An Interview with Peter Carruthers Physics,Philosophy, by Leonard M. Simmons, Jr.

and Geoffrey B. West

P eter Carruthers recently stepped down — or steppedup, as he puts it — from a seven-year tenure as Leaderof the Los Alamos Theoretical Division to return to the

main work of his professional life — research in pure physics.During these seven years we have seen a new side of Pete —

a tough leader with vision, foresight, and an instinct formaking things happen. He has changed the image of theLaboratory in the eyes of the scientific community, and hasfought hard and successfully in Washington for support ofbasic research in physics.

The metamorphosis from a scholarly professor to toughDivision Leader was indeed a shock to us. We had known himat Cornell University as something of a boy wonder, dedicatedto his work and surrounded by graduate students not muchyounger than he. His breadth of experience in both solid-stateand particle physics was rare among his contemporaries. Hisopenness, encouragement, and enthusiasm for new ideas — hissardonic wit, good judgment, and appreciation for real talentattracted many students to him. With his horn -rimmed glasses,mild exterior, and office over-owing with books and papers, heappeared more like an old-fashioned scholar of classicalmanuscripts than a hard-driving physicist on his way to thetop. He had and still has serious interests in music, birdwatching, and trout fishing and, of course, an intense deep loveof physics. Thus we were somewhat surprised when HaroldAgnew, then Director of Los Alamos, invited Pete to becomeTheoretical Division Leader; even more surprising, however,was that Pete accepted!

Although Pete entered the Laboratory as a novice inadministration, he used what leverage he had to accomplish agreat deal. He restructured the Theoretical Division andestablished new groups in many areas (high-energy physics,theoretical biology, statistical physics and materials theory,theoretical molecular physics, applied mathematics, and deto-nation theory). He stimulated intellectual excitement and astrong sense of exploration; he hired talented people and left

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Leadership,&Policy

them free to work. He brought eminent scientists from outsideto participate in the life of the Laboratory. It was an uphillbattle and for those who had known Pete in his previous life,quite something to see! To us, Pete was Clark Kent steppinginto a telephone booth before important meetings, to emerge asSuperman ready to fight for what he believed in.

Pete had not been part of the scientific establishment beforecoming to Los Alamos, but his new position gave him entreeinto the corridors of power and he quickly took full advantageof the opportunity. He became involved in national sciencepolicy, participating as Chairman of the National ScienceFoundation’s Physics Advisory Panel, member of the NationalAcademy of Sciences’ Committee on U.S.-USSR Cooperationin Physics, member of the Department of Energy’s HighEnergy Physics Advisory Panel, and Chairman of the Board ofTrustees of the Aspen Center for Physics. He joined JASON, agroup of U.S. scientists who work three months each year onscientific and policy aspects of the country’s defense andenergy problems. He still holds many of these positions today,and recently he has been appointed a Senior Fellow of theLaboratory.

We now know Peter as someone who cares deeply on agrand scale, but still remains a champion of the little guy, thebright young scientist who needs to find a job. He can beruthless and uncompromising and act harshly when necessary(but not without the side effect of sleepless nights). As one ofthe few Division Leaders at Los Alamos to have beenappointed directly from an academic position at a greatuniversity, he has fared well and served well. He has become aforce in the world of science policy and will undoubtedlycontinue in that role.

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“Leadership is the kingwaving the flag in frontof the army saying,‘Let’s go get thebastards.’”

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“There has to be a SIMMONS: When you came to Los

feeling of freedom andAlamos your experience in adminis-tration consisted of running an under-

reward. You can ‘t get graduate course of maybe 50 people.

good science out of What made you think you could run abig theoretical division?

people who recognize CARRUTHERS: It never occurred to

that they are being me that I couldn’t do a thing like that. I

managed. ” just thought it took good judgment. Ofcourse, it takes mostly stamina.SIMMONS: Do you think adminis-trative experience is important for mostadministrative jobs in science?CARRUTHERS: A little bit will makelife easier, but I don’t think that’s asimportant as having the right instinctsfor finding good people and letting themdo what you want done. The key issue isthat the people who work for you respectyou and respect your judgment andfairness. Of course an illustrious scien-tific reputation can get you respect, butyou may be a wretched administrator,nevertheless. On the other hand, a goodadministrator per se may not have sharpscientific judgment. And neither may beable to judge the quality of people. Evenif you’re a competent scientist, after awhile you may lose the freshness of thatcompetence and, since there’s no reasonfor a scientist to be an administrator in ascientific establishment unless he main-tains scientific judgment and com-petence, we might be better off with goodadministrators. It’s a very complicatedbusiness.

One of the principal evils of the feder-al science establishment, both in Wash-ington and outside, is the emergence topower of a permanent ruling class ofrotating bureaucrats who don’t com-mand the respect of the people that theycontrol. There is an entropy death facingAmerican science with its present trend

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to expansion of titles, and functions, andmemos, and the ever-present Xerox andKodak machines that simply producecommunications and the need for morecommunications.

