gain of another five orders of magnitude in antenna 

 sensitivity during the next five years. The out- 

 standing future problem to be tackled in this in- 

 strumentation development will be to produce a 

 corresponding increase in the sensitivity of trans- 

 ducers coupled to the improved antennas. 



Core (pure) mathematics. In the period from 

 World War 11 to the mid-sixties, the U.S. mathe- 

 matical research community grew from one of 

 modest stature on the international scene to one of 

 unquestioned preeminence. It has been a major 

 achievement of the Foundation to have maintained 

 intact the research capability built up then during 

 the past decade, which has been a time of excep- 

 tional budgetary stringency and economic uncer- 

 tainty for both educational institutions and govern- 

 ment when virtually all support of core mathemat- 

 ics by other Federal agencies has ceased. 



Initiatives in Research 



In some fields, advances in research supported 

 through this Directorate can be attributed in signif- 

 icant part to initiatives in programing and in the 

 cultivation of existing fields where special needs or 

 opportunities were discerned. Some examples are: 



Establishment of a program of basic research in 

 computer science. One of the outstanding techno- 

 logical achievements of the 20th century has been 

 the development of the computer. Spurred by the 

 demands of that technology, a new scientific dis- 

 cipline has emerged with its roots in abstract logic, 

 mathematics, linguistics, and engineering — the dis- 

 cipline of computer science. The Foundation has 

 established a program of basic research in this dis- 

 cipline. 



A major area of active research in computer sci- 

 ence is abstract complexity theory. Modern 

 technology has given us more powerful computing 

 devices at lower cost. Complexity theory concerns 

 the classification of solutions to problems in terms 

 of computational resources such as the time and 

 memory space they require. Much of this research 

 involves finding better algorithms, proving or dis- 

 proving the existence of efficient algorithms, 

 finding good approximation algorithms for hard 

 problems or determining the "average" behavior 

 of algorithms that appear intractable in the "worst 

 case." Rapid progress has been made in this field 

 in recent years. 



Research in computer science and computer en- 

 gineering requires computing and computers. Care- 

 ful consideration shows many instances of re- 

 search that require computing facilities or other 

 research equipment dedicated to the research task 

 at hand. The advent of minicomputers in recent 

 years has made this an attractive option in terms of 

 cost and effort and led to the decision by the Foun- 

 dation to encourage the development of experi- 



mental research by providing dedicated instrumen- 

 tation. 



The phrase "intelligent systems" denotes com- 

 puter-based systems that have some of the charac- 

 teristics of intelligence. Relevant areas include pat- 

 tern recognition, pattern generation, knowledge 

 representation, problem-solving, natural language 

 understanding, theorem proving, and others that 

 relate to the automatic analysis and handling of 

 complex tasks. Basic research in these areas has 

 been supported by the Department of Defense 

 (DOD), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), 

 the National Aeronautics and Space Administra- 

 tion (NASA), and NSF, but recent shifts in re- 

 search interests by DOD, NIH, and NASA have 

 reduced the support available from these sources 

 by several million dollars a year. The Foundation 

 is now increasing its participation to protect the 

 vitality of this research which has always been 

 considered the most difficult but potentially one of 

 the most important areas of computer science. 



Surface science. The last several years have wit- 

 nessed enormously increased activity in the field of 

 surface science by chemists, physicists, and ma- 

 terials scientists. The study of surfaces has broad 

 implications for catalysis, corrosion, surface-ac- 

 tive electronic devices, and materials failure. Re- 

 cently, the advent of new experimental techniques 

 such as low energy electron diffraction. Auger elec- 

 tron spectroscopy, high resolution ion and electron 

 microscopy, and photoelectron spectroscopy has 

 revolutionized the prospects for understanding 

 surfaces at a level of sophistication not previously 

 possible. At the same time, many theorists, utiliz- 

 ing modern theoretical and computational tech- 

 niques, have become involved in interpreting the 

 results of the experimental investigations. This has 

 also led, at major research centers, to the forma- 

 tion of collaborative groups of surface researchers, 

 often from different academic disciplines and em- 

 ploying complementary surface-sensitive tech- 

 niques. Considerable progress is currently being 

 made toward the fundamental understanding of the 

 properties of idealized surfaces and of simple mo- 

 lecules adsorbed on them. However, there is also 

 increasing effort on more complex systems having 

 more direct implications for technology, particular- 

 ly in the field of catalysis. The relatively underem- 

 phasized area of interfaces, which bears on inter- 

 granular failure in structural materials, has also 

 assumed increased activity and importance. 



Rejuvenation of inorganic chemistry. The Foun- 

 dation has provided special funding for this area. 

 The effort has laid a basis for today's advances in 

 the area of homogeneous catalysis research. Inor- 

 ganic chemistry was already experiencing a resur- 

 gence in the early 1960's when the Foundation de- 

 cided to give this area of chemistry special atten- 



NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION 21 3 



