Physics in a New Era An Overview (2001) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-8
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Dramatic advances in computing are responsible for much of this progress, allowing vast amounts of data to be collected and understood and enabling many of the most complex phenomena encountered in nature to be analyzed numerically; In astrophysics and cosmology, a new generation of space-based and Earth-based instruments has brought about a golden age. Exciting questions are being addressed: Is the expansion of the universe today accelerating as a result of some mysterious form of energy?
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Physics is at the heart of the technology driving our economy, and broad scientific literacy must be a primary goal of physics education at all levels. To achieve this goal, to provide an education linked to the wider world that is so important for members of the high-tech work force, and to draw more students into careers in science will require the best efforts of university physics departments and national laboratories.
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Developing Quantum Technologies The ability to manipulate inclividual atoms ancl molecules will lee cl to new quantum technologies with applications ranging from the development of new materials to the analysis of the human genome. This ability allows the direct engineering of quantum probabilities, producing novel phenomena such as the presence of many atoms in the same quantum mechanical state with a high probability of spatial overlap ancl entanglement.
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Current challenges include the biophysics of cellular electrical activity underlying the functioning of the nervous system, the circulatory system, and the respiratory system; the biomechanics of the motors responsible for all biological movement; and the mechanical and electrical properties of DNA and the enzymes essential for cell division and all cellular processes. , , Tools developed in physics, particularly for the understanding of highly complex systems, are vital for progress in all these areas.
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They are designed to strengthen all of physics and to ensure the continued international leadership of the United States. They address the support of physics by the federal government and the scientific community; physics education; the role of basic physics research in national security; the increasingly important role of partnerships among universities, industry, and national laboratories; the stewardship of federal science agencies; and the rapidly changing role of information technology in physics research and education.
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Key consiclerations in this process should inclucle the overall level of this investment necessary to maintain strong economic growth driven by new physics-basecl technologies, the needs of other sciences that draw heavily on advances in physics, the expanding scientific opportunities in physics itself, the cost-effectiveness of stable funcling for research projects, the characteristic time interval between the investment in basic research and its beneficial impact, and the advantages of diverse funding sources. The Physics Survey Overview Committee believes that to support strong economic growth and provide essential tools ancl methods for the biomedical sciences in the decacle ahead, the federal investment in basic physics research relative to GDP should be restored to the levels of the early 1 980s.
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Recommendation 6: Partnerships. The federal government, universities ancl their physics departments, ancl industry should encourage mutual interactions ancl partnerships, including industrial liaison programs with universities and national laboratories; visitor programs and adjunct faculty appointments in universities; ancl university ancl national laboratory internships ancl sabbaticals in industry.
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From page 8... ...
The bibliographic archive based at Los Atamos National Laboratory has played an important role and it should continue to be supportecl.
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