Two former Nobel Prize laureates in physics were recently asked to

guess what area of research would win the Nobel Prize for physics

in the year 2000. Both of them, without prior consultation and with

hardly a hesitation, said brain research. The human brain, they con-

eluded, is our ultimate intellectual challenge in the last quarter of

the twentieth century. 5~p,~-~-c

There is a double irony in the choice of the brain as an area of

research worthy of Nobel Prizes in physics. For one thing, physics

is one of the laard sciences,~ a model of the "objective~ view of the

world. Brain research, in contrast, has been modeled on biology, a

"softer,~ more fuzzy discipline where disagreement abounds. (Arti-

cles are still appearing from time to time attempting to disprove

even such well-established biological principles as evolution.)