Bulletin Number Five 1985

easy to see that more knowledge can help him. Can universities and other educational institutions respond to the industrial needs, particularly in the face of proliferation of fields of specializations? This brings me to the second point, namely the educational challenge. In the Newtonian age three pillars of knowledge emerged. The Mathematicians, the Physicists and the Chemists succeeded systematically to put a scientific base together which allowed natural phenomena to have consistent explanations. Each group, however, developed its own world even though occasionally their worlds overlapped somewhat. Mathematicians revelled in building up logical reasoning and constructed proofs and deductions in logically consistent description of numbers, geometrical shapes and their abstractions. Physicists concentrated on physical phenomena. Apart from some odd phenomena which are neatly put aside, physicists were convinced,in the Newtonian age, that they had the explanation for all natural things. The Chemists attacked the secret of universal understanding from a different starting point. They argued that since everything is made up of some basic elements, if they could find all elements, they would know how everything was put together. In this they succeeded marvellously with the Periodic Table. The three groups coexisted but the progress of each was not greatly hindered by the non-progress of the others. Occasionally, the Physicists would like to have better mathematical tools to help them, while Chemists sometimes liked to try an explanation in Physicist's terms. This made the knowledge base relatively easy to maintain and develop. In school, Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry are taught, and then emphasized for those students preparing for a career in one of these three specialist areas in which universities offer separate degrees. We are at the dawn of the Einstein age. The neat compartmentalization of scientific subjects has begun to break down. Einstein's theory of relativity which paved the way for establishing the subject Quantum Mechanism, allowed the subatomic world to be brought to our attention. Physicists and Chemists who have been studying the macroscopic world in physical and chemical terms found that the subatomic world offers a common base to explain both physical and chemical phenomena. All of a sudden, the background training and tools to be used for these two branches of science begin to converge rapidly. The original situation of the Newtonian age with mathematics, physics and chemistry as the basic sciences has undergone two significant changes. The first is proliferation. The sub-branches of mathematics, physics and chemistry have grown to many. The second is interrelationship. The overlap between physics and chemistry in particular becomes prevalent. Both also must resort more to the application of mathematics. These two changes make basic scientific training initially very complex but in time should be easier. The technologists face similar problems with a similar degree of difficulties. The fields of specialization extend well beyond civil, mechanical, chemical and electrical engineering. Materials, computers, information, automation and a host of others are emerging as important future engineering areas of specialization. At this stage universities and other advanced educational institutions particularly are challenged to provide the necessary depth of specialization and breadth of background for their engineering students. The temporary problem of having a scientific and technology base subdivided into large numbers of specialization is, indeed, a serious one. The information generated from these areas is often related in some way, often significantly, but the rate of information generation is so great that we are literally being flooded and drowned. We have currently no means to effectively use the entire output or to take advantage of their interrelations. We cannot avoid duplication of effort or stop non-worthwhile work through experiences gained from other fields of specialization. Even results in the same field tend to be not sufficiently and effectively communicated. To complicate matters further, our technological development is such that our hope to build a bridge to the linguistic and philosophical side of our knowledge from our scientific base is rekindled. The computer and artificial intelligence fields hold forth a promise that we might be able to extend our brain function. We have great hopes of being able to tame the abundance of knowledge by condensation. We feel the urgency. We must perfect the tools before we waste too much of our valuable resources through our inefficiency. Indeed, these tools if perfected will also bridge the gap between knowledge and understanding. Unfortunately for a while this is going to be a ‘bridge too far'. Despite our worry about being drowned under the flood of data, information and knowledge, we will seize the opportunities that this abundance of knowledge creates and make strides towards data reduction and to start anew from a more manageable set of newly ordered disciplines from which to begin our creative process yet again. NEWS 9