|
CHANCELLOR ROBERT C. DYNES
"NUCLEAR AND CONVENTIONAL FORCES: ISSUES FOR NATIONAL
SECURITY, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY"
LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
APRIL 29, 2003
INTRODUCTION
- Good afternoon.
I am pleased to have this opportunity to share some thoughts with you
about how our approaches to research and development and defense-related
research have evolved to date - and about how they need to, and will,
evolve even further for this nation to maintain its leadership.
- I have been asked
to address how science and technology shape defense transformation.
In that discussion, I would like focus on how science and technology
shape each other and drive each other.
- I also want to
look at how a substantial fraction of this nation's R&D mission
has moved from the realm of industry to the realm of the academy and
national laboratories and how it has subsequently grown in dimension.
- Then I will conclude
with a quick history lesson that I picked up on a recent trip to London
about the ultimate mission and role of science & technology as a
service to the public.
- Let me begin with
my assigned topic, which is the confluence of science and technology
in defense transformation. I am not sure I have any novel thoughts on
this subject.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY:
A TWO-WAY STREET
- The public view
that science is a precursor to technology is both widely held and narrowly
conceived. It is, of course, wrong.
- While it is true
that we rarely produce applicable technology without the rigors and
the creative engine of basic science, it is equally true - and I believe
it has been true since the beginning of time - that we cannot pursue
basic science - nor can we accomplish substantial breakthroughs - without
the tools and the reach of state-of-the-art technology.
- If this country
is to reap the full benefits of its intellectual prowess, it must promote
two-way traffic between science and technology, so that our most talented
people can move freely back and forth between the two poles.
- This must be an
important mission of national laboratories and especially the mission-driven
and defense-driven laboratories. There should be no barriers between
science, technology and defense.
- This is especially
critical in our research on national defense and homeland security,
most notably in the science-based stockpile stewardship of our nuclear
weapons arsenal. World leadership is essential, but without the two-way
street, it is not likely.
- In fact, this interaction
is something like the Second Law of Thermodynamics: without the feedback
that transfers back and forth between science and technology, mission-driven
applications will not advance.
- Our citizens, our
allies, and nations who are not our allies watch that stewardship very
closely.
- They want to know
whether these weapons are secure, and in the ultimate worst-case scenario,
whether the weapons would perform reliably. They want to be assured
that we have adequate margins and predictable behavior. Global perception
of our scientific and technological competence is essential.
- In the past, it
was easier to make that case through the traditional testing route.
Not only did testing demonstrate reliability, it was a fairly straightforward
experiment, and it also was pretty public.
- Instead, we must
harness basic science, simulations, and applied technology to dig much
more deeply into every facet of the science behind our arsenal. It is
important that we demonstrate that we are conducting it competently.
And it is important that our friends and foes believe this.
- There are many
examples that illustrate how technology opens up new vistas in basic
science. Let me cite the example of my friend and former colleague at
Bell Laboratories, Horst Stormer. I want to use my old alma mater for
a couple of reasons. I will come back to Bell Laboratories and industrial
laboratories in a few minutes.
- Horst began his
distinguished career by coming from Stuttgart to the United States and
by developing the breakthrough technique of "modulation doping."
- This was a breakthrough
because generating ultra-high mobility two-dimensional electron systems
in the III-V semiconducters had enormous potential for advancing physics
research. That concept resulted in an entirely new technology of doping
semiconducters and achieving mobilities "above theoretical limits."
- Horst launched
the next phase of his career with Dan Tsui by moving from technology
to basic science. He used modulation doping to study the quantum Hall
effect at lower temperatures and more powerful magnetic fields.
- Their consequent
discovery of the fractional quantum Hall effect earned them a 1988 Nobel
Prize in Physics, and it revolutionized the way we think about electron
gas.
- Just as Horst
took what many would consider a reverse direction from technology to
science, he later took what the public might think a rather unconventional
path from industry to the academy by leaving his Bell Labs post in 1997
for Columbia University, which paralleled the earlier move of Dan Tsui
to Princeton University.