Ever since I’ve been here there’s beenan increasing trend, both externally andinternally, towards the illusion that youcan manage science, whereas all you canreally do is to get good people who areinterested in the subject you want todevelop. This increasing accountabilityat all levels of the federal establishmentexudes a cold air that drives out the kindof neurotic and creative people that youneed to make a breakthrough. There hasto be a feeling of freedom and reward.You can’t get good science out of peoplewho recognize that they are being man-aged.

Of course you do have to deliver, butthere is a way of getting to the answer byleadership, which I distinguish frommanagement. Leadership is the kingwaving the flag in front of the army,saying “Let’s go get the bastards.” Thenthe captains will race along en-thusiastically and fight the battle. Withmanagement the king sends a telegramfrom 50 miles behind the lines saying“Why aren’t you to latitude 42.54? Ac-cording to our long-range plan, you weresupposed to have been there last week.Kindly fly to Washington and explainwhy you are not yet at your milestone.”One thing that can be done to improvethings is to encourage the few peoplewho have both first-rate scientific talentand some aptitude or tolerance for lead-ership and responsibility to get in thereand take their turns. That should meanthat it’s not a lifelong sentence that willdestroy their research careers. Anotherthing is to make sure that there aren’t so

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many rewards for mere politicians andentrepreneurs. That requires the bestleadership at the highest level.WEST: Do you have any regrets, havingleft Cornell?CARRUTHERS: I often feel quitenostalgic for Ithaca itself. But I’ve foundthat people in Los Alamos are reallymore fun. On the other hand, my respon-sibilities here have kept me from doingmuch serious research. I was at Cornellfor 17 years altogether, as a graduatestudent and faculty member. It wasextremely peaceful, and I never realizedwhat an idyllic, quiet place it was andhow conducive it was to doing flat-outscientific research with a minimum ofdistraction. Of course the long, gray, wetwinter encourages work,WEST: Why did you take the job here?CARRUTHERS: I don’t know whatFaustian tendencies were growing in mebut I began to realize that the Labora-tory was an enormous resource, and thatit might be possible to do something withit. In the area of physics I knew about,which was essen t i a l ly pu reacademic-type physics, the TheoreticalDivision did not have very much tooffer. Its areas of excellence were in themore applied areas that I would have tolearn about later. But finally I decided Ineeded to change my life, and I becamevery eager to get the job.

One of the attractions was the sheerphysical beauty of the Rocky Moun-tains, The other thing is that Los Alamosis a very dynamic place, however con-fused, in which all kinds of things aregoing on. There is much more trafficthrough Los Alamos of significant scien-tists involved in national affairs thanthere ever was at Cornell. I wanted tohave a try at living in a different kind of

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environment.At Cornell, each department had a

moat around it. There was not a com-munity of scholarship in which human-ists talked with scientists about signifi-cant issues. If there was, then I wasn’tpart of it. I think Los Alamos is muchmore integrated intellectually.WEST: Had there been a disenchant-ment for you in university life?CARRUTHERS: Yes. University life isentrenched and rigid, and it’s very hardto transform the way a place is. I feltfrustrated that there was no chance toinfluence the future. I felt this was anopportunity to change the world in someway beside writing yet another paper.SIMMONS: Universities have the repu-tation of being bastions of liberalism.Don’t you believe that’s true?CARRUTHERS: I certainly don’t be-lieve it’s true. Especially after I testifiedfor the students after a police riot.

University life has many virtues, andoften I miss them. Especially I miss thestudents and the general mix of culturalopportunities. But it certainly has itslimitations, and it’s not clear that univer-sities will always have the predominantrole in scientific research that they havehad in the past. In a way, the entiresociology of science may be undergoinga change—the same kind of changewhich makes it possible to have reallygood science at a national laboratory,presumably dedicated to giant projectsand technology. It may mean somethingfor the whole future of science in thecountry.WEST: Do you see that as positive?CARRUTHERS: If it creates ex-cellence, then I would say it’s positive;whether it’s better than what wentbefore, I don’t know. It’s just different,

and I’m not sure what it will be. It mightbe the case that in 10 or 20 years therewill be more exciting, first-rate sciencedone at institutes and laboratories thanat universities. Universities are in a ter-rible financial situation. They areover-tenured. The age of the facultykeeps growing. The number of studentsis decreasing. There are very few jobopportunities for young people. It’s notclear that the sociology of the traditionaluniversity is going to allow the nurturingof science in the vigorous way that it waswhen we were coming through the sys-tem.

