The author of this article, Dr. Jack Hine, is a regents professor of chemistry at Tech. A well-known organic chemist, Dr. Hine was awarded the 1958 Georgia Tech Sigma Xi Research Award in June. This article is an adaptation of his speech at the annual Sigma Xi banquet held on the Tech Campus.
Recently-named Regents Professor j a c k Hine suggests that man's most important activity should be
The Search For Knowledge the full efforts of our labor force has been directed toward producing to satisfy the nation's needs and to maintain the power that we believe we need to keep ourselves free. But recently, the combination of the healthy productivity of this labor force and the desires of the roughly identical buying public made it possible to satisfy the consumer's purchases with a smaller percentage of the working force. There are those who might think that it was a fortunate thing that there was now available a considerable productive potential that could be applied to the needs that previously had been neglected. However, the situation was more generally regarded as a national calamity, with a real ray of optimism being the hope that this potentiality for filling important needs would disappear quickly. As modern technical advances continue to increase our elliciency, the problem of balancing production and consumption continues. There are a number of solutions to the problem that are operating or have been proposed. One is to decrease production by working less. For example, the four-day week has been suggested to meet the current imbalance. However, many wonder if this is a remedy that should be continued indefinitely. Would most people be happier, better off, if they worked only one day — or perhaps one hour — per week? Another solution is to increase consumption — largely by persuasion of the consumer, often with such methods as planned obsolescence. Some advanced activities in this area were described in Huxley's "Brave New World." As long as the cold war continues there will certainly be pressure for putting whatever production we can into our defense. If, as we all hope, the cold war someday ends continued on page 6
F
OR YEARS,
September, 1958
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