How to Become a Scientist — High School Years 105 



of the blood, published in 1628, requires little technical 

 background and serves as an excellent introduction to the 

 experimental method in biology. Broadly speaking, the 

 original early work in physics and chemistry is more diffi- 

 cult to read than that in biology. Not only is a knowl- 

 edge of mathematics required, but the form in which the 

 mathematics is presented is often awkward and unfamiliar 

 to present-day students. Nevertheless, much of Galileo's 

 Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences can be read quite 

 easily to give some insight into how he went about revo- 

 lutionizing physics and the fun he had in doing it. 



The world of science is not as well provided with biog- 

 raphies as is the world of politics and military affairs. 

 Nevertheless, good biographies do exist for certain key 

 figures like Newton, Darwin, and Pasteur, and many others 

 will be found somewhat unevenly distributed over the field. 

 They provide a pleasant way of learning the more human 

 side of science often omitted from the textbooks — the hard 

 work of observation, the excitement of the new idea, and 

 sometimes unhappily the bitter and unseemly arguments 

 with proponents of rival theories. 



Finally, we should all rejoice over the existence of 

 Scientific American, Science News Letter, and the most 

 recent publication. Science and Technology, each devoting 

 itself to a somewhat different aspect of science, but each 

 excellent in its own way. 



Notes 



^Lindsey R. Harmon, "High School Backgrounds of Science Doctor- 

 ates," Science, V, 133, 679-688, March 10, 1961. 



'Robert H. Knapp and Joseph J. Greenbaum, The Younger American 

 Scholar: His Collegiate Origins, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 

 1953. 



