Abstract
IN spite of the speed of modern communications, the sense of isolation arising among scientific men working in the Colonies and elsewhere overseas is still very real ; one way of mitigating the difficulty is the formation of local scientific societies. The Nairobi Scientific and Philosophical Society is such a body, which arose from the need for co-operation between various scientific and technical officers working in Kenya. A meeting was held at Nairobi on April 9, 1947, at which the chairman, Mr. A. Walter, stressed the need for a central meeting place for scientific men, and the first formal meeting took place a month later. Now the Society has been able to issue vol. 1, part 1, of its Proceedings, and to claim a membership of fifty within six months of formation ; this shows a very creditable interest among the necessarily small number of scientific and technical workers within reach of Nairobi. The Proceedings includes accounts of five meetings held by the Society ; the subjects dealt with include radio-sonde in meteorology, the sociologist in industry, primitive agriculture in the modern world, development planning for the African and hormone weed-killers. The sociological bias shown is accounted for by the facts that advantage had to be taken of the availability of visiting guest speakers, and that the Society itself has arisen in a country where the development of a primitive people is taking place at an unprecedented pace. The Society is to be congratulated on the progress it has made as a centre for the discussion of problems of broad scientific and technical interest in Kenya. The officers of the Society are: President, A. Walters ; Vice-Presidents, Dr. E. B. Worthington and V. A. Beckley; Joint Honorary Secretaries, W. A. Grinstead, P.O. Box 931, Nairobi, and H. E. Watson, P.O. Box 560, Nairobi; Honorary Treasurer, Dr. D. Harvey ; Honorary Librarian, Dr. H. C. Pereira.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Nairobi Scientific and Philosophical Society. Nature 162, 647 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/162647c0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/162647c0