In reading the pages of Science, I have been struck by the stunning progress being made in

science and engineering new phenomena discovered, new materials synthesized, new methods developed. 【101】What I see behind many of these exciting stories is the widespread and even revolutionary use of distributed intelligence that is made possible by the "wiring" of the scientific community. It is more than a time saver or a communication enhancer; it is enabling us to think in new ways and its impact on society may be monumental.

The term "information age" probably does not do justice to the possibilities of this emerging era. 【102】This is an age of "knowledge and distributed intelligence," in which knowledge is available to anyone,located anywhere, at any time; and in which power, information, and control are moving from centralized systems to individuals. This era calls for a new form. of leadership and vision from the academic science and engineering community. We know from countless examples that academic science the engineering have enabled our society to make the most of new technologies. We wouldn't have today's advanced computer graphics systems if mathematicians hadn't been able to solve problems related to surface geometries. 【103】We wouldn't have networks capable of handling massive amounts of dare if physicists and astronomers hadn't continuously forged tools to look more deeply into subatomic structures and the cosmos.

Chemists' efforts to simulate complex phenomena and predict the properties of many-electron systems have inspired massively parallel architectures for computing. 【104】And the information made available by the sequencing of the human genome has caused us to rethink how to store, manipulate, and retrieve data most effectively. It will take new insights from studies of human cognition, linguistics, neurobiology, computing, and more to develop systems that truly augment our capacity to learn and create. The best may be yet to come.

Despite brutally tight constraints on federal discretionary spending, President Clinton has stepped forward to champion a 3 percent increase (uncorrected for inflation) in the 1998 budget of NSF (美国国家科学基金会). The president's request is only the first step in the congressional budget process ahead. 【105】Given that the priorities of Congress will almost certainly differ from those of the president, it will take an unprecedented level of input and commitment from the research community to ensure that investments in science and engineering receive the same strong bipartisan support they have enjoyed for generations. This 3 percent increase would enable NSF to launch a new set of investments spanning all its directorates.

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