This slim, smiling face and humorous person is in fact a very serious person in the world science. He is Leslie Sage. The starter and not only astrophysicists and physicists would give everything for the approval of their pieces by Sage. Only after that the article may appear in Nature magazine. Sage is the editor-in0chief of this magazine, responsible for the physics division. For scientists this name is quite enough for the full understanding. And the ones, who are not familiar with Nature we will describe in a few words. Thus, Nature is one of the oldest and most prestigious scientific magazines in the world. It was first published in 1869. The turnout is 53.000 copies; however the number of readers, who are mostly scientists, is over 400.000. The publication in Nature is the dream of each scientist. The thing is that the authors of articles are often quoted and gain great popularity in a short time. In 2009 Nature was recognized the Magazine of the Century in the sector of chemistry and medicine. Therefore, it is no surprise that the magazine is pretty picky about choosing scientific articles. Most of the articles sent to Nature are filtered before they reach the editor by special experts because those should depict a serious achievement in science. For the first time the following inventions were published in Nature: W. C. Rentgen. On a new kind of rays./Nature. – 1896, J. Chadwick. Possible existence of a neutron. Nature, 129 (1932) 312, J. C. Farman, B. G. Gardiner and J. D. Shanklin. Large losses of total ozone in Antarctica reveal seasonal ClOx/NOx interaction. Nature, 315 (1985) 207-210, I. Wilmut, A. E. Schnieke, J. McWhir, A. J. Kind and K. H. S.Campbell. Viable offspring derived from fetal and adult mammalian cells. Nature, 385 (1997) 810-813. This is only a small part of the impressive list of Nature.
– Armenia is a small country with scarce financial resources. Do you think such a country has a big shot in the science sector? And is there any point to spend serious money in the development of fundamental science?
– I myself am form a small country as well, from Canada. Of course, compared to your country it’s bigger but globally it is small with the number of population and resources. My strong belief is that all the investments made in the science sector are justified. The country should spend as much as necessary for educating its people. Of course a small country cannot invest much money but that country with its scientists may be part of large international projects.
– Do you receive many scientific articles from Armenia?
– Personally I haven’t received anything either from Armenia or Azerbaijan or Georgia. During the past 17 years I have received a few articles from Turkey, Iran but those weren’t very good one.
– How can you explain that? Are there no serious specialists in those countries or the cooperation doesn’t work out well enough?
– It is a little difficult to give a certain answer to this. There are serious scientists. For your country I can concretely mention Garik Israelyan. I know of other Armenian scientists, who work in the US. The problem is that the scientists working in small countries work in certain shame. Perhaps their work is really successful but they think it is not for others and that their knowledge of English is not sufficient. And they don’t even try to send their pieces or articles.
– There are countries, which have never had serious science. For example the African countries. And there are countries, which have had serious scientific potential but it plummeted due to the lack of financial sources. For example Armenia. Do you think Armenia and the African states should start to develop their science from the same ground zero level? Or maybe countries like us, which have a wealthy scientific past, have certain advantages?
– Indeed, the country, which in the past has a rich scientific potential, is in better conditions. If the scientists migrated there is always the chance that they will return in order to cooperate with the local scientists. And if they ended up staying here but the state wasn’t able to provide them with serious funds they may console themselves with the fact that education has future. It means there are serious specialists, who may ultimately share their knowledge with the coming generations. A totally different situation is in the African states. They have a serious issue of finding teachers. Education has always been the good method of easily reaching a good life. Besides that the social and political situation also affects that. In the same African states a totally different situation dominates. In some of those countries there is civil war. People don’t bother to think about science and instead are trying to get bread.
– How important is the salary for a scientist and development of science?
– Let me say it this way. The salary is first of all important for a teacher – starting from the kindergarten teacher till a high school teacher. They should get maximum favorable conditions. These people should be proud to say they are teachers. For example, Korea had done it forty years ago and still gets the product of that.
– Thus, science starts from kindergartens.
– Absolutely correct. Indeed the teachers should also be prepared. They should know the material and be able to deliver it.
– In Armenia the situation is getting complicated because the children don’t have any incentives to study well. The child sees that a serious scientist lives in very bad social conditions and the people, who cannot even write their names right, are bale to gain wealth and millions. Therefore the motivation of studying vanishes.
– Yes, this issue exists not only in your country. Years ago, in Hong Kong I was speaking with my colleagues about the fact that scientists are not paid much. Indeed, they also need funds to take care of their families and provide decent social conditions. But let me tell you this. People don’t become scientists to become rich. They become scientists because of the evident passion of knowing and discovering. We shouldn’t strive to the fact that 30% of children must become scientists. It’s not going to happen. Even if 1-2% of them deals with serious science, that will be success. At any rate, the graduates of the high school should at least know how the science works. They should understand the language of numbers; should know what percentage means. Years ago I was in one of the African states and they wanted to offer a new subject to one of the local universities, which related to the journalists, who write about science. It means they wanted to conduct a brief lecture for the local journalists. I told them that it’s meaningless. All we need to do is to ensure that the journalist (or historian, which doesn’t matter) should understand how the science works, have certain understanding about mathematics, statistics, etc. Finally, he is not a worker of science, which delivers the news to the society in an understandable language.
– Do you teach yourself?
– No. My main work is in Nature. I have previously had students and still communicate with many of them. Two of them are my Facebook friends. And I communicate with them actively. I like to teach. But even in the vent of a great desire I wouldn’t be able to do so because I am very busy. Perhaps in the future when I will have more time I will resume my work with students.