There are, of course, new pressures onour country which never existed before,and those pressures require that scien-tists pay attention to new issues. Theinstitutes or laboratories may be theproper vehicle for that. Not to say that Idon’t have many criticisms of the wayfederally supported science is managedin this country.WEST: Thinking about coming to LosAlamos, did you see that somehow youcould play a role in national issues?CARRUTHERS: Yes, that was a veryconscious part of it. After World War IImany scientists became involved in de-

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‘The key issue is thatthe people who work foryou respect you andrespect your judgmentand fairness. ”

I INTERVIEW

“To me one of thegreatest hopes forscience in this country isthe informal collection ofscientists who aresensititive to policyissues and willing to beadvocates of science, notjust for their owninstitutions but on thenational scene.

fense issues. They became plugged in tothe right power circles and were turnedto for advice. Now there is a newgeneration coming in, and I view myselfas part of that new generation.SIMMONS: Did you think you wouldbe able to continue to do a significantamount of science after you came here?CARRUTHERS: I foolishly felt I couldspend half my time on research. InIthaca, if I could spend 4 hours a dayworking on physics that would be a goodday, by the time teaching, students, etc.,were taken care of. When I talked toHarold Agnew he said sure, take asmuch of your time as you want. Butgradually it wears you down.WEST: Did you enjoy the taste of powerthat you had as Division Leader—thefact that the corridors of power in Wash-ington opened up?CARRUTHERS: Power comes fromvarious sources, and some of it, much ofit, comes ex officio, if the job is suffi-ciently high. For example, just being aGroup Leader or Division Leader hasintrinsically a certain amount of fiscalpower and people immediately noticethat. There are people who had neverpaid any attention to me until I had thefiscal power of being a Division Leader.Suddenly they noticed me and wereextremely friendly. Now, I’m going tofind out which of them are my realfriends.

In Washington, unless you have eitheran enormous scientific reputation orsome large responsibility, the doors ofpower are not available to you. Ofcourse, once you get sufficiently knownto all the people who move in this sphereof influence, the titles are not so neces-sary. I certainly found that being aDivision Leader opened up many op-

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portunities for me, ex officio, thatwouldn’t have existed had I been just aprofessor at Cornell.

I enjoyed being in the center of theaction very often. I suffer from theschizophrenia of wanting to be simulta-neously a quiet scholar working in acomer and also making the right thingshappen—and making sure that the badguys don’t get in there and make thewrong things happen. There’s no doubtthat those things strongly motivate me.WEST: Do you think you can return tobeing the quiet scholar sitting in thecomer?CARRUTHERS: That’s the big ques-tion. It’s not so much that I’m corrupted,but whether I’ll be left alone. In thisgeneral area (on the national scene) inwhich genuine talent is so scarce, if youopen your mouth and say a few sensiblewords people may overestimate yourintrinsic merit in this regard. Soon you’reserving on every committee that’s avail-able, and spending all your time onairplanes.

To me one of the greatest hopes forscience in this country is the informalcollection of scientists who are sensitiveto policy issues and willing to be ad-vocates of science, not just for their owninstitutions but on the national scene.These people are always in touch witheach other. They prevent lots of badthings from happening, and even occa-sionally cause a good thing to happen.SIMMONS: As far as Los Alamos isconcerned, there seems to be constantwarfare between advocates of basic sci-ence and advocates of purely program-matic work. Is that healthy?CARRUTHERS: The people who workon practical and applied things often feelthat the basic-science people are para-

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sites on the body of the parent organiza-tion, and that those people even havecontempt for the people who are screw-ing screws into hardware, There is anatural suspicion in the two camps.

In the Laboratory at large, the prob-lem is very real. In T-Division, we haveintegrated the spectrum of interests, sothat the people doing basic work becomeaware of some of the long-range, appliedproblems and contribute to solving thoseproblems, and the people doing nuts andbolts work may be helped by being closeto people working at the frontiers ofscience. Both extremes profit from theexistence of the other, if they will onlyagree to be friends.

I don’t see how you can have afirst-class multidisciplinary national fa-cility like Los Alamos unless you have astrong team of people who are at thefrontier of fundamental science. Withoutthat you’re not plugged in to the realintellectual life of the scientific communi-ty. At the same time, you cannot justifya large multihundred-million-dollar facil-ity of the sort that we have withoutaddressing some of the genuine techno-logical issues of the country. This or-ganism is not necessarily a freak in-vented by happenstance. It could be oneof the strongest scientific organizationsas we move out of this century. Theuniversities may never recover from thedemographics and the sociology of ourculture, and our culture is not going tobe able to subsidize the research ac-tivities of the professors on the basis oftheir teaching activities. I expect thatthere will be an increase in institutions,but not to the extent that the Sovietshave institutionalized their whole scien-tific establishment, with very littlefirst-class research done in universities. I

