Measurements of the charged multiplicities for hadron production in e + e − annihilation in the center of mass energy range 9–32 GeV have been made. The average charged multiplicity has an energy dependence much stronger than ln s and similar to that reported for pp collisions. Quantitative differences are observed in the magnitude of both the average multiplicity 〈 n ch 〉 and the dispersion D ch for e + e − and pp interactions at the same center of mass energy. 〈 n ch 〉 and the ratio 〈 n ch / D ch in e + e − annihilations are significantly larger than in pp collisions and are found to be in overall agreement with QCD predictions. KNO scaling is seen to be satisfied.
THE FINAL TABLE ENTRY COMBINES THE DATA FROM THE THREE HIGHEST ENERGY BINS.