``My working hypothesis is that it's related to the potential for filthy lucre.'' Andy
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I agree. I think that is exactly what's going on. And I think that there are great forces and counter forces in the upper level government agencies that fund science, to channel as much as possible into potential applications that will end up in the market-place. The grand neoliberal view.
Of course these forces are not mystical. They are policy positions translated into determining the areas of research funding, with the caviat, that those who get the most and best results, get the most money. This part of the corporatization mentality of the whole system.
I should mention my own problems with idealism. I am an idealist at heart who is always breaking a leg. Picture the tarot card of the fool.
So, for example, my idealization of math and physic work coming out of pre-WWI and then Weimar, from this historical distance looks like a golden age. And I assume much of the excitment and comadarie was also ideal.
Now for the broken leg part...
About six months ago Ira Glaser suggested a book called Reshaping the German Right. I only got 70-80p into it, when I had a great flash. One of Germany's national projects under the Kaiser was to build an imperialist class navy. Political and public support from the power elite for this giant project was generated by an association called the Navy League.
When I read that, I got to thinking about building war ships----then I made the connection to math and physics. A battle ship is nothing but a giant math and physics project. So obviously the German government was putting money into places like Gottingen to build their new math institute that stressed combined studies in math and physics.
Whether it was conceived as such or not at policy levels, all the math, physical science, and engineering departments in the German university system as well the technical secondary education system, and then high industrial and technical sectors of the economy all ran like a giant Manhatten Project. These different sectors of the political economy composed something like a 19thC version of the military industrial complex.
The Navy League was composed of influencial aristocrats, bankers, industrialists, and conservative political figures---the group who would mostly oppose Weimar and end up supporting the Third Reich.
So, what does this have to do with the subject of my impressions of the general climate in US science? I think what makes me view technical works in Germany appear cooperative in spirit is because there was probably little competition over money because there was plenty to go around. The competition was on a nationalistic level, so everybody pitched in. So the comraderie I seem to feel and read about, noted in departments and in conferances in Germany, must have been something like that also noted in the Manhatten Project, before the big purges in the late 40s.
I had already formed some idealistic expectations about the inside workings of the Mahatten Project, where most of the biographies often mentioned great partnerships. Also I had read some of the above historical biographies of the famous German math and physic groups, where a similar kind of comraderie was often mentioned.
So, when I worked briefly at LBL, I had a great disappointment. For one thing, LBL by the mid-90s was struggling to keep up funding levels. DOE was pressuring LBL to close its older facilities. In turn personnel at these facilities were under constant pressure to demonstrate newer practical uses and applications.
While I was thinking about all this, I just realized something else, which should make for a good laugh.
The Co-60 room was housed in one of the older buildings in LBL and was an old facility. It was a massively thick walled concrete room. The entrance way was a specially shaped block maze. The outside door was so heavy it used a chain driven rail and iron wheel system to open and close. Meanwhile the outside control panel had old fashioned analog dials. There was a particular combination of switches and buttons to push to close the door, and a couple of large bakelite dials to turn, to adjust the level and time of the exposure. When you initated the door close sequence a very loud fire alarm bell went off. This was very old school nuclear. The place looked like it would survive the big one.
Thinking back on it, maybe the guys who put me through a couple of short courses on how to use this source were just being righteously paranoid. I must have looked like a radiation accident waiting to happen! Maybe the very uptight vibe was just healthy precaution. I am laughing now, thinking about it. Shit, stupid, they were just worried about your dumb ass.
CG