Jeanne Van Der Merwe
31 January 2002
Cape Town — SOUTH AFRICA holds the key to the future of theoretical physics in Africa, according to some of the greatest scientific minds on the planet.
A group of international celebrities in theoretical physics - the science that led to the use of electricity, the atomic bomb and the World Wide Web - have gathered in Stellenbosch for a physics summer school until tomorrow, and have described Africa as having immense potential for physicists.
Several postgraduate students from South Africa, Benin, Zambia and Morocco were among the 70 who attended the school, along with students from Europe and the United States.
David Gross, director of the Institute for Theoretic Physics in Santa Barbara, US - and a strong contender for this year's Nobel Prize for Physics - said Africa was faced with immense challenges but had the potential to overcome these.
"Apartheid and South Africa's history of isolation greatly hampers the development of pure science in the country, but the mere fact that we're here shows that things are changing.
"Bad education in science is part of the history, and one should find novel ways of educating large numbers of pupils.
"The best way of doing this is through the internet.
It's the greatest equaliser of all - it can enable a student in the middle of Africa to read exactly the same papers as I do.
It can provide good teaching and get important content across.
"Connectivity is the best investment a government can make in education.
"Africa has an enormous reservoir of brains, and physics always needs bright, excited people.
With the right encouragement anyone can participate in physical science, and you only need one bright generation to change the state of science on the continent.
"We must never underestimate the importance of physical science.
Theoretical physics is the basis of electricity, the computer, the cellphone - it affects every part of our lives."
Brian Greene, author of the science bestseller The Elegant Universe, who also teaches at the summer school, said the fact that books such as his and Steven Hawking's A Brief History of Time were bestsellers showed "a hunger for some insight into how our world began".
Jim Gates of the University of Maryland, said South Africa had a crucial part to play in the future of theoretical science studies in Africa because of its resources.
"We would like to keep returning to South Africa and encourage our colleagues to do the same to ensure that all goes well with physics in South Africa, because if all goes well here, it will go well in the rest of Africa."
Leonard Susskind of Stanford University in the USA, said: "For the first time in South Africa we've seen real racial integration in physics.
A considerable fraction of the students attending are black Africans, and they're doing as well as those from the first world."
However, he said that it was worrying that many of the South African students at the Summer School didn't think they would be able to make a career out of theoretical physics.
"Students generally think there isn't a career in pure science, and yet there are four professorships vacant at Wits University.
For this reason, the universities are not as strong as they could be."
Hendrik Geyser, professor at Stellenbosch University's physics department, said the conference had helped students, especially those doing research in the field of String Theory (which aims to explain how all matter and forces are connected), in linking up with other universities and broadening their own backgrounds.
The summer school started on January 23 and ends tomorrow.
It is the 14th of its kind and is being held at the Devon Valley Hotel in Stellenbosch.
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