| Please, Mr. Government Man, don't stop my Teraflop! I'm on the scent of a new simulation, a fabulous sensation! -Found scribbled on the wall of a Supercomputer Center |
 Fund me, I'm gorgeous! |
| Please, Mr. Government Man, don't stop my Teraflop! I'm on the scent of a new simulation, a fabulous sensation! -Found scribbled on the wall of a Supercomputer Center |
Fund me, I'm gorgeous! |
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The voices of scientists have often carried surprisingly little weight when it comes to the funding of science. The current plans of the National Science Foundation (NSF)regarding future funding of its Supercomputing Centers may turn out to be a case in point (http://www.cise.nsf.gov/cise/ASC/). The program based on "centers" is to be replaced by one built around "partnerships," to be known as Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure. These aren't partners for life; the progam is scheduled to be "sunset" in 2008, ten years after it takes effect. A look at the history of the NSF since it was founded under Alan Waterman reveals that the crossroads where SC funding now finds itself is emblematic of the different forces that the NSF has always had to reconcile. The fact that the social sciences have been cut from the NSF may be indicative of the loss of a vision of society that has been crucial to the logic of the funding of scientific research since the seventeenth century. With the loss of the Cold War as a raison d-etre, we may begin to see how badly eroded--like the Brooklyn Bridge--the earlier and more crucial foundation of principles has become.
To a casual observer it might appear highly probable that Supercomputer Centers could only benefit from the success that home computers have had in becoming part of American popular culture--showing up in everything from commercials for softdrinks to Hollywood blockbusters. But this hasn't happened. Recently the National Science Foundation announced plans to hold a new competition, with each winner receiving a big chunk of the money the NSF is offering to support such centers (currently four Centers share $65-million a year). One major result of the competition is expected to be the elimination of NSF funding for one of the four Centers. One of the reasons why Supercomputing Centers haven't benefited from the general success of computers is that the rewards of packing greater memory and processing speed in a small package have produced a change in the very meaning of "super." Massively parallel systems--the new "super"--take advantage of essentially having many small microprocessors working on parts of the same problem simultaneously. When collaborating with private industry, the NSF no longer makes out the big checks to companies like Cray Research--renown for "super" in a now antiquated sense--but to the likes of Intel, companies involved in manufacturing hardware for the new model of "super." But hardware is only part of the equation. Teams of personnel who have experience working with the technology and are able to translate the needs of scientists coming to the Centers from many different fields now count more heavily in the new meaning of "super." Software development is also now given more value than previously. Perhaps even more important than the rapid change in technology has been the reluctance of Congress to support government-funded research of science and technology. A report released last year by the American Association for the Advance of Science (AAAS) sounded an alarm regarding the future of scientific research, now that the "consensus" for such funding emanating from the Cold War has disappeared. AAAS calculates that non-defense spending on research and development will decrease by approximately 33 percent in real terms by 2002. NSF has mostly avoided the radical surgery effecting other agencies and programs, but has not escaped unscathed. Social science research is to be eliminated; last year this research helped match data from the various industrialized nations about levels of poverty; the result showed inequality of wealth to be greater in the U.S. than in any other industrialized nation; it looks like someone just decided to shoot the messenger. Feeling the pinch, the NSF has had to redefine the parameters of programs such as the Supercomputer Centers. The funding for the Centers was established in 1984, in the wake of concern that the U.S. was losing its edge in supercomputing. Earlier this decade, scientists at the Centers were emphasizing the need for "pure research." The recently issued "Report of the Task Force on the Future of the NSF Supercomputer Centers Program" bends over backwards to downplay research and emphasize the Centers as service providers. Another report highlights a quote from Alexander Hamilton on why government funding of science is required. They might have added that Hamilton also wrote, "A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing." But the latter statement reflects an opinion from one of the fathers of the American revolution that isn't popular with other contemporary so-called revolutionaries. No one is saying which of the Centers will get the short stick. Will it be Cornell, the University of California at San Diego, Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (check out their recently introduced Supercomputing Museum: (http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/Expo/main.html), or the collaborative effort by the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University? Stay tuned. |
