ROMANCE OR SCIENCE? HEYL 285 



above their lasts, from Avlioin society is in no danger. But physicists, 

 it appears, are of different clay — iconoclasts, crack-brained theorists, 

 ay, even writers of romance ! And, if I guess rightly, this attitude of 

 the editorial mind is not without a measure of instinctive sympathy 

 on the part of many scientific men not of the physical persuasion. 



Here is something for us physicists to think about. We are dis- 

 tinctly on the defensive on all sides. Wliy have we excited this 

 suspicion? Why have we not been able to keep to the straight path 

 with our fellows? If we are no longer regarded as safe and sane, is 

 it our own fault, or that of the subject with which we have to deal? 

 It must be admitted that among the different conventional divi- 

 sions of science physics occupies, indeed, a unique position. Ask the 

 chemist the nature of the atoms and molecules with which he deals 

 and of the forces which rule their reactions and he will refer you to 

 the physicist for an answer. Ask the biologist concerning the proc- 

 esses of the living tissues which he studies, and he will be apt to tell 

 you that they are but complicated chemical reactions; and the psy- 

 chologist, if his opinion be asked, will likely say that the subject mat- 

 ter of his study is the most complicated kind of physiology. The 

 psychologist leans upon the biologist, the biologist upon the chemist, 

 and the chemist in turn upon the physicist; but between the physicist 

 and nature there is no intermediary. 



It is the task of the physicist to learn what he can about the funda- 

 mentals of nature, matter, and energy and their reactions, which as 

 they rise in complexity form the subject for the study successive!}^ of 

 the chemist, the physiologist, and the psycliologist. Nor does the 

 engineer, the geologist, or the astronomer make use of any principles 

 which may be called distinctively his own; all these merely apply the 

 fundamental principles of physics or chemistry on a large scale. The 

 physicist is, in the best sense of the word, a scientific fundamentalist. 

 If, therefore, there comes about any change in basic scientific con- 

 cepts, it is the physicist in the front line who first feels the shock. 



Now it happens that much of the new and strange in modern 

 physical theory is bound up with two very fundamental concepts — 

 matter and the atom. In particular, it is noteworthy that a large 

 majority of the published physical work for the last 20 years has 

 been directly or indirectly connected with atomic theory. In this 

 connection there comes to mind the exhortation of President John 

 Adams to the chemists of his day : 



Chymists ! pursue your experiments with iiidefatifiable ardour and persever- 

 ance. Give us the best possible Broad, Butter and Cheese, Wine, Beer and 

 Cider, Houses, Ships and Steamboats, Gardens, Orchards, Fields, not to mention 

 Clothiers or Coolis. If your investigations lead accidentally to any deep dis- 

 covery, rejoice and cry " Eureka ! " But never institute any experiment with a, 

 view or hope of discovering the smallest particles of Matters. 



