An Impression of the Conference at St. Andrews

Abstract

All scientists and technologists nowadays, and especially, perhaps, those concerned with instrumentation and control, suffer from the information revolution. A flood of publications, ranging from the erudite to the popular, and from the useful to the trivial, pours from the presses of the world. It is in fact becoming impossible to read all the abstracts in one's field, let alone all the papers. Conscious of the need to keep up to date, we often resort to the Conference as a means of finding out about the current state in some area of our art or science. Too often we are disappointed. From the arrival of the bulky bundle of pre-prints, which we have no hope of reading with the attention they require, right through the rapid presentation of some very difficult material by a rapporteur, we grow ever more confused. At best we emerge having made or renewed some personal contacts.

The picture presented is, of course, a caricature, but is I think close enough to reality to be recognisable. The S.I.T. Conference on “Online measurement and inspection: their impact on quality” has, however, shown that given determination to do so, it is still possible to mount a technical meeting at which you can actually follow and enjoy all the papers.