140 ANlSrUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1940 



farther and farther from each other. But this makes it all the 

 more essential that there be some common bond of understanding 

 both for them and for all educated men in general. 



Since this is preeminently an age of science, an age chiefly dis- 

 tinguished Jor its advances in scientific understanding and engineer- 

 ing achievement, it is obvious that such a common basis must be 

 found in the realm of science. I am firmly convinced that there is 

 only one subject that can furnish this necessary foundation for mod- 

 ern education. It is the subject of physics. I wish to urge, there- 

 fore, that educators everywhere give thought to ways of shaping 

 educational policies to bring about this united emphasis upon the 

 teaching of physics. 



n 



Physics derives its first great cultural value from the fact that 

 the present age cannot be understood without an understanding of 

 physics. Physics is the foundation stone of the age in which we 

 live. It was ushered in b}^ discoveries in the realm of physics. 



It was the announcement of the X-ray by Roentgen in 1895, fol- 

 lowed in quick succession by Becquerel's disclosure of radioactivity, 

 the isolation of radium by the Curies, and the researches into the 

 nature of the atom and the electronic theory of matter by Thomson, 

 Lorentz, Eutherford, Soddy, and others which ushered in the mag- 

 nificent edifice of twentieth-century science. These discoveries not 

 only set the pace but furnished the foundation for the century's 

 growth. In 1900 the electron was a theory. In the next decade, 

 Dr. Millikan was to perform his famous experiments to measure 

 the electric charge upon the electron, experiments destined to win 

 the Nobel prize in physics. Today, the world has put the electron to 

 work. In the vacuum tubes of our radio sets, in the photoelectric 

 cell, in other electronic tubes and in the X-ray tube, we are making 

 daily use of the electron (1).^ 



It will be seen, therefore, that only through a knowledge of phy- 

 sics can the student gain the historical perspective needed for an 

 understanding of the temper and the tempo of the age in which 

 we live. 



But we need an understanding of physics just as much for the 

 comprehension of the individual details which make up the picture 

 of our modern age. Without it, the radio set is a complete riddle, 

 the gasoline engine becomes a baffling puzzle, the electric light, a 

 mystery without explanation. We can only understand these things 

 and the countless other mechanical and electrical marvels around us 



* Numbers In parentheseB refer to bibliography at end of article. 



