Sheldon L. Glashow, Higgins Professor of Physics, will speak on experimental discoveries of the future today at a Mexican conference on high-energy physics research in Latin America.

Glashow, who also favors the construction of a particle accelerator in Latin America, said recently the Cocoyoc, Mexico, symposium has been "warmly received" by the Mexican government and other South American countries. "It's a step toward internationalism in the lab," he added.

After his speech, Glashow and other scientists attending the conference will meet with President Jose Lopez Portillo in Mexico City to discuss the future of high-energy physics research in Latin America.

Glashow--who teaches Science A-20, "From Alchemy to Particle Physics"--said interest in encouraging physics research in underdeveloped countries is growing. "It's interesting to see high-energy physics research going on in other countries when we're actually curtailing our research. Glashow said, adding, "It's ironic that they're going up as we're going down."

Paul Cox, head section leader for Science A-20, said yesterday physics research "pays off because it results in technological achievements."

Cox added that the accelerator Glashow hopes to promote in Latin America would be "the larger than anything yet designed," and which could be completed around the year 2000.

Besides Glashow, who won a Nobel Prize for physics in 1978. Burton Richter, professor of physics at Stanford University and a Nobel Laureate in 1976, and Wolfgang Panofsky, the director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator, will be present at the conference, which is sponsored by the Fermi physics Laboratory of Chicago, as well as "much of the physics establishment of Moscow," Glashow said.