ALAN T. WATERMAN 



USSR, and Sweden. It is practically certain that the expanding 

 horizon of research in this country will dictate the organization 

 of new forms of research activity here. In the hist place, there 

 will continue to be pressures for organized attack upon critical, 

 practical problems, of both basic and applied nature, such as 

 that which currently obtains with respect to materials. Whether 

 these needs can best be met by the establishment of special 

 centers for the purpose, or whether coordinated programs 

 should be set up in more decentralized fashion will be a matter 

 for consideration in each case. In the second place, the voice 

 of science itself will come increasingly to be heard demanding 

 support for highly significant areas of science, mainly basic. 



A word of caution is in order here. We must, of course, 

 be alert to the trends of the future and do justice to concerted 

 efforts in science, but we must also be alert to the weaknesses 

 as well as the strengths inherent in massive and concentrated 

 effort. Are we likely, for example, to overemphasize group 

 activity at the expense of the individual researcher? Certainly 

 history indicates that capital discoveries can usually be attrib- 

 uted to a single person or a few individuals, although it is 

 quickly admitted that their particular contributions may be 

 only the climax of a host of smaller research contributions 

 which preceded theirs. Those who are familiar with group 

 activities will probably agree, if they are candid, that the tend- 

 ency of the group is to be conservative although powerful, and 

 in its dedication to its objective, to react rather conservatively 

 to radical ideas or subject matter lying on the periphery of its 

 main activity. Furthermore, an organized group tends to achieve 

 a singleness of purpose and of method which by its very nature 

 is apt to ignore ideas from outside. 



The large research center introduces another quite serious 

 problem in the view of many. A unique bulwark of university 



3o 



