EDITORIAL
Where Are You Going, Young Man-and Why? Dr. Richard L. Kenyon
T
he ways of emphasizing the growth of science and technology are many, and they vary in the impressions they convey. The increase in money spent for research and development has been rapid in the past few years and suggests a wealth of opportunity and material progress. The sharply rising curve of the number of scientific and technical papers published each year tells us that the increase in information available is appalling. We must accept greater specialization and narrowing of the limits of individual responsibility for grasp of that knowledge. But to read that perhaps 90% of all the scientists and engineers ever trained are alive today brings visions of a terrifying avalanche of competition—and perhaps a fear that all but the most exceptional will lose their identities in the mass. Add to all this the rising level of knowledge needed as a sound base before entering the specific area of training that produces the first-rate scientist or technologist, and the prospect can be discouraging. The student preparing for advanced training or the young chemist or chemical engineer ready to begin a career ought not to let this wall of statistics deter him. As science grows, the possibilities within it grow. One can lose sense of proportion and fall victim to the idea that the scientist of the next generation, for comparable success, must cope with the same proportion of the total knowledge or dominate the
same proportion of the total field as did the scientist of the generation past. That is not so. There are many more brass rings on the merry-go-round of science today. Perhaps the most difficult problem lies in deciding which brass ring to try for, or how many. In selecting goals, one should not forget the joys of the ride itself. One of the hardest things for many novices to foresee is the satisfaction that can be derived through development of one's own knowledge. This, above all, should be kept in mind. A long, hard drive is needed today to prove one's self as a scientist or technologist. To spend such effort to acquire knowledge only with the goal of being able to hire himself out at a high price as a tool for someone else, or to give himself leverage for total devotion to fighting upward to a little higher calculated rank, might lead to dismal hollowness in the man as he reaches the closing stages of his career. We think it need not be so. We think that one who is developing a career in science or technology should place high among his goals the satisfaction that can come from the love of knowledge and the pursuit of excellence. If these fundamental ideas are kept in mind, a life of hard, conscientious work is not likely to yield merely a handful of chaff. On the contrary, it can bring satisfaction with both internal growth and external development.
JAN
2 8, 1 9 6 3
PART
2 C&EN
1
