It is convenient to discuss scientific activity in the general
categories of physics, chemistry, biology, geology, engineering,
mathematics, and medicine, but strict lines are not actually drawn
around these areas.
There are in the United States today about 2000 individuals who are
engaged in a profession that did not even exist twenty years ago:
these are the health physicists, who are neither medical men nor
physicists. They have backgrounds in physics, true, and they combine
this training with training in physiology, botany, chemistry,
mathematics, and instrumentation.
It is the duty of the health physicist to evaluate and control any
potential hazard in the use of nuclear energy. The health physicist
understands the effects of radiation on human tissues and plants. He
keeps a constant check on radiation levels in installations where
radioactivity is used; he foresees emergencies that might arise; he
eliminates unsafe practices; and he assures that personnel working in
nuclear energy fields are free from related hazards. The health
physicist is a key figure in making the nuclear energy industry one of
the safest in the world.
Another profession that spans the sciences is that of the technical
writer or editor. In a laboratory he translates the notebooks of the
scientist into reports. In an editorial office he edits manuscripts
for publication. On a newspaper staff he translates scientific
findings into articles for the public.
It is difficult, undesirable, and usually impossible, for a scientist
to confine himself to his own field because all sciences affect one
another. A chemist may use the tools of the physicist and become a
physical chemist; a physicist may go in the other direction and become
a chemical physicist. It is not uncommon for a chemical engineer to
find himself doing the work of an instrument engineer, or the
mechanical engineer to find himself doing the work of an electrical
engineer, or both of them doing the work of a nuclear engineer.
The physicist, the chemist, the physician, and the engineer who once
thought that outer space was the exclusive domain of the astronomer
now find themselves solving reentry problems for missiles, stirring up
rocket fuels, testing the effect of weightlessness on the body, and
examining diagrams for space craft. Perhaps the botanist who today is
totally concerned with the flora of earth will tomorrow find himself
fingering a bit of fungus from Mars.