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56 June 2005 Physics Today 2005 American Institute of Physics, S-0031-9228-0506-230-7

Why No New Einstein?Lee Smolin

Iam sure I am not the only one in thisyear of Einstein who receives calls

from journalists asking, Why is thereno new Einstein? While we haveready answers, there is still the dis-quieting worry that perhaps a lessonmight be learned from the fact thatthis one person, who was initially un-able to find an academic job, did moreto advance physics than most of therest of us put together have since.

Many of Einsteins contemporariestestified that he was not unusuallytalented mathematically. Instead,what enabled him to make suchtremendous advances was a drivingneed to understand the logic of na-ture, tied to a breathtaking creativityand a fierce intellectual independ-

ence. But Einstein does not standalone. One can cite many examplesshowing that big advances in physicscome when unusually creative and in-tellectually independent individualsask new questions and forge newdirections.

It follows that new Einsteins areunlikely to be easily characterized interms of research programs that havebeen well explored for decades. In-

stead a new Einstein will be develop-ing his or her own research programthat, by definition, will be one that nosenior person works on. He or she mayeven feel the need to focus on the re-ally deep and difficult questions, suchas the foundations of quantum me-chanics, that are ignored in leading

American research institutes and de-partments, despite the work of a fewleading physicists who had estab-lished their credentials in other topics

first. After all, if Einstein himself feltthe deepest problems were in thefoundations of quantum theory, and ifthose problems remain unsolved halfa century later, why should we expecta new Einstein to ignore them?

Over the past few years many haveexpressed concern about the chal-lenge to US physics from growing in-vestments abroad, from the Euro-pean Union to China. I believe ourfuture success in physics will dependon how well we can answer a singlequestion: Are our universities, insti-tutes, and foundations doing all theycan to identify and promote individu-als who have the creativity and intel-lectual independence that character-ize those who contribute most tophysics? I say that they are not. Theyare not even doing as well as some oftheir competitors do to support thosewith the most creativity and inde-pendence. Simple changes couldgreatly improve the extent to which

American science is hospitable tovery talented physicists.

Creativity and independenceThe mechanisms we have constructedto ensure fairness and quality havethe unintended side effect of puttingpeople of unusual creativity and inde-pendence at a disadvantage. Those who follow large well-sup-ported research programs have lots of

powerful senior scientists to promotetheir careers. Those who invent theirown research programs usually lacksuch support and hence are often un-dervalued and underappreciated. People with the uncanny ability toask new questions or recognize unex-amined assumptions, or who are ableto take ideas from one field and applythem to another, are often at a disad-vantage when the goal is to hire thebest person in a given well-estab-lished area. In the present system, scientistsfeel lots of pressure to follow estab-lished research programs led by pow-erful senior scientists. Those whochoose to follow their own programsunderstand that their careerprospects will be harmed. That thereare still those with the courage to gotheir own way is underappreciated. It is easy to write many papers

when you continue to apply well-understood techniques. People whodevelop their own ideas have to workharder for each result, because they

are simultaneously developing newideas and the techniques to explorethem. Hence they often publish fewerpapers, and their papers are cited lessfrequently than those that contributeto something hundreds of people aredoing.

To give the advantage to peoplewho are unusually creative and inde-pendent, we should change the meas-ures we use to judge quality andpromise.

Sometimes it is asserted that moreindependent and creative thinkersconstitute a greater risk in hiring.But I think an examination of the ca-reers of individual physicists showsthat on the whole the opposite is true.It is the creative and independent

thinkers who are more likely to con-tinue to make important contribu-tions throughout their lifetime. Theyare driven by their own curiosity andneed for understanding, rather thanby career motives. Their research isnot going to fall off when the tech-niques they learn in graduate schoolrun out, for they have the ability toinvent new ideas and directions andlearn new techniques.

We also greatly underestimate therisks of having large numbers of peo-ple follow speculative but trendy re-search programs, even those led byvery accomplished senior people.

String theoryOver the past 20 years, string theoryhas attracted the effort of a largenumber of theorists and mathemati-cians. Nevertheless it is clear that theprogram has not progressed as origi-nally envisioned. Many key conjec-tures remain unproven, including thebasic claim that the theory gives finiteanswers.1 The hope for a unique the-ory and the promise of new falsifiablepredictions have dissolved with thediscovery of evidence for vast num-bers (greater than 10300) of theories.The well-studied versions disagreewith experiment, and little is knownexplicitly about the many versions

that are conjectured to agree with ob-servation. Despite much effort, noevidence has been found to confirmthe key hypotheses, including hidden

Lee Smolin, formerly professor ofphysics at the Pennsylvania State Uni-versity, moved in 2001 to PerimeterInstitute for Theoretical Physics in

Waterloo, Ontario. He has worked onquantum gravity, string theory, particlephysics, and foundations of quantummechanics.

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dimensions, grand unification, andsupersymmetry. I suspect most prac-titioners can agree that if string the-ory is to fulfill its promise, it needs aninfusion of new ideas and directions.

The problem is that the kind of peo-ple most likely to have such ideas

have not recently had easy times mak-ing careers, compared to less inde-pendent people, who were content tofollow the fashion in string theory.Each year, one or two trendy direc-tions came and went, often leavingunsolved problems. Young string the-orists feel a lot of pressure to followthe changes, if they are to have thebenefit of recommendations from sen-ior people. Several young string theo-rists have told me they simply have

neither the time nor the freedom toask their own questions or developtheir own ideas.

