THE PRODUCTION OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE 177 



scientific laboratory. The Geophysical Laboratory and the 

 Mount Wilson Observatory are of the convergent type, in 

 which the work of many scientists specializing in diverse fields 

 of science can be concentrated upon certain groups of prob- 

 lems. Such laboratories, which are discussed later under the 

 name of research institutes^ are likely to be most powerful 

 agencies for the production of scientific knowledge in the 

 future. 



One of the most important factors in the organization of 

 scientific research at the present time is the increasing com- 

 plexity and elaboration of the apparatus used not only in 

 applied science but even in pure science. Research in pure 

 physics in the nineteenth century required a very minimum 

 of equipment, and substantial increases in knowledge were 

 made by workers in small laboratories who spent only a very 

 small sum on apparatus and constructed much of that ap- 

 paratus with their own hands or with the assistance of a lab- 

 oratory mechanic. Today the apparatus required for physical 

 research is of the most complex type and requires a great 

 expenditure of money and very well-equipped machine shops. 

 The nuclear physicist, for example, has progressed from the 

 simple apparatus used by J. J. Thomson, Aston, and Ruther- 

 ford to the cyclotrons invented by Lawrence, of which the 

 largest has cost well over $1,000,000. The cryogenic labora- 

 tries, which make large quantities of liquid hydrogen and 

 helium for research at low temperatures, are necessary for 

 much physical research, and the physical phenomena ex- 

 hibited by the stars are studied with the aid of telescopic 

 equipment involving capital expenditures of millions of 

 dollars. 



Again, the identification of coincidences in the frequency 

 differences between spectral lines, which enables the lines to 

 be assigned to different systems in an element, is an extremely 

 laborious operation when performed by hand, and progress 

 in this field of physics was very slow until instruments were 

 designed by which these frequency differences could be ana- 

 lyzed automatically. As a result, the very complicated spectra 



