If they can put a man on the Moon….
Two talks at MIT this week have been thought-provoking in similar ways. The first was by a physics professor, Frank Wilczek, who recently won the Nobel Prize for his work on the Strong Force, which holds together quarks to form atomic nuclei. Wilczek showed some impressive drawings from the latest European particle accelerators in which subatomic particles are smashed together until the quarks start flying out. (This lecture is available at http://web.mit.edu/nobel-lectures/.) John Grotzinger, a geology professor, gave a talk about his experience with the Mars Rovers, which found evidence for flowing water on Mars in sedimentary rocks. The Rovers communicate with an orbiter and can also communicate directly with stations on Earth. In Grotzinger’s more than one year with the project they’ve never had a communications problem.
So… if human minds can get together to make ever-better particle accelerators, why can’t anyone build a reliable inexpensive nuclear power reactor? And if the Mars Rovers can call Pasadena, how come nobody with a T-Mobile phone can make a call from most spots on the MIT campus or along Memorial Drive?
In the 1970s people would ask questions of the form “If they can put a man on the Moon, why can’t they do X?” What would be the modern equivalent? The one great human achievement of our current decade that can be compared to the lack of accomplishment in most bureaucracies?