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think that the national laboratories, orvariants thereof, may be on the rise.SIMMONS: Why did you choose acareer in physics?CARRUTHERS: When I was young Ibecame interested in birds and fishing,all of the outdoors and the creatures in it.I became locally famous as a promisingyoung biologist. It was claimed—thoughfalsely—that I could identify a bird bylistening to it walk on a branch. Ibecame a Boy Scout nature counselor,and I was the court of appeal for manymerit badges on biological subjects. Af-ter a while I began to realize that biologywas very hard. I was looking at the stars,became interested in physics, and readbooks, some of the old-fashioned inspir-ing books on relativity and quantummechanics. I also got books which wereway beyond me. As a high school juniorI couldn’t understand Riemannian calcu-lus and its implications for relativity, butI stared lovingly at the equations. I wasvery excited by these books, and at thesame time I felt that biology was fartherfrom the fundamental essence of exactscience, although I wouldn’t agree withthat point of view any more. I haddecided by the time I was 16 that Iwould become a physicist. In the mean-time, I was playing a lot of music, but Iwas not in a serious musical community,and there weren’t any influences on mewhich would have led me into that as acareer.WEST: You we re p r e t t y muchself-motivated?CARRUTHERS: In high school I wasregarded as a freak. I was the smart, fatkid with the violin, the honorary Jew ofMiddletown, Ohio. When I first went tocollege I came under the spell ofBertrand Russell. I read all of his athe-

istic works and joined his cult. Whenyou’re 19 that can be just right. I evenfounded a Philosophy Club at CarnegieTech. We met and seriously discussed allthe major philosophical questions, nodoubt in some naive way.SIMMONS: Did you read Whitehead?CARRUTHERS: Oh, yes, he was avery dull fellow, but I felt obliged to read

him because he was considered so im-portant—just like lots of contemporarytheories.WEST: What kind of an education didyou have at Carnegie?CARRUTHERS: During the first twoyears I found physics not very interest-ing, but I knew that the good stuff wasjust beyond. I spent a lot of time readingbroadly. I soon became intoxicated withjust learning. In my sophomore year, atone time I was taking 11 courses. I triedto learn everything I could.

At the end of my sophomore year Ihad reached the right level to really beinterested in physics. I remember beinginspired by Max Born’s book on atomicphys i c s . The re i s a chap t e r onwave-corpuscles or wave-particle duali-ty, and the blinding insight of that re-mains with me. It was much more excit-

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“Bethe is a hero, and afather figure to me, anintellectual father

figure.”

INTERVIEW

ing than the austere beauties of relativity,w h i c h s e e m t o m e e s s e n t i a l l ykinematical , but don’t have theawe-inspiring dynamical content ofquantum mechanics.

When I first went to Cornell as agraduate student I was taking quantumfield theory without having ever learnedscattering theory—a slightly perverseway to do it. The instructor and myclassmates seemed to have no interest inthe pathological diseases which makethat theory not a theory. I assumed thatI was slow, because they all nodded theirheads simultaneously in phase wheneversome obscure mystery went past at thespeed of light.

I was very much interested instatistical mechanics and the many-bodyproblem and was turned off initially bythe field theory problems. So I starteddoing research, and as soon as I learnedFermi’s “Golden Rule,” I was writingpapers in solid-state physics. However, ithappened that Feynman was taking asabbatical at Cornell, and I found to myamazement that in his lectures helaughed at all the absurdities of fieldtheory. It came as a liberating influenceto find out that the things that botheredme were exactly the things that this greatman considered absurd and which hadto be removed from the correct theoryeventually.WEST: What are you referring to?CARRUTHERS: The entire structure ofinfinities and mathematical sicknesses inan otherwise beautiful structure. I beganthinking a bit about particle physicsproblems. I was so far advanced inwriting solid-state research papers that Icould have graduated after maybe a yearand a half of graduate “school. but I didnot want to be identified as some particu-

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lar kind of theorist. I wanted to be ageneral theorist, and so I decided Iwould do a thesis in particle physics. Iscrewed up my courage and went to visitBethe, which is a very scary thing for astudent. He seemed to have heard of meand took me on. Then, of course, hewent back to Geneva for some indefinitetime for disarmament talks.

I came in very early in this period andsaw him studying a Physical ReviewLetters article having to do with theone-pion exchange mechanism of pro-ducing an extra pion off a nucleon. Itwas written by Charlie Goeble. He said,“Well, Charlie Goeble is a very smartfellow, and I’m not sure that this isexactly right, but there is something veryinteresting here and why don’t you lookat it.” So, I looked at it and decided thatwhat was missing was the interaction ofone of the final pions with the nucleon. Iwrote a thesis on this subject.

After three years at Cornell, I wasfinished, got an NSF postdoctoral fel-lowship, and settled into Cornell. Then Iwas summoned to the Chairman’s officeand told that I was going to be anAssistant Professor, teaching quantummechanics to the first-year graduate stu-dents. I said I wasn’t ready to teachquantum mechanics, that I wasn’t evenready to be a professor. I asked them toleave me alone and let me have mypostdoc and do my research. (Of course,t h i s s i t ua t ion i s i nconce ivab lenowadays,) But I joined the CornellPhysics Department, I piled my deskhigh with learned books on quantummechanics, studying all of the oldpuzzles that quantum mechanicians liketo ponder.SIMMONS: This was about 1960?CARRUTHERS: January of 1961. For

