Photonics enjoyed the spotlight in Washington, D.C., last week
First, on Wednesday morning leaders from the optics and photonics community
give an enthusiastic launch to the new National Research Council report “Optics and Photonics, Essential Technologies for Our Nation,” aided by
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and former Intel CEO Craig Barrett.
Chu and Barrett were featured speakers at a briefing for agency leaders.
Their remarks included references to several important benefits enabled by
photonics:
- economic strength
- sustainable energy sources
- new methods for medical detection and treatment of diseases and chronic conditions
- more efficient lighting, computing, manufacturing, automobiles, and very much more.
Wednesday afternoon, the House R&D caucus heard from leaders
of four societies in the sector about the report’s findings on economic impacts
of optics and photonics, the importance of improved STEM education, and the
committee’s recommendations on particular technology directions.
Then, on Thursday, came the Golden Goose Awards.
 |
| "The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs," illustrated by Milo Winter in 1919. |
If you’re familiar with European folklore, you’ll recall two
stories related to gold and geese. In one, a goose lays eggs of gold that bring
her owner wealth; in another, a goose with golden feathers helps secure
a poor peasant lad the life of a happily married king.
But the name of these awards actually is related to a bit of 20th-century
Americana.
In the 1970s and ‘80s, a U.S. Senator named William Proxmire
instituted what he called the “Golden Fleece” awards to call out what he considered
to be research projects of dubious value.
The problem with such judgments is that it isn’t necessarily
clear what the ultimate value of research will be -- what looks dubious today
may save lives tomorrow, in fact.
Enter the Golden Goose Awards. Initiated by U.S. Representative
Jim Cooper and supported by several scientific and educational associations and
institutes, the awards celebrated "researchers whose seemingly odd or obscure federally funded
research turned out to have a significant impact on society," in the words of
the organizers.
The
winners of the first Golden Goose Awards are excellent examples -- and not
surprisingly, optics and photonics were central to all three efforts:
- Charles Townes ,a physicist whose work in the 1950s led to the invention of laser technology, which at the time had no known application and was even called “a solution in search of a problem,” but without which much of modern technology would be impossible. His work earned him a Nobel Prize in 1964, along with Russian researchers Aleksandr Prokhorov and Nicolay Basov.
- Eugene White, Rodney White, Della Roy, and the late Jon Weber, whose study of tropical coral in the 1960s led serendipitously to the development of an ideal material for bone grafts and prosthetic eyes that is used commonly today.
- Martin Chalfie, Roger Tsien, and Osamu Shimomura, whose research, following Dr. Shimomura’s work on how certain jellyfish glow in the dark, led to numerous medical research advances and to methods used widely by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. They won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2008.
Also
not surprising: The same agencies who funded research on the maser, green
fluorescent protein, and coralline ceramics were among those with representatives in the room Wednesday for the launch of the new NRC report.
As SPIE CEO Eugene Arthurs noted at the caucus briefing, "Opportunity calls, and its name is 'photonics'."
As SPIE CEO Eugene Arthurs noted at the caucus briefing, "Opportunity calls, and its name is 'photonics'."
Hear
in their own words what two speakers had to say about the NRC report “Optics and
Photonics, Essential Technologies for Our Nation” in this brief video:
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