J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER 



nature speak to the wonder of men: so it is with the cosmos, 

 in any of the historically varying and expanding uses of that 

 word; so it is with the origin of life, or the nature of heredity, 

 or the nature of memory, and the other higher human func- 

 tions. But we have learned that wonder resides, and paradox 

 and puzzlement and harmony and order, in many ordinary 

 things: in the stuff that matter is made of, in the flow of the 

 ocean's currents, in the migration of birds, in bubble and drop 

 and clod. We have come to respect the most pedestrian curiosity 

 as a likely origin of learning unexpected and lovely things about 

 our world. 



Not every work of science, experiment, observation, cal- 

 culation is in itself a work of beauty. There is research, there 

 are stories, that confirm and elaborate what we have known, 

 and neither enlarge nor deepen it; there are findings which may 

 lie for years, not helpful in any larger picture, until they are 

 encompassed by discoveries from another source. The words 

 that the mathematicians tend to use to describe their work are 

 "trivial" and "deep." These are words in part of logical assess- 

 ment, yet essentially of esthetic judgment; they are common to 

 all scientists talking of their trade. We do not explain very well 

 what we mean by them, or how to conduct ourselves and our 

 researches so that they may be deep, and not be trivial. In this 

 we are not so unlike painters or actors or musicians. We can 

 hardly explain; but that we do indeed know something is clear 

 from the fact that we can teach, and that we often find in those 

 whom we have taught a surer instinct and a finer taste than in 

 ourselves or our colleagues. 



I have heard Rutherford express impatience with a tal- 

 ented physicist, one for whom we all have the highest regard 

 and affection, and who has been signally honored, because 

 Rutherford saw no chance that in his researches he would dis- 

 cover anything really new or startling or beautiful. Rutherford 



