SCIENCE, YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW — SWANN 243 



they might have said it; and if, in the saying of it, they had sought 

 to develop a systematic scheme symbolizing the ways of the atomic 

 world, instead of the limited domain of living things and the immedi- 

 ate elements of their experiences, hope, love, fear, and so forth, they 

 might have been on the way to doing something rather similar to what 

 the atomic physicist is doing today. Of course, the atomic physicist 

 has at his disposal that great logical scheme of mathematics which he 

 can use freely in his designs, and he is not limited to the utilization 

 of simple elements of geometry, 



I have spoken of the patterns of atomic structure as being abstract 

 tlimgs distinct from pictures of particles and other material things 

 which may be around. However, the patterns appropriate to groups 

 of atoms which constitute tlie things we see, come, in some of their 

 manifestations, to assume actual shapes of things in the elementary 

 meaning of that word. And so, today, we see patterns, born in the 

 understanding of atoms, extending themselves into combinations of 

 atoms — to molecules. Here the pattern is as yet unobservable to the 

 eye, and its abstract form must be inferred from chemical behavior. 

 But from molecules, pattern extends itself into large structures, into 

 crystals where form is evident in that which can be perceived by the 

 eye. And in this domain of crystals, pattern provides a rich harvest 

 of phenomena which, in the role known as that of semiconductors, 

 has, within the last two decades, revolutionized the world of elec- 

 tronics, and here man f omid that his colossal achievement in inventing 

 the radio tube and all that goes with it, was already anticipated and 

 beaten by nature in providing what we now call transistors, which 

 reduce in size and increase in compactness all such electronic devices. 



Pattern has always been evident on a large scale in biological struc- 

 tures, but now we find it playing a fundamental role, not only in 

 things which can readily be seen, but in the seeds of life itself, in the 

 chromosomes of the cells whose behavior is so vital in cell division, 

 and in the transmission of hereditary characteristics. And through 

 such processes, we may, in time, learn to comprehend that crowning 

 achievement of pattern to be found in man himself, an achievement 

 in which a single germ cell contains in itself a pattern which insures 

 that the being to which it grows shall duplicate, not only the general 

 form, but many of the characteristics of his ancestors. The substance 

 of tlie individual dies several times during what we call the span of 

 his life, but pattern goes on from generation to generation ; and even 

 an abnormality in the being, a crooked finger, or a prominent jaw 

 formation, can survive in its pattern for a thousand years. One thing 

 about man, even as he is evident to those around him, goes far toward 

 being immortal. It is pattern. 