several years I tried to keep up in bothsolid-state and high-energy physics butwith teaching and graduate students andso on, I didn’t have the stamina to do theresearch in two major fields. I chose tostay in particle physics and graduallystopped the other. However, that way ofthinking about many-body systems hasalways influenced my particle physics.It’s the way of thinking that has nowtaken over almost all of field theory andmodern particle physics. So I’ve neverregretted that experience.WEST: Did you enjoy teaching?CARRUTHERS: Oh, yes. That’s themain thing I miss, being at Los Alamos,the students and their frisky ways. Iremember being frustrated giving examsbecause the students always averaged37%. I would decide to make the testeasier the next time. It didn’t work. I waslearning at the same rate that I wasmaking the tests easier. At one time I gota book on how to teach. I never read it,of course, and the students continued toget 37% on all exams.WEST: Were you a good teacher?CARRUTHERS: Well, you’ll have toask Mike Simmons, who only listened tothe smutty remarks, I think. I thought Iwas well organized; I don’t know if I wasa good teacher.SIMMONS: Did you do much prepara-tion for your classes?CARRUTHERS: I felt naked and de-fenseless if I didn’t come with a completearmy of notes with all derivations intact,though as you well know, there weretimes when I might improvise after anall-night graduate party. There weresome subjects in which I felt so totally incontrol that I didn’t need any prepara-tion, but that was based on some earlymastery of the subject.

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WEST: Did you enjoy having graduatestudents?CARRUTHERS: I especially enjoyworking with graduate students. Theykeep you moving. I prefer teaching un-dergraduates. Graduate students are somuch in awe of the professor that theydon’t really give him a hard enough time,whereas the undergraduate sits there andsays, “Who are you? Why should Ibelieve that? That doesn’t sound veryconvincing to me.” What are you goingto do when a student tells you that?WEST: What did you do?CARRUTHERS: Well, I brought beerto the final exam. Along with Bob Dylanquotations to entitle each question.SIMMONS: What was it like beingBethe’s student?CARRUTHERS: It was quite peacefulbecause he was spending a lot of his timein Geneva—disarming. These were thefirst serious disarmament talks, as Irecall.WEST: Do you see that, in any way, asa connection between what has becomean interest of yours here at Los Alamos?CARRUTHERS: It might be, but atthat time it must have been very wellsuppressed because I was completelyuninterested in politics. I couldn’t im-agine why he spent all his time goingaround the world dealing with what Iconsidered insoluble problems. I valuedhim for his insight into physics, and Iwas sorry he wasn’t around more.SIMMONS: Did he have any particularinfluence on your style of research?CARRUTHERS: He had a very stronginfluence on my general standards. Betheis a hero, and a father figure to me, anintellectual father figure. After you’rearound him awhile you realize that it’sgot to be right, and there isn’t any other

option. It’s not half right, or almostright; it really has to be right. That’s alesson that is not very much in voguethese days. Also he was usually unin-terested in very abstruse theories and Ithink that, for a while, had an impact onmy own orientation in” theory, thoughI’ve drifted to becoming more abstractas the years go on.WEST: You said that at the very begin-ning of your graduate career you choseparticle physics because you wanted notto be identified as a specialist. Was thatin any way related to Bethe?CARRUTHERS: No, that waspre-Bethe. I saw that people got catego-rized and put in boxes and I didn’t wantto be one of those people.SIMMONS: Let me ask you about adifferent kind of thing, something that Icall the “Feigenbaum effect.” There is atypical progression for a talented youngperson in science: from his Ph.D. to thepostdoctoral appointment, during thefirst year of which he publishes a half adozen papers, thereby acquiring his sec-ond appointment; during the first year ofthat, another half a dozen, thereby earn-ing a permanent position. Some peopleviolate all of that. Are there lots of themor only a few? Is there something wrongwith this standard way of handlingyoung scientists?CARRUTHERS: Yes. There are quite afew sensitive people who can’t stand thestrain of competition with people equallygood, or who have bad luck, don’t havestamina, or have personal problems.Some of them are lost. This happens inevery field. You lose people everywhere.I think you lose fewer people in physicsthan you do in most highly intellectualactivities. But the “Feigenbaum effect” isreal. Mitchell Feigenbaum did little to

INTERVIEW

preserve his career by publication. Oneof the best things I have done here wasto pull somebody off the street whosecareer was endangered, but whose talentwas unmistakably superior to almostanybody else that I had ever met of thatage group. This is high-risk investment,and it rarely happens at a university.

Five years later, Feigenbaum has pro-duced major advances* in our under-standing of turbulence, one of the out-standing scientific puzzles of our time. Inthe usual institutional context, if youwere looking for somebody to studyturbulence, you would advertise for anexpert in fluid mechanics, preferablywith computer skills. However, decisiveadvances usually come when talentedpeople take a fresh look at a subject, Thepractice (at Los Alamos and elsewhere)of hiring “already qualified” people forspecific tasks, often under the pressureof programmatic deadlines, is harmful tothe long-term quality of science.

