Communication and Comprehension of Scientific Knowledge.

artist, and poet, until after the time of the Renaissance when a new tool was perfected by the use of which he could project a new, more exclusive public image. This tool was the experimental method which led to the flourishing of natural science in the Western World. Our Academy’s birth occurred at a time when systematic use of accumulated scientific knowledge for practical purposes was first being made, which soon caused the flourishing of synthetic chemicals and metallurgical industries. Only recently did societies as a whole, through governments, recognize science as a powerful stimulus for political, economic, and cultural change and progress; and thus only recently did governments begin consciously to promote science. The result has been its continuing exponential growth, the appearance of many new scientific disciplines, and also the emergence of many difficult problems. President Kennedy spoke of some of the problems in his address at our Centennial Convocation. Some others will be considered by the distinguished speakers this afternoon. The extraordinarily rapid growth of science (let us not forget that over 90 per cent of all natural scientists who ever lived are still alive) and the proliferation of new areas of research have led, from sheer volume as well as other factors, to difficulties in communication. There is the problem of transmitting information among the sciences, to preserve their coherence, if not unity; an individual scientist knows more and more about less and less. A far more difficult problem is communication between scientists and those who apply the results of scientific research to political, technological, and cultural purposes. This is the topic about which we shall hear from Dr. Oppenheimer. Dr. Wiesner will speak of our Government’s effort to expand science in the expectation of rich practical returns for our society and to enhance its cultural contributions. Dr. Fisk will tell us of the problems which arise when knowledge obtained in basic research is being translated into practical uses by organized modern industrial research teams. These are the uses that constitute the progress of our technological civilization. And finally Dr. Rabi will speak of science in the framework of the culture of a free society as a force of far deeper significance than mere satisfaction of material needs.