Alternatives to stringsMore worrisome, young theorists whopursue alternatives to string theoryhave had great difficulty finding anyacademic positions in the US. This istrue of those who pursue alternativeprograms in particle physics, liketechnicolor and preon models, andalso true of those who pursue alter-native approaches to quantum grav-ity, such as dynamical triangulations,causal sets, and loop quantum grav-ity. These subjects are all pursuedmuch more vigorously outside the US,because leading researchers in theseareas are drawn to leave US univer-sities by offers of very good opportu-nities elsewhere.

One approach barely represented

in the US is quantum gravity phe-nomenology, which studies how to testquantum gravity theories experimen-tally by means of high-energy astro-physics experiments such as theGamma Ray Large Area Space Tele-scope and the Pierre Auger Observa-tory. The experiments are supportedin the US, but most theorists who aredeveloping the relevant phenomenol-ogy are outside the US.

Other examples show the hazardsof too much concentration of resourceson a few areas, to the exclusion of oth-ers. For decades, the foundations ofquantum mechanics got virtually nosupport in the US; it was believed tobe a direction without promise. In thelast 10 years the fast-moving field ofquantum information has shown thatimportant experimental and theoreti-cal results about foundations of quan-tum mechanics were always there for

the finding. In other cases, such asLIGO, the concentration of resourceson a large project has weakened theability of NSF to support individual

scientists working on their own ap-proaches to fundamental questions.

Some modest proposalsBut my purpose here is not to arguefor or against any existing researchprogram. It is to propose that, underthe pressure to support programs ad-vanced decades ago by now influentialsenior scientists, we have forgottenthat theoretical physics is most oftenadvanced by people who ignore estab-lished research programs to inventtheir own ideas and forge their owndirections. Such people are often, butnot always, young people, whose ca-reers are the most vulnerable. If we donot explicitly make room for thesekinds of people, they will leave

physics or they will continue, as now,to leave the US to do the physics theywant to do.

Some other countries seem to bebetter at making room for the inde-pendent thinkers. The UK, throughthe Royal Society Fellowships, is ableto pick very bright mavericks whowould not be hired in the US, and givetheir careers good starts. France picksa small number of very talentedyoung scientists and gives them per-manent positions; that security im-munizes them to some extent fromsociological pressures. Canada hasopened the Perimeter Institute,whose specific mandate is to be ahome for independent foundationalthinkers, and other such projects arein planning stages around the world.

In addition to the importance of se-lecting individuals over research pro-grams, science as a whole benefits

from diverse points of view. When agroup of researchers aggressively pur-sues a research program but has littleinteraction with either experiment oroutsiders, the group tends to overin-terpret results, undervalue risks, andcomplacently postpone facing up tohard questions and negative results.This is groupthinka well-docu-mented phenomenon in government,intelligence agencies, and business.

When it happens in an academic spe-cialty, the fault is not with a scientistwho aggressively promotes his or herprogram. The whole scientific com-munity makes the rules that allowconsensus to be established withoutsufficient evidence.

It is ironic that the US, whichrightly encourages racial and genderdiversity, worries less about ensuringthe creative and intellectual diversityon which the health of science de-

pends. Some obvious recommenda-tions follow from a comparison ofpractices in the US and elsewhere. Young scientists should be hired

and promoted based only on their abil-ity, creativity, and independence,without regard to whether they con-tribute to any research programs es-tablished by older people. To prevent overinvestment in spec-ulative directions that may end up as

dead ends, departments should en-sure that different points of viewabout unsolved problems, and rivalresearch programs, are representedon their faculties. Scientists should be penalized fordoing superficial work that ignoreshard problems and rewarded for at-tacking the longstanding open conjec-tures, even if progress takes manyyears of hard work. More room couldbe made for people who think deeply

and carefully about the really hardfoundational issues. Research groups should seek outpeople who pursue rival approaches,and include them as postdocs, stu-dents, and visitors. Conferences in oneresearch program should be encour-aged, by those funding them, to invitespeakers from rival programs. In-structors should encourage studentsto learn about competing approaches

to unsolved problems, so that the stu-dents are equipped to choose for them-selves the most promising directionsas their careers advance. Funding agencies and foundationsshould take steps to see that at everylevel scientists are encouraged tofreely explore and develop all viableproposals to solve deep and difficultproblems. Funding should go to indi-vidual scientists for individualthought and not to research pro-

grams. Aresearch program should notbe allowed to become institutionallydominant until supported by convinc-ing scientific proof of the usual kind.Before such proof is demonstrated, al-ternative and rival approaches shouldreceive encouragement to ensure thatthe progress of science is not stalledby overinvestment in a direction thatturns out to be wrong. A foundation or agency could cre-

ate a small number of Einstein fel-lowships, to go specifically to theoristsunder 40 who invent their own ideasand programs aimed at solving foun-dational problems in physics. As Ein-stein told us, to solve such problemsrequires concentration for years, re-gardless of fashion, so these fellow-ships should offer 10 years of supportand go only to theorists whose workcannot be categorized as a contribu-tion to an existing approach.

Reference1. E. DHoker, D. H. Phong,Phys. Lett. B

529, 241 (2002).