Abstract
IN an article on this subject which Prof. Karl T. Compton, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, contributes to the July issue of the Review of Scientific Instruments, he points out that physics has given birth to nearly all those ideas which have led to the understanding and use of the forces of Nature; that almost every branch of industry has benefited from it, and that the pace at which it is developing at the present time assures us of its increasing power to help in the future. A nation which, by anti-educational policy or by inadequate provision for research, puts itself industrially at the mercy of more progressive nations, is courting economic distress and unemployment for the next generation. He considers that the United States Government, in spending only one half of one per cent of its annual budget on its scientific bureaux, is showing a lamentable lack of vision. He urges re-consideration of the place of science in national planning and policy, and better provision for it in the future.
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Physics in National Planning. Nature 134, 319 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/134319b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/134319b0