Need a Hamiltonian? Piece of cake. Have to work out a cross section? No problem. You want me to explain to my practical-minded parents what good this is going to do anybody? You may as well ask me to save the world. In four years at Carnegie Mellon I’ve learned physics from Newton’s laws to Supersymmetry, but I still haven’t quite figured out how to explain why my peers and I have spent the last four years working in a field where we may well spend the next 40 struggling to work out what the universe looked like after its first 10-40 seconds. And if convincing my parents that this really is a deeply interesting question is hard, getting them to believe in the importance of searching for an answer to it is downright impossible. After all, the pursuit of an explanation for what happened in a fraction of a second 15 billion years ago isn’t really vital to our national security right now, is it?

Strangely enough, I’ve been wrestling with a similar problem trying to explain a few of my interests to other physicists. One of my friends, upon hearing that I was planning to spend most of my summer fishing my favorite lakes in northern Minnesota, responded “Fishing!? What kind of sport is that!” The idea of spending hours sitting in a canoe (which had to be portaged half a mile just to get to the lake), being bitten by mosquitoes, probably getting rained on, just to catch a few nice walleye (that of course have to be cleaned later on that night) just didn’t make sense to him. My reply, which I’m afraid didn’t do much to clear things up, was that, “well, it’s not so much a sport as a state of mind.”

Whatever you think of that rather cryptic remark, I think something similar can be said for physics. That is, while many people may not regard physics as a “proper” profession (especially when it comes to approving funding for it) they may do well to think of it not so much as a trade but rather as a style of thinking. Certainly students with undergraduate or even graduate degrees in physics do many things besides what most people would consider “physics.” They tackle engineering jobs, take legal positions, work on Wall Street – in fact it’s my firm belief that physicists can do pretty much anything. While a few of us eventually become professors and continue the physicist life-cycle, many more go out into the world and do a great many things – and do them exceedingly well.

Somehow, as we learn mechanics and E&M, quantum mechanics and relativity, we physicists develop methods of problem solving that reach far beyond our field. Building and running our experiments, we develop skills that can be used in countless ways, in countless arenas. How this happens, I’m not sure. It could be that, as we like to think, physics really is the hardest thing there is, and after learning it everything else is a piece of cake. Or perhaps (as we also like to think) physics simply tends to draw in the best minds that are out there. Or maybe our professors, like wise old Mr. Miyagi, knew exactly the exercises that would strengthen our minds and bring out our analytical problem solving potential. Polishing light guides is remarkably similar to waxing a car.

However it comes about, physicists, by whom I mean those trained in physics whatever profession they pursue, play a vital role throughout the world, and today, when clear, sharp, rational minds are especially needed, this role will only grow in importance. Clearly in national defense, but also in foreign policy, environmental matters and social issues, physicists have the ability and opportunity to be the respected voice of reason that can deal with problems, suggest solutions, even do some of the dirty work. It is my sincere hope that some of us will take on this responsibility, and I fear many more of us may be called to do so in the near future.

But if one of us who has gone or will go out into the world to use our physics training to solve these problems happened to be drawn to the field by his curiosity about what really did go on in that first 10^-40 seconds 15 billion years ago, maybe we’d better keep that end alive too. It just might save the world after all.