When I finished my doctorate, and began teaching at Rutgers, I took a summer position at Bell Laboratories working on an anti-missile project. The idea was to build a defense against enemy missiles. I was offered a full time position at double my university salary, but turned it down. I disliked intensely the work atmosphere. People were not focused on trying to understand the problems involved and how to solve them; instead, they would talk only about their social lives. Management also did not understand how to focus on a problem. They would frequently stop work on a project in the middle of the project and move to something else. I realized that nothing could get accomplished this way.

 

This was in 1967. To this day, 2007, we do not have an anti-missile defense. We may have to go to war against Iran to take out the nuclear missiles, as we cannot live with this danger. For 40 years we have been working and not succeeding to build an anti-missile defense.

 

The reason is because we do not know how to work on government defense programs. We do not see the work as challenging problems to be solved. We do not see the work as extensions of our math and science training.

 

In summary, the danger we are currently in, that we do not have defense against missiles, can be traced to our poor education practices.