236 AJsnsruAL report Smithsonian institution, i9 60 



in evidence an apparatus which enabled him to hear the voice of a man 

 speaking in Paris ; if, as he listened, he saw an airplane overhead, and 

 if, on going into the street, he found vehicles dashing about without 

 the aid of horses, he would surely think that he had come upon an 

 age of miracles as remarkable as any of which he had read in the 

 past. However, these things are no longer miracles to him because 

 the scientists have told him that they know how it all happens; but 

 when he gets down to ultimate fundamentals, even the scientist him- 

 self has to base his understanding upon processes which, if he could 

 suddenly convey their nature to the layman, would have to be regarded 

 by that individual as miracles in terms of his natural criteria of com- 

 mon sense. It is the miracles of the atomic and subatomic world which 

 determine the activities of things on a larger scale, where their 

 activities come to the attention of all of us, as symbolized by that 

 docile entity "the man in the street." This man hears of the atomic 

 bomb, so like an enlarged version of one of the urns of the Arabian 

 Nights, urns from which, as the result of proper incantations, terrify- 

 ing beings emerged. Pie learns that two apparently inert pieces of 

 uranium of the same kind, on being brought suddenly into close 

 proximity, explode in a manner such as to emulate all the furies 

 of hell, pouring forth all sorts of evil things in the form of poisonous 

 radioactive radiations and the like. It is as though these two pieces 

 of metal, on being brought together, became infuriated by each other's 

 presence and, in their anger, revealed all the evil that was within them. 

 Indeed, from the standpoint of overall results, the performance of 

 these two innocent pieces of uranium surpasses, in immeasurable 

 degree, all the mysteries described in the immortal book of Arabian 

 fairy tales. And our man in the street, on witnessing the atomic bomb, 

 might well say "Here, at last, I find a real miracle — a miracle which 

 can be repeated at will." But the men of science tell him that they 

 know all about what has happened and that there is no miracle. In 

 this they play some deception on that la3^man, for, if they could 

 reveal to him the picture of those more subtle atomic processes which 

 are involved, he would be likely to exclaim "But these processes in 

 terms of which you explain the bomb are, to my way of thinking, 

 miracles themselves." And the man of science, if honest with himself, 

 will have no choice but to reply, "Yes, my friend, that is indeed true to 

 your way of thinking; but to me, who has lived with these subatomic 

 phenomena so long, the plienomcna have ceased to cany with them the 

 stigma of the word 'miracle.' And so," says the man of science, "I 

 ask you to be content in my statement that all is really well in the 

 philosophy of the matter. Then you will not be worried unless you 

 think too much. I shall be content on account of the fundamentality 

 of my knowledge and the broadness of my philosophy, while you shall 

 seek refuge for contentment in the depths of your ignorance." 



