Computing in Physics: Are We Taking It Too Seriously? or Not Seriously Enough?

Abstract

A of us who are involved in the sciences know that the computer has become an essential tool for research. We're impressed and perhaps surprised that Moore's law of exponential growth in computing power has persisted for three decades. I'm certainly surprised to be writing these remarks on a laptop that does most of what supercomputers could do just a few years ago. I enjoy using this device, and Fm eager to look through the new window on the natural world that is being opened by the next generation of supercomputers. But Fm also uneasy. I wrote in a report last year that scientific computation has reached the point where it is on a par with laboratory experiment and mathematical theory as a tool for research in science and engineering. I think that statement is true. If so, however, it implies more of a change in the way we do research than many may realize. Ill explain by recalling some history and discussing a few examples. As readers of PHYSICS TODAY must know, Walter Kohn won the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his density functional theory of many-electron systems. Many readers also know that Walter was the founding director (1979-84) of the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, California. He defined goals for the ITP, established its mode of operation and, most importantly, by the policies that he adopted and his personal example, set standards for all of us who were lucky enough to be engaged in the enterprise. Walter is a person of firm principles. Among those principles, in 1979, was that the ITP should be first and foremost a physics institute, not a computing center. His original National Science Foundation budget for the ITP relied on existing on-campus computers; it was not until some years later that we acquired a small mainframe.