Without fanfare or ceremony, the most celebrated scientist in the country, Stephen Hawking, quietly stepped down this week from the most prestigious post in British physics.
Hawking’s successor as Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University will be decided by committee this month, but as he moves on, leading physicists warn that Britain risks losing the next generation of great minds.
Government pressure on universities is diverting researchers away from purely intellectual problems and on to sure-fire money-making projects, physicists say. The university’s role of pulling in and nurturing deep thinkers will be sidelined in favour of people who can turn profits by making better widgets.
The shift from "blue skies research" to more practical problems will turn gifted students with the potential to be the next Hawking or Sir Isaac Newton off science for good, physicists claim.
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