 It's time for the Lawn Jean Chronoscope, a television journal of the important issues of the hour brought to you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, a presentation of the Lawn Jean Wittner Watch Company, maker of Lawn Jean, the world's most honored watch, and Wittner, distinguished companion to the world-honored Lawn Jean. Good evening. This is Frank Knight. May I introduce our co-editors for this edition of the Lawn Jean Chronoscope? Larry Lissert from the CBS television news staff and August Heckscher, chief editorial writer for the New York Herald Tribune. Our distinguished guest for this evening is Professor W. Albert Noyes, 1954 priestly award-winner American Chemical Society. In science like all other walks of life, it's indeed uncommon when a son succeeds to his father's laurels. But our guest tonight is not only the distinguished son of an eminent scientist, but he has been honored with the highest award that chemistry in America can bestow, the priestly medal. Dr. Noyes, both sides of the world are now struggling for power with science in the forefront. Do you think that American science has a firm hold on the lead? I think we have a lead at the moment, but rather a precarious one, and the USSR is improving daily. We must keep track of it. Well, just how is that going on? Are they training more scientists, encouraging more young men? During the war, the USSR was, as far as I know, the only country which increased its output of scientists. We decreased ours quite noticeably for several years. What would you say, Dr. Noyes, are the major factors hindering the development of science in this country today? Well, it's very hard to tell. Right after the war, we had a certain amount of propaganda which indicated that scientists would be overproduced, that they would have trouble in getting jobs. And this, I think, is partly responsible for the large decrease in number of engineering students in our institutions of higher learning, for example. Well, Dr. Noyes, isn't it true that the government now is giving more money to research in American colleges than ever before in our history? Well, strictly speaking, the money before the war was mainly in the field of agriculture. Since the war, we've had instituted a large system of government contracts, whereby work in the universities is supported. Theoretically, it's not given as gifts, however. It is given for doing specific jobs. And I think Congress would object to the word gifts. Well, do you think that these gifts are actually furthering the development of American science? Oh, I'm sure they are. Very much so. There's no question about that. Dr. Noyes, in your own experience and in the experience of those who have worked with you, has the need for secrecy and the tendency to bend science toward the weapons of war, has that hindered the free inquiry that science rests on? It certainly has in some areas, but I think that gradually we are learning to know what should be classified and what should not. I am sure that for a time we hindered our own activities by a secrecy which was really unnecessary. Dr. Noyes, it seems to me that among the natural sciences, nuclear physics have made the greatest advances. Now, do you think there's any reason to believe that other transcendental discoveries can take place in the other sciences like biology or your own science chemistry? Well, the field of biological research is immense. And the impact of chemistry on that field is only beginning to be felt. Certainly we have a great deal to learn both about disease, about heredity, about the use of hormones and vitamins and numerous other things. And if I were a young scientist today, a young chemist, I'd rather think I might choose this field of biochemistry as one of the most important of all. What are the inventions out on the, and discoveries out on the frontiers of biochemistry that you would like to see in our lifetime achievements? Well, you've noticed within the last few years the discovery of cortisone, the importance of the vast field of what we sometimes refer to as the steroids. They seem to be related to growth, to heredity, to the control of disease, and possibly even to the cancer problem. We know too little about them and just what they do in the human body today. Well, what are the things that we're searching for, Dr. Noyes, that might rank with this splitting of the atom in these other fields? Certainly one of the important things is to learn how to use the sun's energy. Actually, we use it mainly through plants today, but we've not yet discovered in the laboratory a better way of using the sun's energy than by growing plants. Well, certainly there are areas in the world which are deficient in energy. If we don't want slaves, we must have cheap energy. If we don't want impoverished peoples and causes for war, we must have more food. And both of these requirements demand the use of the sun in some way or another. Is this a means, for example, of transforming the heat of the sun into power directly through mirrors or through pathways? That would be desirable and of course that's been attempted and successfully on a small scale. But to do it on a large enough scale to replace coal and oil is not feasible today. Well, Dr. Noyes, do you mean to say that the greatest discoveries in these fields that would rank with the splitting of the atom lie in the fields of new sources of energy? Well, in my own opinion, if one wishes to combat communism, one has to find a cheap source of energy today. People who have adequate standards of living are less apt to want to be communists than if they're down in the lower levels of economic life. Isn't that true? Well, in other words, you feel that the harnessing of the sun would be a discovery of the most transcendental import. I really feel so, yes. Well, how far would you say we are away from such a discovery, sir? I think we're disappointingly far. We skate it around the edge. We begin to understand some of the basic problems, but the actual progress has been very, very little. What about the whole field of creating foodstuffs and materials synthetically? Is that one of the great fields