INDUSTRY TO ACADEMY:
A NEW ERA
- I think that example
and the example of many others makes a point about the research enterprise
in American industry. In fact, over the past two decades, a lot of people
have moved from industry to academia.
- I made a parallel
career switch roughly 12 years ago. I would like to briefly discuss
why scientists like Horst and me crossed over and what I think that
movement signifies.
- After immigrating
to the United States from Canada in the late 1960s, I spent 22 years
at Bell Labs, where I ran one of the research divisions, a laboratory
of semiconductor and material physics research.
- During that period,
AT&T managed the Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, and our group
was deeply involved in that laboratory. The motivation for that management
was "public service." But AT&T backed away after getting
its fingers burnt.
- In the late 1980s,
I began to see that the R&D era dominated in some important fields
by U.S. industrial laboratories was coming to an end. As the technology
globalized, and as competition intensified, industry felt that research
labs were just too expensive to sustain.
- It became clear
that a new era of innovation - one of R, D, & D, or research, development,
and shortened times to delivery - would be led by U.S. research universities
and national labs.
- This has been most
pronounced as product cycles have gotten shorter and especially as homeland
security initiatives have required us to speed up the sequence of research,
development, and delivery to "first responders."
- So I left Bell
Labs and joined the Physics faculty at UC San Diego.
- And instead of
pursuing a single research mission devoted to short-range private interest,
I began pursuing three missions - education, research, and service -
dedicated to long-range and widespread public good.
- At present, I
am one of three Bell Lab alumni who head up major research universities
that belong to the Association of American Universities. The other two
alums are John Wiley, Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Madison,
and Robert Birgeneau, President of the University of Toronto.
- But I've kept
my ties to the laboratory world. Since joining UCSD, I have been vice-chair
of the University of California President's Council on the National
Laboratories, and I serve on the Council's Science and Technology Panel
and on its National Security Panel.
- The Council has
worked to help ensure that science of the highest quality was being
pursued at the three laboratories and that, at the two weapons labs,
the best science & technology was applied to keep the weapons stockpile
safe and reliable.
- We also have focused
on the mission that the weapons programs of Los Alamos and Livermore
were coordinated and that they met the nation's needs. This had - and
it continues to have - its ups and downs. I cannot say that it has all
been enjoyable. Sometimes I found it terribly frustrating as the relationship
between UC, the labs and DOE was, in my mind, not a constructive partnership.
And I believe we are seeing the consequences of this dysfunction.
UC-NATIONAL LABS:
A BENEFICIAL PARTNERSHIP
- Let me take this
opportunity to address the ongoing debate about the UC management of
Los Alamos and the other two national laboratories.
- I speak not as
a UC spokesman but as a physicist who has taken great pride in service
to the labs.
- Senator Dominici's
"tough love" comments last week were startling but not unexpected.
The UC management of the labs has broken down in a variety of ways,
and I do not think it would be constructive to describe them. We have
all dwelt on this, and we all agree that it must be repaired quickly
and completely.
- But I believe it
would be a great mistake and a loss to the nation to discard the UC-national
laboratory affiliation.
- These scandals,
and all the issues they have unearthed, have been jarring for those
of us who work with the labs, because we know how valuable our collaborations
have been and how much potential they hold.
- I have seen first-hand
how mutually beneficial this partnership is. And even more important,
I have seen how this partnership benefits this nation. I won't go into
all the details now, but I would be happy to discuss this later.
- The university
benefits because its faculty and students have unmatched opportunities
to work on important projects with top scientists at the labs.
- Just last Tuesday,
we announced a joint initiative between Los Alamos and the UCSD Jacobs
School of Engineering to train young engineers in disciplines that support
global security.
- This research-based
educational program will support critical infrastructure management
in both the civil and defense sectors, including stewardship of the
U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, and maintenance of bridges, roads and
aircraft.
- The laboratories
benefit from this partnership again for reasons you understand, because,
quite simply, the University of California in totality is the finest
university system in the world.