But the quality survives miraculously,despite all the human foibles that aretranslated into the way science is done.That’s largely due to the experimen-talists, I suppose. Somehow science isself-correcting. Even though credit oftenis assigned unfairly, the actual evolutiongoes on, you sort out the better ideasfrom the junk, and occasionally there aremajor insights.SIMMONS: Let’s talk about somethingdifferent. The importance of music toyou dates back to a very early age.CARRUTHERS: Nine years old. I sup-pressed it pretty much during collegeand immediately after. The desire to domy own research overwhelmed every-

*See "Universal Behavior in Nonlinear Systems,”Los Alamos Science, No. I (Summer 1980).

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“There’s nothing whichquite combines thesensuous with the intellectualas really first-rate music.It a daily part of my existence... ”

INTERVIEW

thing else in my life. Then I began tocome back to it.

When I was about eight, I heardJascha Heifitz play the Beethoven violinconcerto on the radio, and I said, “Iwant to do that.” So my mother ar-ranged for me to get a violin and ateacher.

There’s nothing which quite combinesthe sensuous with the intellectual asreally first-rate music. It’s a daily part ofmy existence as you can tell by the dirty,gnarled fingertips.SIMMONS: Did you ever have secondthoughts about not following music as acareer?CARRUTHERS: There’s no doubtabout that. What I had secretly wantedto do for a long time, and thought wasthe finest creative act, was to writefirst-rate classical music. Of course, youmay not know that you’ve writtenfirst-rate music until much too late, butthat seems to me to be one of the finestthings.WEST: What do you see as the rela-tionship between the experience of phys-ics and the creative process in physicsand that of music?CARRUTHERS: I’m just old enoughnow that everything seems to be merg-ing. If you’re working on a Bach sonata,you may have to play a hundred timesthrough a few lines before it really beginsto work. If you’re doing physics youmay have to bang your head on the wallfor a couple of weeks before you finallysee the way through to doing it right.There is a lot of hard work involved, butwhen it’s all in place you have greatsatisfaction.

I can’t account for the intellectualcomponent of music, but I feel it ex-tremely deeply. The structure and the

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counterpoint, the development of thethemes, are rooted in our mental struc-ture in the same way, or related to theway, that I feel the texture ofmathematical equations which expressphysical laws. There is a beauty to that.WEST: Do you see or feel that as aspiritual experience?CARRUTHERS: Both things are spiri-tual, but there is the question abouttruth. In science there is finally an ex-periment. You may have thought thatyour equations were extremely beautifulbut, in fact, they are likely to be wrong.However beautiful, you have to throwthem away.

If you’ve written a marvelous sonata,in what sense is it right or wrong? It mayhave internal consistency, structure, andbeauty. There is always this extra con-straint on scientific work, which at leastsuperficially distinguishes science fromthe arts. The arts seem more free-wheeling and lacking of boundary condi-tions. In fact, the farther you are fromthe exact literal truth, the more insightyou may give to the actual truth. Youmay value it more because it’s so bizarrethat it reflects onto the truth in a waywhich illuminates the truth, whereas withthe physical theories, if they are wrong,they are out, and you are ruined. But inthe actual doing of science, you don’tproceed that way. You’re optimistic, andyou don’t throw away ideas until you’vehad the fun of creating something.SIMMONS: Do you see more of ananalogy between art and mathematics?CARRUTHERS: Yes, I certainly do.Mathematics can create its own struc-ture of logic and beauty and doesn’thave to face an experiment.WEST: Changing the subject, who aresome of the physicists that you most

admire? The people outside physics?Whom do you see as wise men?CARRUTHERS: I always especiallyadmired Landau because of his universalscope and overwhelming intuition. It’seasy to admire some of the historicallygreat mathematicians. You can’t imaginehow they did what they did. Musicians,poets, writers, and so on too numerousto list. Montaigne’s essays are splendidexamples of wisdom. I often read one atbedtime. The cynical old bastard hasthought of everything and is gifted withthe best touch. I love Russian literature;I find wisdom in all this madness, as inKafka.SIMMONS: This is the second time thatRussia has come up in the conversation,and I want to ask your opinion ofU.S.-Soviet scientific relations. What is aproper and profitable posture for individ-ual scientists in the U.S. and for U.S.institutions dealing with Soviet col-leagues?CARRUTHERS: I’m somewhat of amoderate on this question. As in theU. S., there are many kinds of people inthe Soviet Union. There are those whohave used the system to promote them-selves, and there are many highly prin-cipled, brilliant people who somehowmanage to create in this system. I feelthat you have to encourage the latter andmaintain contact with them. Simply turn-ing your back on the scientists becausethe government is repressive in regard tohuman rights is probably a mistake. Onthe other hand, they’re too outrageous insending Sakharov off to live under housearrest in Gorki. Some official notice isnecessary, not just for his sake but forthe cause of these people in general. Thecessation of official exchanges for afinite fixed time was a useful expression

