THE NEW FRONTIERS IN THE ATOM^ 



By Eenest O. Lawbence 

 The University of California 



[With 9 plates] 



The anniversary celebration of a great university is indeed an 

 important occasion, and it is appropriate to signalize the event by a 

 symposium on "The University and the Future of America," for a 

 a great institution of learning is eternally youthful, and youth looks 

 always to the future. I am greatly honored to be included in this dis- 

 tinguished gathering, and it gives me especial pleasure to join in wish- 

 ing our sister institution many happy returns. 



In a discussion bearing on the future, the scientist is always in some- 

 thing of a dilemma. On the one hand, he is cautioned to make only 

 very limited prognostications, for he has learned the very limited 

 region of applicability of existing knowledge and the likelihood of 

 error in speculation. On the other hand, he faces the future with eager 

 excitement and curiosity about what is beyond the present frontiers 

 of knowledge, and he is naturally tempted to speculate and indeed 

 to indulge in day dreams. Perhaps I may convey something of whajfe 

 is in the minds of physicists these days by a brief discussion of some' 

 recent developments of the current intensive attack on the new frontier 

 in the atomic world — the nucleus of the atom. 



ATOMS 



The atomic constitution of matter has long been a keystone of 

 natural science. At the beginning of this century it was a keystone 

 in a structure having as pillars the principles of the conservation of 

 energy and the indestructibility of matter. In the nineties, it was 

 almost axiomatic to say that the building blocks of nature are the 

 atoms — indivisible, indestructible entities, permanent for all time. 

 But the discovery of radioactivity altered all this. There followed 



1 An address delivered at the symposium on "The University and the Future of America," 

 on the occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration of Stanford University, June 16-19, 

 1941. Reprinted by permission from volume entitled "The University and the Future of 

 America," published by Stanford University Press. 



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