BRITAIN'S WAR SCIENTISTS

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22909, 4 January 1940, Page 6

BRITAIN'S WAR SCIENTISTS

Need for Young Research Workers CraOU OUB OWll COftajCSPOHDEHT.) LONDON, December 1. , Professor J. B. S„ Haldane, at Birkbeck College, spoke of the absence of young men among the scientific advisers to the Fighting Forces. "We are told that our forces have the best scientific brains behind them," he said. "I doubt if that is so. Apart from the Royal Air Force, I am not sure that our Fighting Forces are not worse off now. than they were 25 years ago. We are still using the same experts in many cases as we used then. Brains may not deteriorate with age, but they certainly do not work any quicker. . "The scientific departments, apart from, the Royal Air Force, have not many really firstrate permanent workers in them. This is not because the scientists objected to war. It is much more because the problems offered to them in peace time are pretty dull, except m the Royal Air Force, where problems, of the greatest scientific interest arise. "There has, therefore, been a tendency to get into these departments rather stodgy people who are good at routine work, and not men of imagination and initiative. I do not think the Cabinet includes, any member who is in close touch with scientific development, as Earl Balfour was duririg the last war. "I am quite sure we shall have an admirable team of research workers over 40 years of age. but it is the men under 40 who on the whole display the greatest initiative in science, and it is that which is needed for tackling a novel weapon. "I feel our Services are not in sufficient touch with the younger men and women, and for that reason, in the event of a new weapon being used against us under conditions where speed and initiative are everything, we may be very seriously handicapped." Professor Haldane thought that gas attacks on London were relatively unlikely. The Royal Air Force, the ballcJon barrage, and the antiaircraft guns together wer,e capable of creating such conditions for the enemy bombers that they could not drop borribs with any kind of accuracy.