Chapter I 



THE DOWNFALL OF CLASSICAL PHYSICS 



The Structure of the Atom. Between 1905 and 1908 Ein- 

 stein and Minkowski introduced fundamental changes in 

 our ideas of time and space. In 191 1 Rutherford intro- 

 duced the greatest change in our idea of matter since the 

 time of Democritus. The reception of these two changes 

 was curiously different. The new ideas of space and time 

 were regarded on all sides as revolutionary; they were 

 received with the greatest enthusiasm by some and 

 the keenest opposition by others. The new idea of mat- 

 ter underwent the ordinary experience of scientific dis- 

 covery; it gradually proved its worth, and when the 

 evidence became overwhelmingly convincing it quietly 

 supplanted previous theories. No great shock was felt. 

 And yet when I hear to-day protests against the Bolshev- 

 ism of modern science and regrets for the old-established 

 order, I am inclined to think that Rutherford, not Ein- 

 stein, is the real villain of the piece. When we compare 

 the universe as it is now supposed to be with the universe 

 as we had ordinarily preconceived it, the most arresting 

 change is not the rearrangement of space and time by 

 Einstein but the dissolution of all that we regard as most 

 solid into tiny specks floating in void. That gives an 

 abrupt jar to those who think that things are more or 

 less what they seem. The revelation by modern physics 

 of the void within the atom is more disturbing than 

 the revelation by astronomy of the immense void of 

 interstellar space. 



The atom is as porous as the solar system. If we 

 eliminated all the unfilled space in a man's body and 



