COMMENT ON MEETING AT I-THEMBA ON 27 JUNE

I consider the process that has been started to be important because it is more 
than just a survey of what is going on in the field of physics in SA. It is going to 
determine the role and influence that the physics community and especially the 
SAIP will have in SA in future. 

After having attended the meeting and having read the comments on the web-
page I would like to make one, perhaps bold, comment by asking: Isn't this 
perhaps the decisive moment in history where the SAIP has to decide whether it is 
an "exclusive" of "inclusive" organisation?

We who call ourselves physics educators are boasting that the skills a student 
learn in physics is so good that physics students are sought after in many other 
professional sectors, like the financial sector. But these graduated physicists 
(some with PhD's) are excluded from being members of the SAIP on account of 
their current careers. Wouldn't the SAIP benefit from recognising them as 
graduated physicists, giving them the opportunity to play a role in the 
organisation and inviting them as speakers to give us as well as the public a 
broader view of how relevant physicists are?

We as physicists also claim that physics is the basis of all technology although 
we seldom get as far as developing technology ourselves. It is often extremely 
interesting (even if one is not involved in applied research) to hear from the 
"engineers" how physics principles are applied in the development of technology. 
Isn't there a way to make the SAIP relevant to these people - by recognising what 
they do as applied physics, by encouraging them to attend our conferences and 
workshops? (For example encouraging SAIP members to invite their "technology 
partners" to present something at the annual conference by reducing the 
conference fair in such a case; by allowing interested partners some form of 
associate membership.)

As I have understood at the meeting of 27 July the current success of the (British) 
Institute of Physics is greatly due to their shift towards a more "inclusive" 
organisation. I think in the process of conducting this survey the SAIP is going to 
make and communicate a decision of this kind (by who is included and who not, 
by the status given to institutions and projects). We have to be aware of its 
consequences.

C.M. Steinmann
12 July 2002