Tuesday at Lindau

A traditional German social evening was organised for Monday night. Each laureate sat amongst the students. Chatting with Prof. Blombergen and his wife, they told me about studying science in the post war years in Europe. At 88, Prof. Blombergen was one of the more senior laureates present and as such personaly knew many of the scientists I read about in my undergraduate years. Whilst discussing a meeting he had with Pauli (the exclusion principle) his wife interrupted to ask if he was dead or not. Prof. Blombergen pointed out to her that he died in the 50’s. It was weird to think that they knew these people, which I have only read about, on a personal level. A somewhat hesitant crowd was coaxed into some traditional German dancing with suitably cheesy Bavarian music.

The countess led the researchers and laureates in the dancing.

Bio-chemistry took centre stage Tuesday morning with Professors Johann Deisenhofer,  Robert Huber, and Hartmut Michel sharing their experiences on protein folding the applications of physics to solving biological problems. Each stressed the point that many advances in physics are built on the advances made in physics-based techniques, namely – X-ray crystallography, the development of the cyncotron and so forth. The discovery of the structure of DNA is a perfect example of such a breakthrough.

This was followed by a panel discussion with seven of the laureates on the topical issue of climate change. Only one sceptical voice (that of Prof. Giaever) appeared from this learned team. He admitted that his area of research was not climatology but questioned, none the less, the methods used to record temperature in the past and hence and rise in global temperature claimed by all the other laureates was not based on comparable measurements. The counter charge to this Google researched argument was led by Prof. Rubbio as he outlined the arsenal of refereed scientific data that support the effect mankind is having on our climate. He cited the UN based International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC http://www.ipcc.ch/) report based on hard figures claiming that the probability of the observed global temperature rise being due to humanity is 90% certain. Echoing this, the other laureates felt that we are at a critical point in this crisis. They claimed that the technologies to solve most of the problems existed already. “The science to answer climate change issues has already, in many cases, been done. It is now up to our engineering colleagues to make these options viable”, claimed Prof von Klitzing. They all agreed that nuclear and solar technologies were the best option. This makes stark reading for Ireland’s energy needs as we seem unable to even debate nuclear energy, let alone accept it, and let’s not even mention the lack of sun incident on Irish soil. Bio-fuels was universally criticised as a political answer to a political problem (compensating farmers). Prof. Osheroff pointed out the amount of money we spend each year compensating farmers in the west for a way of life consigned to the past, whilst we spend a tiny percentage of this number on developing solutions for the future.

A global effort is required (something all agreed on) to tackle climate change with the inclusion of developing countries such as India and China crucial to its success. I asked the panel how they felt the advice of scientists was perceived by our political leaders and the public. Prof. Osheroff told me that after speaking at a recent meeting on the ignorance of the Bush administration, he was approached after his talk by a US Dept. of Energy official who proceeded to chastise him on criticising the president in such a way. He was visibly annoyed at this and challenged us all to confront such ignorance. All laureates agreed that politicians worldwide must listen to the professional, refereed, and calculated impartial opinions of scientists and not the sensationalist media.

Respect for such opinion, belief in existing scientific solutions and massive increases in the amount of research money being put into moving these scientific findings into engineered realities.

Lindau harbour by night.