< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

coveries and theories. I might say, however, that there are strong reasons for believing in the molecular structure of electricity, the electrical nature of matter and the dependence of mass upon velocity. The theories of radioactivity and disintegration of matter are fairly well established. According to Ramsay, one of the most eminent chemists in the world, "we are on the brink of discovering the synthesis of atoms, which may lead to the discovery of the ordinary elements." Perhaps the dream of the alchemist is about to be realized. Certain it is that we are face to face with energies of which no one even dreamed a few years ago. Whether we call this energy intra-atomic, sub-atomic, inter-elemental, or some other name, we know certainly that it exists, and that it exists in quantities far beyond the power of man's mind to comprehend. Man dares to hope, some day, somewhere, somehow, to discover the means of unlocking this infinite storehouse. If this discovery is ever made, all the others which man has ever made will pale into insignificance beside it.

Lodge says of the one-pound shot and the one-hundred-pound shot which Galileo dropped from the top of the Leaning Tower, that "their simultaneous clang as they struck the ground together sounded the death knell of the old system of philosophy and heralded the birth of the new." The age of reverence for authority had passed away and the day of experimental investigation had dawned.

In a sense the discoveries of the past few years have resulted in a similar revolution. The revival of the experimental method has been complete. Accepted theories are being put to the test. What we have long regarded as proved facts are being questioned and, in many cases, challenged. There is no field of investigation which has not been cultivated anew.

In closing, I wish to quote from the presidential address of J. J. Thomson[1] before the British Association at its last meeting.

The new discoveries made in physics the last few years, and the ideas and potentialities suggested by them, have had an effect upon the workers in that subject akin to that produced in literature by the Renaissance. Enthusiasm has been quickened, and there is a hopeful, youthful, perhaps exuberant, spirit abroad which leads men to make with confidence experiments which would have been thought fantastic twenty years ago. It has quite dispelled the pessimistic feeling not uncommon at that time, that all the interesting things had been discovered, and all that was left was to alter a decimal or two in some physical constant. There never was any justification for this feeling, there never were any signs of an approach to finality in science. The sum of knowledge is, at present at any rate, a diverging, not a converging series. As we conquer peak after peak we see regions in front of us full of interest and beauty, but Ve do not see our goal, we do not see the horizon; in the distance tower still higher peaks, which will yield to those who ascend them, still wider prospects, and deepen the feeling, whose truth is emphasized by every advance in science, that "Great are the Works of the Lord."
  1. ↑ Scientific American Supplement, 63, Nos. 1757 and 1758, pp. 154, 155 and 174-176, September 4 and 11, 1909.
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