From: eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: What's is like doing theory?
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 01:16:01 GMT

In article <1992Jul28.152530.9318@doug.cae.wisc.edu>
kasab@luther.che.wisc.edu (John J. Kasab) writes:
I said:
>>NASA is not a "theory" agency.  You want the NSF.
>
>Actually, the NSF isn't a "theory" agency, either.  (I've worked there for a
>summer in the Engineering Directorate, so these are my observations only.)
>From what I can tell, the NSF's basic mission is to fund research projects
>and research centers in the US, and oversee this funding to make sure that
>it isn't being abused.

I should mention that I said the NSF half in jest.  One or two netters
whose names will go unmentioned have CS axes to grind with the NSF.
I have spoken with both Gordon Bell after he was at NSF and with Bill Wulf
during his time there.  The jest comes from the fact that this was what
NASA people said about the NSF.  This leaves DARPA which had quite an
enlightened attitude about certain fields like computing.  Portions of DOE
as well.

>If you want to do real research in a real government lab, you would probably
>be better off looking at Los Alamos, Livermore Labs, L.Berkeley Labs, the 
>Navy Research Labs, or, on the civilian side, the National Institute of
>Standards and Technology (formerly the National Bureau of Standards).

Naw, LANL, LLNL, LBL, FNL, SLAC, SNL, ORNL, HNL, and the other DOE labs,
NCAR, and NIST are all similarly mission-oriented.  Pockets of research
exist (I'm impressed that LANL started the Center for Non-Linear Dynamics
for instance), but these pockets are very small.  I have visited many of
the above.  Do not forget that the Univ. of Ca. runs LLNL/LANL/LBL, they
color the tone of the lab.  Similarly SLAC is run by Stanford, and Sandia
is run by the Telephone Company 8^).  Numerous other contractors run
ORNL, Hanford, etc.

Research exists on a very fine thread in this country.  Additionally, I
have visited the IBM Research Centers at SJ and Almaden, the old
Scientific Center in Palo Alto (defunct), Xerox PARC (very nice, to
duplicate this would be interesting), DEC WRL/SRC/WSL, the MIT Media Lab,
and have invites to visit IBM TJW and Zurich and Bell Labs (maybe some day,
I am out of that game, if I visit, it's just with friends).
I believe that research exists on a finer thread in this country than
out politicians realize, and that we are in far more serious trouble
than they can imagine.  This is why I have stopped working with big Conferences
and align myself with the Hackers Conference.

Research and theory in this country requires some nurturing away from immediate
needs of short-term business thinking.  It requires some amount of
encouragement and a special, critical-enough acidic skepticism (but not too
much to kill it).  It doesn't really need prizes, but Prizes motivate some.

The leaders (as opposed to managers) of research institutions are a
special breed.  Very few good ones, hard area of work.  I have been fortunate
to know a few.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
  Resident Cynic, Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers
  {uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugene
Second Favorite email message: Returned mail: Cannot send message for 3 days
A Ref: Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, vol. 1, G. Polya