S Y D N E Y ROSS describes the symposium and p w s e n t s the case f o r greater support o f studies of colloid and surface chemistry
The Chemistry & Physics of
articles published in this group are based on a TheSymposium on Interfaces held in Miashington,
D. C., June 15 and 16. 1964. The symposium was sponsored by the Division of Industrial and Engineering Chemistq- of the American Chemical Society and IKDUSTRIAL AND ENGIKEERING CHEMISTRY.The topic was specified by these two groups, but the task of organizing the subject matter was offered to me. I accepted it willingly because I saw in it, beyond the occasion itself, a n opportunity to construct a badly needed teaching instrument for industrial chemists who, without having had much formal training in the field, are faced with problems in surface chemistry. That the number of such persons is large had been impressed upon me both by my experience as a consultant to industry and as the recipient of letters from personnel managers seeking what must be among the rarest of all professionalscolloid and surface chemists. TVhy men with this training should be so rare might be worth a moment‘s consideration. X recent survey of the undergraduate courses offered in colloid and surface chemistry throughout the nation reported that “a substantial number of universities or colleges have an active teaching program in colloid chemistry” ( 2 ) . This finding would certainly seem satisfactory, were it not irreconcilable with the knoLvn shortage of men trained in that discipline. Let us inquire elsewhere and a different result appears. A survey by the education committee of the DiL-ision of Colloid and Surface Chemistry of the &4merican Chemical Society, conducted among 185 major U. S. industrial companies, revealed how large was the number of chemists and chemical engineers engaged in full-time work on projects involving colloid and surface chemistry, and how great the gap in numbers between those that would soon be needed and those that would be available ( 7 ) . TZrhat then of “the substantial 44
INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING C H E M I S T R Y
number of active teaching programs in the universities of the nation”? The truth is that the needs of the nation in this important field are not being met by the universities. In the past 15 years the membership of the Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry has grown tenfold, showing increasing awareness on the part of industrial chemists of how frequently the subject appears in the problems they have to solve. In the universities during the same period no parallel growth has taken place. The leaders of the field in C.S. universities during the years 1920 to 1950 were Bancroft, Bartell, Harkins, Hauser, McBain, and Weiser; to these, add two names of persons still living. I t would be invidious to name the corresponding persons of today, but the number of universities offering comparable training is not any greater than existed then. A professor in the subject may be allowed to supply the answer: students do not come forward. The subject lacks glamor. Foams, emulsions, jellies, gums, glues, or greases-how mundane they are to young people who are thinking of nuclear-powered rockets and interstellar space. A hypothetical graduate student, determined to major in colloid and surface chemistry, finds few graduate schools that offer the subject as a major. H e then finds that research assistantships or fellow-ships are few and far between. He wi!l probably accept a teaching assistantship for four years (normally a one- or two-year stint for his more fortunate friends). The time that this man spends on research for his doctorate is not reimbursed. The graduate student who teaches is, in fact, callously exploited by “the system.” A large fraction of the academic research in colloid chemistry in the United States-research often of indirect benefit to industq--is thus carried out at the expense of a small number of young men. Little wonder that so few are to be found who are willing to join them.
But if others are more fortunate in graduate school, they, too, may have to pay the price, and a higher price, later in their careers. Most academic research projects are geared to defense needs, not to industrial problems. The process of reorienting one’s training, perhaps one’s philosophy of life, is painful to the young graduate, and expensive to the industrial company that hopes to get something of value out of him some day. The proper independence of the graduate school laboratories requires that their projects should be so selected as to have fundamental scientific value. Such projects need not be entirely disconnected from the great industrial world outside; nevertheless, the lack of industrial support often means that the pure research project is remote from practicality. The result of this isolation sometimes affects the young graduate with a virulent case of intellectual snobbishness, which inclines him to consider problems of applied science as beneath the dignity of so fine a fellow. His professor can save him from this lamentable provincialism-the professor should be the link that connects the two worlds; he should bring back to his laboratory and to his graduate students some glimpses of the complexity of applied problems and of the fascination and excitement -that suffuses applied research. To this end, the professor should not be too young himself. Young men possess qualities that fit them to do pure research; even youthful conceit and inexperience contribute to the intellectual adventurousness that is essential for creative work in pure science. Applied research, however, requires qualities that are the fruits of experience, and so is better handled at a later stage in a man’s career, when, in Milton’s words, Old experience doth attain
To something of prophetic strain.
t
Young men, meanwhile, vociferate their adherence to their faith with more fervor than grace, as is their wont. Industry has been unduly neglectful of the whole situation. Government agencies were not challenged by industry as they took over virtually the whole academic research establishment of the nation. The pinch was felt only when men of suitable training became rare, and the need to do something for those with wildly unsuitable backgrounds became more apparent. Industry has expressed itself as willing to support its employees who take summer courses in colloid and surface chemistry, or who attend symposia such as this one ( I ) . But these are inadequate remedies which do nothing to make up for the time lost by men who should have had such courses during their student days. I n addition, more than course work is needed to fit a man to tackle problems in colloid science; the subject has a character of its own, requiring much practical familiarity, as well as a background of information. The difference between the problems that occupy a colloid chemist and those that occupy a physicist, for example, lies in the greater number of variables that the colloid chemist has to consider. The more variables there are, the more possible descriptions one can find of a phenomenon, depending on how one or another of those variables is
weighted. Those of us who teach physicists or mathematicians soon discover that we are talking to men who expect to find a single rigorous answer to their questions. T o teach colloid science, however, you must make the students familiar with the notion that some effects have more than one possible cause, or sets of causes, though only one answer is right; and that they must develop and use a certain, almost intuitive, kind of judgment about selecting one solution and discarding another. Neither the specialized pursuits of AEC, NASA, and ONR, nor the fundamental projects favored by YSF are designed to meet the needs of chemical industry; nor are those agencies expected to do so. Colloid science is not the only neglected subject having industrial importance but neglected in the interlocking complex of governmental and defense research activities. Industrial companies should, therefore, insist on their interests being represented in the laboratories of the graduate schools. Unspecified grants-in-aid of research do little good in this connection-they are merely swept into the current programs, which were originally inspired and continue to draw their major support from governmental sources, At one time, when their influence was not contested, industrial companies specified too closely what they wanted investigated in the academic laboratories ; today, the tendency is for them to specify nothing. The former course deprived academic research of its independence; the present course does little to redress the injury already sustained by industrial interests. It is not beyond the wit of an industrial sponsor of research to devise appropriate methods of securing for himself a voice in directing the technical training of men who must, for the most part, look to industry for employment. The response to the Symposium on Interfaces on the part of the public to whom it was addressed-Le., industrial chemists-was enthusiastic, and confirmed again the existence of the need to which we have referred. Among the lecturers selected to handle the various topics, the industrial chemists outnumbered the academics, reflecting the emphasis on applied colloid science. Even so, theoretical treatments were not neglected. The people who attended were rather older than college students and, of course, more strongly motivated to make the effort to comprehend the material. Publication of the papers that were delivered increases the size of the audience to whom they were addressed. Several of the lecturers have much enhanced the value of their contributions since the initial occasion by additions and clarifications, so that the printed paper is not always just what was delivered at the symposium. Those emendations are all to the good and help bring closer to perfection the teaching instrument that I originally envisaged. For industrial chemists and for college students, the present collection is a most useful possession. As a teacher, I plan to use it as my class textbook, as no better one is, in my opinion, at present to be had. LITERATURE CITED (1)
Chem. Eng. N e w 42, No. 31, 42-3 (1964).
J. , Chem. Educ. 37, 355 (1960). ( 2 ) Mysels, K. .I.
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