Farewell to the US as the world's top science nation

When I asked John Savage, the retired co-founder of the Department of Computer Science at Brown University, what the essential ingredient in research is, he responded with one word: “Passion.”

- Llewellyn King, Tribune News Service

It is passion that keeps scientists going, dead end after dead end, until there is a breakthrough. It is passion that keeps them at the bench or staring into a microscope or redesigning an experiment with slight modifications until that “eureka moment.” I have been writing about science for half a century. I can tell you that passion is the bridge between daunting difficulty and triumphant discovery. Next comes money: steady, reliable funding, not start-and-stop dribbles.

It is painful to watch the defunding of the nation's research arm by a third to a half, the wanton destruction of what, since the end of World War II, has kept the United States the premier inventor nation, the unequaled leader in discovery. It is dangerous to believe the status quo ante will return when another administration is voted in, maybe in 2028. You don't pick up the pieces of projects that are, as they were, ripped from the womb and put them back together again, even if the researchers are still available — if they haven't gone to the willing arms of research hubs overseas or other careers. The work isn't made whole again just because the money is back. The passion is gone.