- The UC affiliation
gives the laboratories a better opportunity to recruit and retain the
best scholars. It sets standards for science and technology that are
unmatched.
- And it gives the
labs access to gifted faculty and students, and also to the vast resources
of our system.
- As just one example,
the UC has the highest number of Ph.D. scientists and engineers of any
entity in the world.
- That deep reservoir
of talent has helped the labs attract world-class scientists to serve
as program reviewers or as consultants.
- When we, as a science
oversight board, approach scientists at MIT, or Princeton, or Oxford,
or Tokyo, or anywhere in the world, and we ask for their help in appraising
a program, we approach them as peers and as familiar colleagues. This
opens doors that might otherwise be closed.
- But the ultimate
measure of the value of this UC-labs partnership is its benefit to the
nation, especially in these precarious times.
- It recently came
as a surprise to Vice President Cheney that the UC system retains no
money (aside from its administrative costs) from its contract to manage
the labs.
- The university
is a contractor with no conflict of interest. It has no more important
goal than helping to build research excellence and upholding scientific
integrity in both open and closed projects.
- Our affiliation
has had an impressive track record of scientific achievement in key
areas of frontier research and technology. I do not believe such a record
would persist with a commercial contractor. I continue to be impressed
with the science & technology both defense labs had to draw on when
the demand for homeland security appeared. That work didn't form out
of a vapor. It came from a solid science base.
- Let me conclude
with the history lesson that I promised earlier about the mission of
public institutions like the UC system.
ROYAL INSTITUTION:
APPLICATION TO RESEARCH
- My wife and I recently
traveled to London to spend a week immersed in the world of theater.
But the trip turned into a busman's holiday for me when we (almost accidentally)
visited the Royal Institution.
- The Institution
was launched in 1799 by 58 citizens who each donated what was then the
substantial sum of 50 guineas toward an endowment.
- I had known that
the Royal Institution was the site of some of the major scientific breakthroughs
of the last two centuries. These included Humphry Davy's discovery of
sodium and potassium; Michael Faraday's discovery of electro-magnetic
induction; and the Nobel prize-winning work on X-ray diffraction by
William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg.
- What I didn't
know until my visit to London was that the research which produced these
discoveries occurred as an afterthought or by-product.
- The Institution
was founded at a time when a war between England and France triggered
quite a lot of domestic anxiety.
- The British were
concerned about their isolation from the rest of Europe and about the
precarious state of their national economy.
- The 58 so-called
"proprietors" of the Institution wanted to reassure the population
with a display of scientific prowess and scientific potential.
- So they drew up
a charter which stated that the mission of their new venture would be,
and I quote:
- "Diffusing
the knowledge and facilitating the general introduction of useful mechanical
inventions and improvements … and teaching, by courses of lectures
and experiments, the application of science to the common purposes of
life."
- Those public lectures
attracted some of the leading minds from England and the Continent to
the Institution.
- And the founders
discovered that, in order to deliver the demonstrations and public lectures
stipulated in their mission, they needed to construct laboratories -
laboratories where Davy and Faraday and the Braggs carried out their
research.
- Two hundred years
later and a continent away, the United States is the world's sole superpower,
although I must confess that I'm not sure what that means any more as
we face threats that have become quite difficult and quite diffuse,
not just in military might, but also in intellectual might.
- If we are to maintain
dominance in both arenas, I believe we must recognize that this does
not happen in isolation. Leading science thrives in a problem-rich environment
where excellent people are tackling stimulating problems, both basic
and applied, and where people can freely move around that landscape.
- The seeds of future
U.S. scientific discoveries are being sown right now in U.S. classrooms
where a new generation of Davys, Faradays and Broggs is being trained.
- In closing, let
me say that I believe our ultimate mission as scientists is to serve
the citizens who support and depend upon our work.
- And we must realize
that our ultimate challenge is to keep those citizens informed about
how science works on their behalf and why it is a smart investment in
their quality of life.
- Thank you.
###
|
