High Energy, Low Funds

Harvard's Professor of Physics Carlo Rubbia is one of the hottest tickets in all of science.

He made waves last year with his discovery of the subatomic particle which confirmed part of the so-called grand unification theories physics, which states that a single force controls all of nature's basic forces. Just last week, he announced the finding of evidence of a sixth kind of quark, one of the most sought-after discoveries in modern physics. Many of his colleagues believe he may be in line for a Nobel Prize some day.

Rubbia also does the bulk of his research work outside of the United States at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva (CERN).

While Rubbia and other Harvard physicists have garnered numerous awards including eight Nobel Prizes--for pioneering into unknown realms of atomic structure and quantum mechanics Harvard's high-energy physics facilities--once regarded as the best anywhere--are no longer adequate for state-of-the-art experimentation.

As a result, Harvard physicists are forced to conduct their experiment at laboratories away from home ranging from as close as Cornell University to as far away as Geneva. And the commute, they say, interferes with their teaching and slows down their research.

Scientists say that the University is generally not to be blamed for the lapse. Instead, they say, the guilt falls upon the rapidly surging cost of conducting physics experiments combined with the federal government's unwillingness to increase physics research grants.

The result has been a virtual transformation of the way physics is conducted both here and elsewhere on university campuses. Universities like Harvard simply can not provide the billions of dollars necessary to conduct top-level research and are increasingly undertaking cooperative efforts to share these costs.

Because of these changes, Harvard's High Energy Physics Lab until recently the home of one of the nation's most sophisticated physics machines the Cambridge Electron Accelerator--has now been reduced to a workshop for constructing equipment for labs elsewhere and a common home to the University's team of star physicists.

Beginning in the early 1960s. Harvard operated the Cambridge accelerator with MIT. The facility, which was housed directly behind the current High Energy Physics Lab at 42 Oxford St, was the nation's second largest accelerator.

Accelerators, one of the most important tools in physics today, help scientists determine the structure of atoms. A beam of protons are aimed around a rim of iron of up to several miles in circumference to collide with anti-proton matter flying in the opposite direction, resulting in a shower of subatomic particles.

But the Cambridge Electron Accelerator was shut down in the 1970s, as better and faster accelerators became necessary. No longer are accelerators costing millions of dollars adequate to do high level work; instead, today's top facilities--containing miles and miles of metal--run into the billions.

"We were doing our best work when it was cut off," recalls Professor of Physics Richard Wilson. He and other scientists associated with the lab stress that the government--which was funding most of the lab's work--not Harvard, was responsible for closing down the machine.

Baird Professor of Science Francis M. Pipkin says that the accelerator was phased out to from more money to build more powerful accelerators elsewhere, as physics has become much more complicated since the early '60s.

Currently Harvard's lab, which costs about $2 million annually--not a high figure in the world of high-energy physics--is used primarily to construct sophisticated equipment that will be used at other labs says Richard G. Leahy, associate dean for research and the Allied Institutions. Almost all of this money comes from the federal government, he adds.

The lab also houses a high technology computer installation for data analysis and employs a total of about 80 scientists, researchers, and technicians and technicians.

But beyond these relatively small outlays, Harvard can not pour much more support into the lab, because the amount needed would represent a quantum leap over what any university could realistically afford.

"We just can't do it here anymore. To do the experiments in high energy physics requires a billion-dollar facility," says Dean of the Division of Applied Sciences Paul C. Martin '52.

Research today costs so much that "Harvard really couldn't make a dent financially." Pipkin says. "It's just impossible for them to fund all the experiments."

As a remedy, aside from conducting experiments-elsewhere, the scientists have been looking to the government for more money, but in vain.

The size of government grants have been diminishing with the increased budget consciousness of many politicians, Wilson says.

"We don't get much help from our Congressmen and Senators," he says, adding that government grants have not even kept up with inflation.

Moreover, the University will not put any more funds into high energy Physics, Leahy says. "If the government pulled out the program would terminate immediately," he add.

Harvard, however, is not the only university facing this problem as professors at other universities agree that the experience is a common one.

Labeling the lack of money "a pervasive problem." Princeton physics professor Val Fitch says that the lack of funds "simply means a slower pace for research. It's a linear relationship."

Because of the financial trends high energy physics labs are no longer being constructed by single universities. Instead, they are designed created, and operated by large university consortiums, combined with the government, and are made available to scientists throughout the world.

Some of the major labs now used by Harvard professors include Fermilab in Batavia, III., the CERN lab in Geneva, and the high energy physics lab at Cornell University. Harvard is one of 80 institutions to help run and utilize Fermilab, where both Pipkin and Wilson conduct experiments.

One Harvard Nobel laureate, Higgins Professor of Physics Sheldon I. Glashow, is currently working with officials in Texas on designing another multi-billion-dollar facility.

The commute that physics today requires, scientists agree, is a definite drawback.

"We must compromise ourselves as teachers and researchers when we go to other places." Rubbia says. "All we have are our ideas and ourselves."

While professors say they understand that constructing operating high priced equipment like a state-of-the-art accelerator is financially out of the question for Harvard, they add that small additions Harvard can provide may make a big difference.

For example, Pipkin cites additions in staff and computer facilities as two areas that would cost the University relatively little money, but would make a noticeable difference.

Also, since travelling has become essential to conducting experiments, additional funding for transportation would be a great help, he adds.