The rotation of chaps is only one of many possible devices for recharging the research man’s mental batteries. The necessity of recharging is eloquently stated by Kursanov, employing a different metaphor: “A scientist is not a balloon, to reach a certain height and remain there for a long while on account of the material it was once filled with. He is ‘;heavier than air,’ more like an aeroplane, which has to keep going to maintain height or climb.” It is well known that height on average is not maintained…

Two features of a young scientist’s life at once occur to me which tend to disappear with time and which may be important. One is browsing and the other is fairly frequent change of work and surroundings. What senior scientist can be found sitting all day in the library looking through research periodicals because he has nothing else particular to do? And what research student does not from time to time do just this?

In this connection a proposal made by Kursanov’s countryman, the nuclear physicist Peter Kapitsa, deserves attention. Kapitsa intends his suggestion for adoption in Russia, but there seems no obvious reason why it should not be applied more widely.

His idea is the setting up of ad hoc “mobile combat forces,” each to be regarded “not as a permanent institution but as one set up to tackle a given problem over a period of months or years.” Such a force would consist of scientists drawn from a number of different specialities, each with some special angle on the problem to be solved. After the successful solution of the problem, the combat force would be dissolved and its members would return to the permanent departments or institutes from which they had been recruited, or some of them might join new combat forces.

In fact, something like this occurred in Britain during the war, but with a measure of compulsion inadmissible in peacetime. Apart from the gain in efficiency, I see a valuable psychological advantage in such a scheme. It would enable even the senior research man to reverse his trend towards stagnation, FOR THE SCIENTIFIC MIND IS MORE LIKE A MEDICINE THAN A WINE: IT SHOULD BE WELL SHAKEN BEFORE USE.