for work today? Well, I wouldn't say that's a great importance today. The important thing there is to learn how to use our present resources more effectively, how to farm the land better, how to get protein out of the ocean. The Indian nation, for example, cannot grow enough livestock to get the protein, but it does have enormous food resources in the Indian Ocean which ought to be used. Or would this actually be attractively addable to humankind? Oh, I'm sure it would be. I mean, fish isn't as bad as all that, is it? But beyond that, it's possible to create proteins synthetically and to flavor them synthetically, I suppose, and make foodstuffs in that way. Yes, it certainly can be done, and it can be done on a small scale, but to do it on a scale adequate to feed the human race isn't possible today. Well, surely you're not talking merely about raising more fish, but there are other things in the ocean that might be used for feeding humankind? That's right. There are great many things. Plankton, for example, might be used. Isn't that a fish, basically? Well, it's a lot of small microorganisms, I think. I'm not a biologist, so I'd better be careful at this point. Well, how far do you think we might be away from such a utilization of their food stuff outside of the normal things that we eat? Well, these problems are being studied, partly being studied through United Nations organizations, and in areas where the food stuff is at present deficient. I think I'd better be a little careful, however, to say we're making much progress. Dr. Noyes, these great inventions and discoveries that will come, will they be made, as they have been made in the past, by the lonely individual, or will they be made by team workers under a crash program? The great advance in ideas is very apt to come from the lone individual. Thereafter, the application is going to be a team job. With the man with the brains, the originality, the new idea seems to exist by chance to some extent. You can't create him. He just happens along at the right time and the right place. Well, Dr. Noyes, isn't it possible to accelerate these discoveries, perhaps by putting in crash programs, or going all out, and as we did in the weapons field? Only up to a point. I think in certain public health areas, for example, one can by team research do things which are not possible by any other means. But I still am a little skeptical about new ideas coming out of teams. One has to get them just when they happen along. Do you think we are giving the scope and the opportunity to what you call the lone individual that we should? Well, I'm a little worried about it. I don't think we've suffered too much so far by allowing team research to go too far. But we'd better watch the situation. We need to keep our universities as places in which men can sit at desks and do some honest thinking without being required to punch time clocks. Well, what are the limitations now on our people working in these lonely laboratories and universities, Dr. Noyes? The limitation is purely a financial one. The money to pay these individuals is, as you pointed out, coming to some extent from government, to some extent it comes from industry, and all too little it comes from university funds because the universities are somewhat broke today. So we need more unrestricted money because we can often recognize a good young man who hasn't the reputation yet to warrant a contract. And if we could put him aside and let him do his own thinking for a while, we might be a little further along sometime. What is the incentive, Dr. Noyes, that drives these younger men to these great discoveries? Is it financial? Is it prestige? What is it in your experience? Just innate curiosity, I think. Some people have it, some people are born with it, and some people are not. Well, Dr. Noyes, are we actually getting enough reinforcements from the secondary schools into the colleges to supply this advanced guard of scientists that we need? Well, we're doing fairly well, but we still lose a fair fraction of the upper 10% of our high school graduates. They do not go to college. Some of them don't want to, some of them can't go for economic reasons. But we ought to do something to try to get a larger fraction of those best students into the universities. Well, Dr. Noyes, we have time for me to ask you a question about some of the things you scientists have invented, and I'm thinking primarily of the weapons of mass destruction. Now, how do you think the next war is going to be fought or won? Well, the general opinion seems to be that the initial impact of the next war will be by large-scale air raids, probably with atomic weapons. Now, the question is whether we can survive that first impact. Then what do we have to do to win thereafter if we can protect ourselves from that initial impact? In my own opinion, it's going to be very hard to decide when the war is won or even when it's over. But we may have to do as nations have always done and occupy enemy territory to say that we have won. Thank you very much, Dr. Noyes. Very interesting to have you here tonight. The opinions expressed on the Launcine Chronoscope were those of the speakers. The editorial board for this edition of the Launcine Chronoscope was Larry Lisser and August Hector. Our distinguished guest was Professor W. Albert Noyes, 1954 Priestly Award winner American Chemical Society. In the air, on the ground and on the water, major sports events the world over are timed by Launcine, the most honored watch in the world of sports. Now, among the many Launcine timed events on the September calendar were the national air races at Dayton, where a new speed record for jet planes was established at better than 692 miles an hour. At Colorado Springs under AAA sanction, the Pikes Peak Hill climb. And on September 17th, the great motorboat classic outboards to unlimited and the President's cup regatta on the Potomac at Washington D.C. And of course, you know that among all of the world's fine watches, only Launcine has won 10 World's Fair Grand Prizes, 28 gold medals and so many honors for accuracy. 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