50, 100 and 150 Years Ago; September 2000; Scientific American Magazine; by Staff Editor; 2 Page(s)

OPENING COMMENTARY-"All the reports are pervaded, with varying emphasis, by a sense of the dual role of science. The purpose and the fruits of science are discovery and understanding. Yet equally, though in a quite different sense, its purpose and its fruits are a vast extension of human resources, of man's power to control and alter the environment in which he lives, works, suffers and perishes.-J. R. Oppenheimer, theoretical physicist and wartime director of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory"

ASTRONOMY-"Scarcely a question asked of doctoral candidates today would have made sense to the giants of 1900. They would have been baffled, helpless and perhaps suspicious in the face of inquiries concerning photomultipliers, quantum theory, solar spicules, the carbon cycle, shell stars, the expanding universe, radio 'hot spots,' the Schmidt reflector, Pluto, cosmic rays and other common topics. Pride in our advances should be mellowed, however, by the contemplation of how much beyond us the astronomical world of 2000 A.D. is likely to be. -Harlow Shapley, director of the Harvard College Observatory"