A Foundation for research.

This happy occasion is a birthday celebration. It is a time for affectionate reminiscences and optimistic prognostications. It's a time to look back and a time to look forward-but most of all it's a time to sing Happy Birthday-off key or on. It's a time to look at the stars-not at the budget. It's a time to chortle in our joy for surely this is one of Lewis Carroll's frabjous days. Callooh! Callay! It's a time for faith-for the belief that there are certain self-evident truths. Among these truths is this: research is a fundamental human activity-it illuminates and blesses our lives. Sure it helps to make a living but most of all it helps to make living worthwhileculturally as well as practically. It's time to be an optimistthings cannot get worse; not a pessimist-things cannot possibly get better. Maybe I have that reversed-who cares? It's a Birthday Party. Happy Birthday, National Science Foundation. We salute your Board, your Director and, most important of all, your Staff. Twenty-five years ago the challenge was direct and explicit. The National Science Foundation Act of 1950 authorized and directed the Foundation "To initiate and support basic scientific research ...." There were additional mandates but there it was, the American people, through their elected representatives, created A Foundation for Research and that is the title of this piece. It is not the foundation, there are many other agencies and institutions in and out of government which support research. The word "foundation" is not used solely in terms of funding but more in its literal sense-the underlying structure on which all else rests. The word "research" is not qualified by the adjective "basic." In response to the pressures of our times, the Foundation was authorized to support applied research in 1968 by amendment of the act of 1950. One hundred and one years ago in Life on the Mississippi Mark Twain wrote: "There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact." Those in experimental work may relish Twain's jibe, those in theory may resent it. Be that as it may, the answer to Twain is clear-research is the investment of fact, the investment which may lead, at first to healthy conjecture and speculation, but which ultimately leads to understanding and hopefully to wisdom. The NSF has supported, encouraged, initiated, and counseled a fair share of the research investment in this country over the last 25 years in its many functions as A Foundation for Research. The NSF has other functions but here it seems appropriate to enquire into what return has this investment brought. This will be the burden of this tale. The choice of research returns to be discussed will be arbitrary but hope-