No more amateur scientists
Jon Titus, Editorial Director -- Test & Measurement World, 5/1/2001
When I was a teenager, Scientific American magazine opened many scientific frontiers for me. I particularly enjoyed C.L. Strong's "Amateur Scientist" column. Strong conducted practical experiments that helped inspire me and others to take up science as a career. I ran only a few of the experiments because most were beyond my capabilities. But the explanations made me think, and they made me realize that amateurs could do interesting science. Some of the experiments I recall from those columns involved building a gas laser and launching home-built rockets.
The laser experiment involved cutting the ends of a glass tube at a specific angle to form windows for the laser. I was interested more in the technique the author used to accurately cut the tubing than in the rest of the project. The practical information in the Amateur Scientist column made it a must-read item.
Recently, Scientific American's editor discontinued the Amateur Scientist column. That's a shame, because no other publication I know carries a similar, practical column at the same level. Perhaps people no longer have the interest or the time to take on complicated projects such as those written up in Scientific American. Or, perhaps science has become too complicated for "home" projects. Unfortunately, schools haven't picked up the slack. You can now take high-school chemistry without ever actually doing an experiment. No more stains from nitric acid or silver nitrate. I suspect in electronics class, students simulate transistor and amplifier circuits as breadboards gather dust.
As someone who has seen the demise of the amateur scientist and the basement lab, maybe I worry too much about turning out scientists and engineers who have little practical experience. Or, maybe today's graduates don't need that sort of experience, but I doubt it.
An electrician I talked with several years ago told me he'd never run out of work. There are enough engineers here to keep him busy for years. These engineers try to rewire their homes and can't figure out what to do. They lack the practical experience to actually wire basic household circuits and make them work. Perhaps they do better at designing ICs or writing code.
Help is available. Tinker's Guild (Menlo Park, CA), www.tinkersguild.com, offers a two-CD set of all 2100 pages of Amateur Scientist columns through the end of 2000. The cost is $90 for more than 1000 projects. Like me, you may attempt few of the projects, but it's worth seeing that amateurs can still do real, hands-on science. T&MW
