174 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1953 



found it necessary to explore into every region susceptible to precise 

 observation. The history of natural philosophy has been marked 

 by milestones, each indicating the discovery of a new device or tech- 

 nique which opened up to human experience regions that were hitherto 

 inaccessible. These devices were means to an end, but the end would 

 never have been achieved without the means. Telescopes, microscopes, 

 X-ray diffraction apparatus, chemical analysis, cyclotrons, and rockets 

 have all been means of opening up new areas for valid experiences — 

 there are more to come. 



APPLIED SCIENCE 



About one hundred years ago, natural philosophy reached a stage 

 where it could make significant contributions to the useful arts by 

 providing for them a broader basis for understanding and conse- 

 quently making predictions about the processes and products that 

 are the business of the useful arts. In other words, the satisfying 

 patterns had been extended so far that they now^ began to accom- 

 modate the experiences already gained in the useful arts and to pre- 

 dict new possibilities for application in the production of commod- 

 ities. The industrial uses of electricity and the application of organic 

 chemistry to the manufacture of synthetic dyes ushered in an era 

 characterized by the increasing use of the discipline and understand- 

 ing of science to supplement the empirical knowledge and intuitive 

 skill characteristic of the useful arts. This has resulted in an accel- 

 eration of the development of the new technologies on which modern 

 life depends. Practical technologists have sought more and more 

 to broaden the basis of their operations by drawing on the power of 

 the satisfying patterns of human experience to predict promising 

 directions for advancement of their arts and for the cure of the in- 

 evitable troubles associated with new advances. This admixture of 

 thought and action, of underetanding and practical knowledge, known 

 as applied research, is now the basis of all progressive technology 

 either in peace or in war; however, its organization, direction, ob- 

 jectives, and even its meaning are subject to considerable argument. 

 In figure 1, 1 have indicated applied research in the center column 

 as having the same incentives and objectives as the useful arts; how- 

 ever, the methods are different. In figure 2, an attempt is made to 

 illustrate in more detail the place of applied research in the over-all 

 scientific and technological scheme of things. The realism of this 

 diagram depends on the use of closed loops or circuits, rather than 

 straight-line flow patterns, to depict the interrelationships. The idea 

 of closed-loop relations is borrowed from the teclinical fields of elec- 

 tronics and automatic control (although it dates far back in organic 

 evolution). It requires little imagination to see that any organiza- 

 tion designed to make the best use of collective human intelligence 



