Cooperation between scientists and engineers

Abstract

American scientists and engineers feel and have for a long time felt the need of closer contacts and cooperation. The American Association for the Advancement of Science was intended from its very beginning to establish these contacts. It is one of the oldest scientific associations in this country; considerably older than any one of our engineering societies. During its early history it was the only scientific association in which scientists and engineers met and discussed the problems of pure and applied science. Since the organization of the engineering societies engineers began to devote a more and more exclusive attention to these specialized organizations and less to the national society which is devoted to the general interests of science. In order to counteract this perfectly natural tendency, an engineering section was established in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Through the members of this section the voice of the engineers was heard and attentively listened to at the annual meetings of the Association. These annual meetings offer a splendid opportunity to the scientists and the engineers to address themselves to the American nation on subjects of science and engineering which are of immediate interest to our nation. Our nation recognizes that the American Association is a truly national organization; that explains why among its membership there are many who are not professional scientists or engineers. Their membership is due to their general interest in American science. In this respect the American Association for the Advancement of Science resembles very much the British Association for the Advancement of Science. There is, however, one significant difference between them. The British Association, it is believed, receives a more enthusiastic support from the British engineers than the American Association receives from the American engineers. This belief is encouraged by the fact that the British scientific weekly, Nature, is more widely read among British engineers than the American scientific weekly, Science, is read among American engineers. These two scientific periodicals are devoted to the general interests of science in a similar manner as the two national associations, the American and the British Association, are devoted to them. From that point of view we may say that the two periodicals are the mouthpieces of these two Associations. The fact that Nature is superior to Science is generally admitted. Let us also admit for the sake of argument that the average quality of the scientific men who contribute to Nature is superior to the average quality of the scientific men who contribute to Science. This admission will not entirely explain the superiority of Nature to Science. There must be another cause for this superiority. Those who have studied this subject carefully are inclined to think that the interest of the American engineer in Science is not as lively as that of British engineer is in Nature. Hence Nature has a much larger number of subscribers than Science has, and, other things being equal, the periodical with the larger number of subscribers will be superior to that having the smaller number of subscribers.