202 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1952 



It is, therefore, not remarkable that this healthy, white-haired Methu- 

 selah who is Experience looks occasionally with suspicion at the 

 energetic young upstart who is Science. Nor is it remarkable that 

 the young upstart, looking back at his partner, regards him occasion- 

 ally as a stubborn old fogey, hidebound in his ways, and extolling 

 continually the merits of horse sense. However, it has to be admitted 

 that the old fogey seems fairly prosperous, in spite of the ancient 

 cut of his clothes ; and moreover, that he has much money in the bank 

 which he has accumulated as the result of his methods and which— 

 humiliating thought — provides in one way or the other much of the 

 daily bread of the young scientist. How shall we appraise the rela- 

 tive merits of these partners? How can we plan for their most 

 successful cooperation ? How can we bring the old fellow to realize 

 to the full the value which lies in what sometimes seem to be the 

 high-f alutin, impracticable activities of the youngster ? Is there any- 

 thing of value in those methods of horse sense, of cut and try, of long 

 experience, which can be recommended to the youngster as things to 

 be valued? And if so, how and in what form can we persuade the 

 youngster to utilize this value? 



I picture an old violinist, highly skilled in his art, but devoid of 

 scientific knowledge. There comes to him a young physicist who 

 says: "My friend, I have been watching you play that instrument 

 and I am going to tell you how to play it better, for I am a student 

 of acoustics and know all about the laws of sound." "Very well," 

 says the old violinist, "here is the violin — play it." "Oh no," says 

 the young physicist, "I would not wish to use that instrument at all. 

 It is, indeed, a very stupid instrument, with no scientific background. 

 It is strung with a cat's inside and played with a horse's tail. It has 

 a form dictated by no scientific principles and the only information 

 I have been able to find with regard to it is to the effect that the form 

 had something to do with the supposed figure of the Virgin Mary. 

 I would like to study a very simple case first." And so our young 

 physicist suspends a simple stretched string between two fixed points 

 in space and he discusses all the various modes of vibration. He 

 discusses how the frequency of vibration determines the pitch, how 

 the overtones determine the quality, and so forth. The old violinist, 

 much impressed but much bewildered, says: "All right, here is the 

 bow. Now play it." On drawing the bow across the string, the old 

 violinist hears nothing, for we all know that a string so mounted 

 would emit practically no sound at all. The old violinist complains 

 that he cannot hear anything, but the young physicist feels that it 

 is very unreasonable of him to insist upon what he deems the relatively 

 minor matter of hearing something and proceeds to argue that it is 

 much better to understand what you do not hear than to hear what 



