EDITORIALLY SPEAKING Scientific Communication The Journal of Chemical Education has as its purpose the systematic presentation of chemistry in a coherent, understandable form. With new facts and theories being published faster than anyone can read and assimilate the flood, effective systematization is an indispensable service. It seems appropriate in this connection to raise for reemphasis a few old but very practical questions. Since English is being ever more widely employed as the language of science, we have additional reasons for improving its effectiveness. Both French and Spanish were reformed in days gone by being made phonetic and by acquiring a simplified spelling. Theodore Roosevelt made a gallant effort to simplify spelling in this country. The net result was a few changes in place names and one more proof that reforming English is like straightening the channel of the Mississippi. One should either leave it to regulate itself or find a way to get concerted action. When I enquired as to whether the ACS Journals might not be strong enough to initiate some spelling reforms, it was pointed out that our journals have problems enough without adding all-out spelling reform. Nevertheless, we ought to go as far as we prudently can t o make scientific English shed some of its more archaic forms. Anyway, it is fun t o watch the purists wrestle with some of the quaint f o r m introduced into the mother tongue by some not too skillful translators. To these unhappy purists it should be remarked that imperfect translations are usually much more usable than no translation. I n any case we should expand our support for English resumes of foreign language articles and help in every useful way to make English as serviceable as we can as a medium of international communication. Such thoughts inevitably lead t o the ageless question, "Why does anyone tolerate the English system of weights and measures?" There seems t o be no logical answer. Presumably no one would seriously argue that the metric system would not he greatly superior. It will be expensive to change over but the price is not apt to get less by waiting. The conclusion to such considerations seems inescapable. We should make the change! A rapid change would probably be cheapest, hut as that seems impractical we should a t least hurry the inevitable change as much as we can. Dr. Douglas V. Frost in a letter t o C & E News (October 21, p. 4) makes a strong case for the changeover. Among
other things he lists a sizable part of our economy which is already committed to the metric system. Scientilic instruction already uses the metric system. We should likewise use the metric system in instructing college students in engineering. This closer liaison between fundamental science and engineering would a t least partly offset the disadvantage of a movement away from industry. One result of this wonld be that the rising generation of engineers, trained in the metric system, would be alert to opportunities to guide new developments into adopting the better system. Next, we should start writing engineering specifications in the metric system as well as the English system with a reasonable target date at which time the English system is to be phased out. The government and the more alert segments of industry should take the lead in the changeover with some offering of incentives in cases where the change would cause extraordinary hardship. The change in the writing of specifications need only involve using one or two more decimal points and the actual changes in design could come as dictated by economics. Obsolescence in many industries is such that a changeover in fifteen or twenty years wonld minimize the economic losses. Fundamental t o the above suggestions and t o others such as calendar reform is the underlying fact that all forms of communication are continually undergoing changes which adapt them better to the conveying of information. KO one minds this change very much as long as it does not become too conspicuous. However, it is just those procedures which are most used and are therefore most deeply ingrained where simplification and rationalization will be most profitable and where the changes will also be most stubbornly resisted by those who stand t o lose by the change. Changes in procedures should be carefully thought through so that as nearly as possible every one profits by the reform, but continual evolution and change cannot be avoided in scientific matters. Research is in fact dedicated t o the discovery of useful changes. Ira Remsen and even G. N. Lewis would find a lot of interesting, but t o them puzzling, reading in a current number of THIS J ~ ~ R N A L .This is as it should and must be. HENRY EYRING UNIV.OF UTAH,1963 PRESIDENT AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY Volume 40, Number 12, December 1963
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