SCIENCE, ART, AND EDUCATION — GIBSON 195 



It is hardly necessary to state that there are outstanding examples of 

 industrial and Government laboratories where this principle is 

 already developed and operating. An extension of the idea to more 

 and more organizations is required. 



COMMUNICATIONS IN TECHNICAL TEAMS 



Eeturning to figure 2, I should recall that an important province 

 of the professional scientist is that labeled "Applied Research Cir- 

 cuits," and the success of his effort in this field will depend on the 

 ease and certainty with which ideas circulate in the "green" and "blue" 

 circuits. Portentous ideas may be generated or regenerated in either 

 main block, pure research or engineering, and the transmission of 

 ideas depends on the facility of scientists and engineers to communi- 

 cate with each other. Although conditions have improved enor- 

 mously since 1940, the impedances in these circuits are still too high 

 and the circuits themselves are "noisy," with the result that transmis- 

 sion of ideas is neither speedy nor certain. The establishment of 

 communications in a technological team involves many personal and 

 other problems that are hard to generalize. There is, however, one 

 fundamental aspect of the subject that does permit of general dis- 

 cussion and deserves attention here. I think we can safely say, as a 

 matter of experience, that communications flow most rapidly and 

 effectively in a group where all the members share a common point 

 of view, or perhaps I might say, a common set of standards of validity. 

 Thornton Page has advanced this thought® and pointed out how a 

 common viewpoint provides a basis within which men trained in radi- 

 cally different disciplines can talk together intelligently. 



In a technical team, this common point of view, this common set 

 of standards of validity, is compounded of a thoroughgoing belief 

 in the value of satisfying patterns of facts that fulfill the require- 

 ment of quantitative communicability, together with a realistic knowl- 

 edge of the limitations of current satisfying patterns. In other words, 

 it contains a balanced admixture of science and art. With this view- 

 point, a man strives to fit valid facts into a consistent theory as a 

 necessary step in developing knowledge and understanding, is dis- 

 contented with facts or tests treated as isolated events, and is disgusted 

 with speculation on strange phenomena or events without any refer- 

 ence to theory or even examination of the facts. At the same time, 

 he realizes that patterns or theories are constantly growing and will 

 never be perfect until we know and understand everything. Thus, 

 he expects every scientific or engineering project to have its groping, 

 unpredictable, empirical phases, but he makes the best and fullest 



•Team work in research, edited by G. P. Bush and L. H. Hattery, ch. 7, p. 55, 1953. 



