Physics of Cancer...

Credit: AIP-Lead-in Photo

The American Institute of Physics publishes several articles on "The Physics of Cancer," and related articles illuminating the research in the topic towards a cure for the disease.

I offer this with some sensitivity and personal experience: my father ultimately expired from lung cancer in 1999; my mother was a breast cancer survivor until her passing in 2009.

It is comforting to know that biological, physical and mathematical sciences, and the yeoman's work of researchers are concentrated on this issue: the extension of human life in length and quality the ultimate goal.

For us as a nation to have a contribution and a stake in this, we need to encourage our youth to enter these fields, engage them in the classroom with exciting labs and non-threatening presentations; as contributors to the advancement of knowledge, not just the end-user-consumers. There should be a way to present science, technology, engineering and mathematics with a little less militancy (as in my own case); entertaining without theater or pedagogic sophistry.

For those, as I, who've been affected similarly, trust that there will be a dawn where like polio, this will ultimately be a part of our history.

Science...and hope.

We've arranged a global civilization in which the most crucial elements — transportation, communications, and all other industries; agriculture, medicine, education, entertainment, protecting the environment; and even the key democratic institution of voting — profoundly depend on science and technology. "We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology." This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, (1995) Ch. 2 : Science and Hope, p. 26, source: Wikiquote

American Institute of Physics: Physics of Cancer, Edited by:

Robert H. Austin, Princeton University, NJ

Bernard S. Gerstman, Florida International University, Fla.

Colorado University: Discussion of Science and Hope (referencing Carl Sagan)