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  • Who Says Science Can't Be Fun? It was supposed to be a joke, but some scientists aren't laughing. On July 1, the New York Times published a letter from UC-Berkeley mathematics professor Paul Chernoff that called for his colleagues to ask the government for big bucks to keep the U.S. No. 1 in determining "the entire decimal expansion of pi." The letter was meant to spoof the current trend toward such big-science projects as the supercollider, the space station, and the earth-observing satellites. But several scientists missed the point and have taken Chernoff to task for his misguided notions. To one letter writer, Charles DeLisi, dean of engineering at Boston University, the topic may have struck a little too close to home. DeLisi is generally considered to have been the architect...
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