News & Views item - August 2010

 

 

France's President Welcomes the 35th International Conference on High-Energy Physics. (August 2, 2010)

The full address is available online*.

French President Nickolas Sarkozy welcomed the seekers of the elusive Higgs and other hunters within the sub-nuclear-particle bestiary on July 26 with:

 

You have come together to share your work as the leading scientists in your field. And what a field it is! I will certainly not attempt to describe it - I would be far out of my depth - but I know that your work epitomises the purpose of science, its primary goal - to expand the frontiers of knowledge, to explore and map as yet uncharted areas of understanding. There is no greater human endeavour than the work you engage in day by day.

 

[S]cience is, I am well aware, a fragile enterprise and scientists must be defended against obscurantism, fanaticism, wilful ignorance and contempt for the truth. These dangers still threaten us, as they always have. Ultimately, your work pursues the oldest dream of humankind, the attempt to discover the origin of the universe and of matter. You address the question that human beings have asked themselves since time immemorial, which, in the end, is simply put: Why is there something rather than nothing? You formulate this existential question, scientifically, as an enquiry into the structure of the universe: What is it, how does it behave, and why is it the way it is? But in the end, it all boils down to: Why is there something rather than nothing?

 

To the malcontents, and there are some, who claim that your research is divorced from the life-and-death issues facing our planet - disease, poverty, lack of development - I say that the pressing issues of the moment must not and must never be allowed to compromise the future. To see the two realities - the short- and the long-term exigencies - as conflicting with each other is to miss the point. Knowledge is indivisible.

 

Basic research does not focus on concrete applications, but a country that fails to give it priority is making a historic blunder. The scientific edifice must be comprehensive: there can be no applications without basic research or breakthroughs without its results... After all, electricity and the light bulb were not invented by incremental improvements to the candle.

 

France has made an unprecedented commitment to research. In the current economic downturn, many countries have chosen to curtail their research budgets... we chose not to cut ours. Instead, we increased it... considering that higher education and research are
the solution to the recession. The economic downturn should not prompt us to postpone investment in science, but rather to bring it forward and consolidate it... this is common sense. We cannot afford to fall back on obsolete certainties. We must unremittingly strive to find new solutions and to steadily create the new knowledge that will be our best weapon in fighting the recession.

 

Ultimately, the future of the earth rests largely in your hands. Many people have asked me why I planned to attend your conference. This shows that I have my work cut out for me explaining what you are doing. Is it not important, as the Head of State of the world's fifth-largest power, to address a community of scientists who, in the long line of knowledge and scientific understanding, are responsible for the future of the planet?

 

It is extraordinary that it does not occur to people to systematically involve you in the major decisions, choices and endeavours that we statesmen are responsible for making and pursuing as part of our jobs. Your job is not an easy one; neither is mine. But I believe we need each other. You need us to give you the resources and the framework for your work and to protect your freedom of research. And we need you to ensure that your research comes up with the innovative solutions we require if we are to address the major issues facing the countries we lead.

____________________________________

*TFW is indebted to an occasional reader who brought President Sarkozy's address to our attention.