Financiers and politicians have been receiving publicity in abundance just recently, mostly of the negative kind. On 24 September 2008, Heritage Day, South Africa lacked a leader and America’s banks ran out of money.
The crisis in South Africa was the culmination of deep-seated differences of opinion in the hierarchy of a political party led by a president who had alienated himself from the people.
The crisis in America was the culmination of speculative greed in the hierarchy of a banking industry ultimately brought to its knees through mismanagement of financial instruments like swaps and derivatives. Called some years ago 'financial weapons of mass destruction' by the shrewd Warren Buffet.
The irony is that despite their tawdry nature, both of these professions are very well paid and much glamorised by the film industry.
In Oliver Stone’s 1987 film, Wall Street, Michael Douglas gives an alluring performance as corporate raider Gordon Gekko. Some say the character is based on that of infamous arbitrager, Ivan Boesky, who once startled an MBA class by telling them: 'Greed is good'. He was later convicted on charges of insider trading and sent to prison.
In Thirteen Days, Kevin Costner plays John Kennedy’s most trusted confidant while the US president stares down Soviet supremo, Nikita Kruschev, over the barrel of an intercontinental ballistic missile in Cuba. JFK was subsequently assassinated on the street in Dallas.
Science and engineering have had no such success in attracting the glare of the spotlight. Perhaps the reason can be found in a quote by English painter, John Berger: “Glamour cannot exist without personal social envy being a common and widespread emotion.” The problem being, that science and engineering simply lack the human intrigue that makes these other professions sexy.
There are initiatives afoot to try and change this, but, maybe, it will be a project like the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERNs) large hadron collider, which finally does it.
Designed to probe the very first instants of creation (cosmology’s ‘big-bang’) this 27 km long super-cooled particle smashing machine accelerates two opposing beams of protons to practically the speed of light and then allows them to collide with one another. The conditions caused by the resulting destruction are estimated to be those that might have existed in the early universe, giving scientists the opportunity to fill in some of the blanks in their theories by studying the annihilation between matter and antimatter.
According to CERN this is the biggest and most complex machine ever made. To get an idea of the scale and complexity check out this link sent to me by Technews MD, Darren Smith. (http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/08/the_large_hadron_collider.html)
The images are stunning and the comments are fun to read.
Some alarmists believe that if the experiments are successful then getting rid of an enemy may become as simple as ordering an anti-enemy from CERN, introducing the two, and watching them annihilate in a shower of gamma rays.
Others are more concerned that the accidental creation of a miniature black hole will swallow up the world (it is believed that some former Wall Street high-fliers are fervently hoping this WILL happen).
Let us hope it is enough to capture the imagination of Hollywood’s script writers and special effects experts, and provide the motivation to create the films that elevate the status of science and engineering to – ‘socially enviable’ professions.
Steven Meyer, editor:
SA Intrumentation & Control
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