Jerzy Pniewski Colloquium

Additional future funding for physics research might come from two different sources. One source, not yet visible, could be research grants from the private sector provided for a subgroup of physicists. These physicists would have already been recruited to participate in a future decades-long career development ladder for increasingly highly paid future top organizational executives. These physicists would (presumably) have already agreed to complete a first career in physics and then launch a second career as an aspiring top executive leader nationally or internationally. They might be selected for recruitment to such second careers based on their already demonstrated leadership skills in sizeable physics research projects (engaging perhaps ten or more physicists). They could then be helped to interpret and learn from their continuing experience as a leader in such projects for a number of years prior to making their switch to their second career. The amount of funding provided through such research grants as part of their incentive to agree to make a switch to a second career could be quite substantial. The amount of such funding could grow with time as the need for exceedingly capable executive leaders, already acute and largely unmet as of 2010, continues to grow. I know from private conversations that a first career in physics can provide an invaluable background in creative thinking, problem solving, and pushing for unceasing innovation by a person who later joins a career ladder headed for top executive leadership positions. Another source, already non-trivial in magnitude but likely to increase in the future, will be discussed far more briefly. It is the need to ensure ever-increasing reliability, through increasingly careful testing, of the underlying physical laws governing physics-based instrumentation used in multi-billion-dollar and increasingly costly applications in medicine, aviation, chemical engineering, astronomy and space research, and the like.