Preface 7 



I 



and a suit of rough clothes five or six pounds. Wind- 

 mills and water-mills were used, but steam was only just 

 beginning to be thought of as a motive power. There 

 was no gas or electricity, and when coal gas was first used 

 in the House of Commons members were seen touching 

 the pipes to see if they were hot. They actually believed 

 that the gas came through the pipes as flame. Telephones, 

 telegraphs, electric tramways, photography, motor-cars, 

 aircraft, none of these had yet been dreamed of. 



Slowly at first, but with ever-increasing speed, Science 

 began to alter conditions, and during the nineteenth 

 century it completely changed the face of the civilized 

 world. Trade, transport, and education were revolution- 

 ized ; food, clothes, all the necessities of life, were made 

 cheaper and more plentiful; the poorer folk were given 

 comforts and conveniences of which even the rich had 

 known nothing a hundred years before. Science shed 

 light upon dark places, and it has linked up the whole 

 world. 



During this present century the power of Science is 

 increasing like a snowball. There is more progress now 

 in one year than there was in ten during the nineteenth 

 century, and the pace is becoming constantly faster. 

 Chemists are working in all fields of endeavour, and hardly 

 a week passes without some important discovery being 

 announced. Read the chapters in this book on the 

 Curies and the work of Sir William Bragg and you will 

 realize that the discovery of radium is perhaps the most 

 important event in the history of man. It has changed 

 our whole conception of the universe. 



Old-fashioned folk talk much of the restlessness and 

 discontent of the present generation. But these are only 

 natural in a time when things are moving so fast — in 

 what we call an age of transition — and they are not really 

 bad in themselves. After all, we do not want people to 

 act like sheep. Discontent may be divine. 



