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Sir Lindesay Clark
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There are also some problems for the storyteller. In many ways Australian technical development parallels that of the world. Were it to be presented in this context, Australian contributions would be submerged and might amount to a mere enumeration of plant constructions. If it were to embrace the whole of Australian science it would be submerged by myriads of detail which aimed at, and remained, pursuit of knowledge for the sake of knowledge and as such are linked to international science rather than to Australian technology. Indeed, because so much of Australian science has been knowledge-orientated and government-based and so much of Australian technology is part of, or has been built on, international technology, there is merit in attempts to display where these threads merged and where they remained separate. World-wide the threads of science and technology are interwoven, albeit in changing patterns. In small nations, and particularly in emerging nations, this is far less so; their scientists tend to be oriented to and contribute to world science; their technologies are linked to world technology. Separate accounts, as indeed will be presented by the Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and consequently historic clarity and honesty about the respective contributions to economic development, their successes and failures in interaction should be of value to national science and technology policies.
In this spirit the attempt is therefore made here to confine the account to scientific events which had technological and economic impact. A compromise along these lines relying in part on verbal communication will be uneven in depth and often short of the historian's standards in documentation. It may, however, compensate by insight into the processes of technological growth and creativity by those who were actively involved in it.
Jan Kolm
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Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering |  |
© 1988 Print Edition page xxix, Online Edition 2000
Published by Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, using the Web Academic Resource Publisher
http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/xxi.html