The large majority of applicants have active programs. In addition, a researcher can only apply for one of these grants. A large failure rate would indicate a high attrition rate and a rapid reduction in the number of active groups responsible for the training of highly qualified scientific personnel. We hope that the international review committee will support this program. What motivates the review of the GSC structure is the perceived belief that the GSCs do not adequately address interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary science. This is a serious problem as some of the most important scientific questions facing this century do not lie specifically within a traditional discipline but, rather, require the concerted efforts of many disciplines. Two such examples include life science and nanoscience.

Science has changed considerably during the past few decades, and these changes seem to have affected physics more than any other discipline. Many authors have spoken of the end of science and the decline of physics^[1]; however, in my opinion, this is incorrect. It is true that one can consider the 20th century the glory era of physics, and that the domination that physics exerted on science, especially throughout the middle of the last century, cannot be reproduced. This period of progress led to books as fascinating to read as the best suspense novels. I am thinking, inter alia, of books by Emilio Segrè et Richard Feynman^[2]. What distinguished the physics of this era is that it appeared to be the one discipline that changed our perception of the world. Cerebral like no other science, physics combined an often elegant yet, for its predictive capacity, always surprising mathematical formalism with experimentation, which would astonish through its degree of innovation. The questions which preoccupied physicists lent well to this approach which offered a penetrating look into reality: the nature of fundamental forces that govern matter and the forms of energy that they can generate, the properties of matter in its gas, liquid, and solid phases. Carried along by its reputation, it accomplished a lot during the decades which led to the end of the century. Physics must now content with other disciplines for what should be at the forefront of scientific concerns, even if its degree of technical innovation remains as impressive as before. This is a natural evolution in the discipline, not a decline. The work of physicists is far from complete. The questions have changed; they have become more complex and often difficult to formulate. If astrophysics was not in such an astonishingly creative period, physics would not appear as often on the cover pages of the more popular scientific magazines. Thanks to astronomical measurements and remarkable theories, our understanding of the universe is continually evolving. In the past three years, astrophysics has been on the cover of Scientific American eight times. Although astrophysics is prominent in the popular imagination (at least in the portion of the population interested in science), it has a limited presence in the CAP (a point we have to address). Even if the traditional fields in physics are less frequently in the headlines, physics is still essential for the advancement of science. Physics, recently called the invisible profession within the workforce^[3], does not play a less important role in the work of technological businesses. What has changed in science is that the most important questions are no longer confined to a specific traditional discipline, rather they require the concerted effort of many disciplines. Take the two examples noted above: life science and nanoscience. The scientific questions associated with life are traditionally within the realm of biology and its related subdisciplines; however, they now involve almost all of the disciplines, whether physics, chemistry, or earth sciences (e.g. fossils). Having arrived at the stage where the study of living systems is ready to establish quantitative laws, physics contributes to numerous subjects such as biological matter (membranes, cells, etc.), the nervous system governing the transmission of information (neurophysics), and cell growth, to name but a few. The field is widespread and progress often requires multidisciplinary teams. New laws remain to be discovered in this rich field which can be called the physics of living systems. At the University of Ottawa we are developing a strategy that involves a number of departments within the faculties of science and medicine. As for nanoscience, its multidisciplinarity is rather obvious and striking. Since Feynman made his predictions in 1959 during a now famous speech^[4], physics has played a dominant role in the development of techniques that have allowed for the manipulation of atoms, which saw its greatest progress with the discovery of the tunnelling microscope and the atomic force microscopes which followed. However, the environment in which the effects on a nanometer scale are studied now include chemistry and even biology.

Thus, how should the GSCs be structured to satisfy the needs of a science using talents coming from multiple disciplines, or which is at the forefront of many? I won’t even pretend to have the answer. The question is a real challenge which merits everyone’s attention. It is particularly essential that physicists participate in this debate. If we don’t, we run the risk of not being properly considered. It is clear that the solution will involve an aspect attached to the disciplines. Surely a physicist is the best judge of the quality and scientific creativity of a project that pushes the limits of physics? Needless to say, a multidisciplinary group of scientists would appear to be necessary to judge the impact and importance of many projects. This suggests the creation of strategic groups covering numerous disciplines, to give direction to the GSCs, and encourage projects involving researchers from a number of GSCs.

[1] John Horgan, The End of Science, Addison-Wesley, 1996; see also J. McKee, PiC Editorial, Vol. 53(4), 1997.
[2] E. Segrè, From X-rays to Quarks, Freeman, 1980; R.P. Feynman, Surely, you must be joking, Mr. Feynman, W.W. Norton and Co., 1997.
[3] J.S. Rigden and J.H. Stith, “The Business of Academic Physics”, Physics Today, Nov. 2003, p. 45.
[4] R. P. Feynman, There is plenty of room at the bottom, APS talk at Caltech 1959 (transcript available at http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html).

B. Joós, P.Phys.
Editor, Physics in Canada

Comments of readers on this editorial are more than welcome.