Einstein's General Relativity

Many experts have resisted the urge to jump on the bleakness bandwagon, however. They say they have seen it circle through their neighborhoods in years past, blaring what turned out to be a false alarm.

In 1986 Erich Bloch, director of the National Science Foundation, warned, "We are not training enough young scientists and engineers." Four years later he wrote, "At the end of the pipeline, too few new Ph.D.'s are being produced, and an increasing fraction -- over 50 percent in engineering and mathematics -- are foreign students." He also noted that "the demand for engineers, scientists, and technicians is growing about twice as fast as supply and will exceed supply by 35 percent in the year 2000."

But it soon became clear that those predictions were about as accurate as long-term weather forecasts. As the 1990s progressed, the lack of science jobs forced increasing numbers of graduate students to continue their training after getting doctorates, sometimes moving from one fellowship to another before landing a more secure position. For example, in 1973 only 27 percent of the people earning biomedical Ph.D.'s went into postdoctoral positions. By 1995 the proportion had jumped to 63 percent.