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of that, though the Soviet governmentdoes not seem to understand that this isfelt by the majority of the Americanscientists. The August decision of theU.S. Academy to continue the ban onexchanges is destructive to the exchangeprogram, however.SIMMONS: A number of colleagueshave said they cannot in good con-science go to meetings in the SovietUnion or to meetings where Soviet scien-tists were present. Is that dangerous?C A R R U T H E R S : I t h i n k t h eself-righteousness is self-evident. It’svery easy to be self-righteous in thisworld, and I don’t see the point of that.It’s very frustrating to realize that wehave to work on a time scale which is solong that we may not live to see theoutcome of it. By encouraging the mod-erate elements in the Soviet Union, per-haps in 50 years there will be noticeablechange. I think we should do that. Thefact that we are frustrated year afteryear and have all of these absurd andhumiliating developments doesn’t seemtome to be reason to give it up. I think acontinuing, restrained and, above all,adult response to these problems is whatwe need.SIMMONS: Acting as the representativeof our Academy of Science, you’ve dealtwith representatives of the SovietAcademy. Our academy has little impacton anything. Theirs runs almost every-thing in science. What’s it like dealingwith them in those circumstances? Dothey realize the difference?CARRUTHERS: My general im-pression is, they overestimate the politi-cal influence of the American academy.They find it hard to realize that it’s notsymmetrical. On the other hand, theydon’t really run everything, because

there is the State Committee on AtomicEnergy, which is somewhat like DOE,and there are, of course, the KGB andthe Communist Party to complicatethings. For example, dealing individuallywith Russian physicists, I found themextremely cooperative and helpful, butby the time an agreement filters throughthe system to an actual exchange pro-gram, so many people have put in theirtwo-cents worth that the resemblance tothe original agreement is hard to see.Their internal politics is even more com-plex than ours.WEST: Do you feel there should bemore institutional guidance in U. S. sci-ence and technological programs thanthere is at present?CARRUTHERS: I certainly do. TheNational Academy of Sciences occupiesthe turf but doesn’t do anything muchexcept issue reports.SIMMONS: What about the PhysicalSociety?CARRUTHERS: The Physical Societyis an ineffective organization. In theAmerican Physical Society you have, ofcourse, only a part of science. Theofficers are donating their time. Most ofthem don’t take their gloves off and go inthere and fight. You have to be willing togo into the arena these days to advocateyour cause. It’s not a matter of gen-tlemen discussing the future of scienceover tea. There are too many powerfulinterests in the country who will use upall the resources with no attention to thelong-range health of the society. Youhave to be willing to represent your casein the most powerful possible way. Thatmeans confrontation.SIMMONS: Is there a way of using thePhysical Society, of changing it so that itcan be an advocate for physics?

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“I can’t account for theintellectual component ofmusic, but I feel itextremely deeply. Thestructure and thecounterpoint, thedevelopment of thethemes are rooted in ourmental structure in thesame way or related tothe way, that I feel thetexture of mathematicalequations which expressphysical laws. There is abeauty to that. ”

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"The greatest virtue is tosurvive, living andleading the life that youconsider productive anddecent. ”

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CARRUTHERS: It does advocate. Theadvocacy depends very much on who’sPresident at any given moment. We havegentlemen Presidents who don’t reallywork hard at it, and we have streetfighters who get in there and stir thingsup.SIMMONS: Street fighters?CARRUTHERS: Well, you do it inhallways and corridors. It’s not reallystreet fighting-it’s corridor fighting.SIMMONS: What are the gut issues?CARRUTHERS: Unfortunately, moneyis the bottom line. There is the partition-ing of the money that science gets, andthere is tremendous confusion aboutbasic versus applied science. In the lastfew years, the Carter regime has beenproudly announcing giant increases forbasic science. For example, the NationalScience Foundation, a case with which Iam familiar. Every time I look at one ofthose budgets closely I find that theincreases are not at all in basic science.They are in engineering or somethingelse, educational programs or things likethat and at the end of the year basicsciences don’t even get inflation. It’sbeen true for several years.WEST: What effect will this have?CARRUTHERS: In the case of theScience Foundation, the deterioration ofthe university research base has beenextremely serious: cuts in the numberand size of grants to university pro-fessors, cuts in the number of postdocsand graduate students supported bythese funds, dilapidated equipment, theU.S. falling behind competitively withrespect to other countries in certainareas. Unfortunately, a similar trend isgoing on in the Department of Energy,which supports the national labs. Thehigh-energy physics budget is quite a

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ways down, and the Europeans are tak-ing a very competitive run on our pre-eminence in that field.

My general attitude towards doingscience is that if we don’t try to be bestwe’re going to be second-rate. We haveto try to be best. We can address thecase of basic science, and I mentionhigh-energy physics, for example, wherewe’ve dominated in almost every sensefor 20 to 30 years, partly due to therejuvenation of American physics duringthe Second World War by Europeanimmigrants. Even on our native strength,it has been an extremely powerful show-ing. The obvious excitement of the sub-ject has penetrated every part of theculture, and the very best young peopleare thereby attracted into science. Firstof all, it might be the most glamorousthings of black holes, neutrinos andquarks and whatever—a bias towardscience and technology attracts peoplewho in earlier days might have donesomething different. As soon as we losethat glamorous image, it seems unlikelythat the very best people will go in forthese fields. It’s extremely important tomaintain an image of being first-class asa country in as many areas of basicscience as we can. We can’t maintainour position in the world unless a specialeffort is made to get the very best peopleinto these areas. So we have to guidethem towards working in science andtechnology in order to maintain thepolitical, military and economic strengthof the country in the face of a veryhungry and aggressive outside world.People have to be in a high state ofexcitement to maintain any excellence.SIMMONS: A lot of our colleagues seesome immorality in weapons work orassociation with institutions that engage

in national defense work. Do you haveanything to say on this issue?CARRUTHERS: The greatest virtue isto survive, living and leading the life thatyou consider productive and decent.WEST: Do you feel that scientists havea responsibility to work on problems ofnational security and defense? Wouldyou say, for example, that if we’re tosupport SLAC or Fermilab, the peoplethere should spend some of their timethinking about these problems.CARRUTHERS: I don’t think you canapply a formula to these people. Theyare all quite different. I do think there isa responsibility, and adopting a holyattitude towards it is naive. But if youare bored or hate that kind of work, youshouldn’t be made to do it. I thinkscientific activities can be defended onan intrinsic basis. There is a need forintelligent people to interact with thedefense community, because that is aclosed society where people speak aspecial language and often arrive at verypeculiar conclusions.SIMMONS: Do you disagree with ad-vocates of phased disarmament whoargue that an increase in armamentswould be stabilizing in many instances?CARRUTHERS: I know somethingabout the arms race, and it’s appalling.It’s increasing all the time and it’s veryfrightening. After a summer at JASON Iget very depressed. I’ve heard all thegenerals and colonels, and I’ve heardwhat the rampaging technology can donext year that it couldn’t do 10 yearsago.WEST: Do you believe in a kind ofnuclear stalemate theory?CARRUTHERS: I have believed in nu-clear stalemate theory, but only betweenthe U.S. and the Soviet Union. As soon

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as every chief in the world has his ownbomb, you can expect nuclear war. Ithink there are bad times ahead.WEST: Within that context, what doyou think of the morality of someoneworking on defense problems? Whatkind of stance should that person take?CARRUTHERS: I’ve been accused oflending my own—as I hesitate tosay—prestige to it. I think it’s alsoimmoral to turn your back on it and saythat you’re too fine to be involved ineven discussing it.SIMMONS: Should someone whosemorality is too fine to work on defenseproblems be working on disarmamentproblems?CARRUTHERS: If they’re goodenough in science, let them do whateverthey want to do. They don’t have to beintelligent in the ways of the world toadvance the cause of knowledge.WEST: What are your reactions topeople who are highly critical of nuclearenergy?CARRUTHERS: I think they haven’tthought through the awful alternatives. Iconsider it the least of the evils. The realevil is that the planet is overpopulated,and there’s no sign of change in thepressures from that direction. Nobodyhas ever had the guts to face that evil. Ihope we don’t solve it by a nuclear war.Coal is much more dangerous than nu-clear power. Slavery to OPEC is muchmore dangerous than nuclear power.What else is there?

Of course, the problems are verytough, and science may be silly to dashforth with a quick answer. On the otherhand, what’s happened in the politicalprocess is a paralysis in almost everysensible proposal. We have to live withuncertainty, and we might as well live on

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a ten-year time span and not say, “Well,in a hundred years perhaps the salt minewill crack and there will be some horribleleak and my grandchildren will be ren-dered sterile or some other worse thing.”There is a kind of self-righteousness inthat kind of attitude which can be verycounterproductive.WEST: One of the reactions in thepolitical sphere is that scientists havebeen self-righteous.

CARRUTHERS: It’s almost required.You must have the self-confidence tocarry you through the hostilities andcriticisms. It may look like arroganceeven if it’s not.WEST: Do you see that as a seriousproblem?CARRUTHERS: Well, I don’t knowwhy the public trusts Walter Cronkiteand not the scientists ■

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This report was prepared as an account of worksponsored by the United States Government. Neitherthe United States nor the United States Department ofEnergy. nor any of their employees, makes anywarranty. express or implied. or assumes any legalI lability or responsibility for the accuracy, com-pleteness. or usefulness of any information, apparatus,product. or process disclosed, or represents that its usewould not infringe privately owned rights. Referenceherein to any specific commercial product, process, orservice by trade name, mark, manufacturer, orotherwise. does not necessarily constitute or imply itsendorsement. recommendation, or favoring by the Un-ited States Government or any agency thereof. Theviews and opinions of authors expressed herein do notnecessarily state or reflect those of the United States

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