166 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1944 
human race. The discovery of the planet Pluto cannot be said to have 
done very much toward raising the sum total of human welfare, in 
the ordinary sense. But in the broadest sense, it may be said that 
the welfare of a nation is closely tied up with the capacity of that 
nation for untiring search after truth. Intellectual unrest, intellectual 
curiosity is, we like to think, essential to the true growth and develop- 
ment of a people. A dairy company advertises that its milk comes 
from contented cows. A rival company is perhaps more progressive 
in its views when it advertises that its cows are not contented—they are 
always trying to do better. 
The thesis is, then, that the pursuit of pure knowledge is indicative 
of a healthy national mind; that full development of intellectual 
activity, whether it be in the matter of investigating the stars or in 
building a better radio, is essential to the true welfare of a nation. 
The Russians asked a captured Nazi why he came into their country. 
He replied, “I am just a little man, I do what the Fiihrer says.” A 
nation is facing tragedy when free speculation is discouraged, when 
science is devoted solely to control of men and machines and to the 
production of a workable mass of “little men.” 
To begin this discussion of matter, space, and time we will try first 
to systematize our ideas of space, or size, in relation to matter. Im- 
agine a long, horizontal line drawn so as to represent the “the x-axis.” 
Let all objects in the universe be placed along this line in the order of 
their sizes. The smallest objects will be placed near the beginning of 
MICROSCOPIC REGION MACROSCOPIC REGION 
Zero 
size Electron Solar Spiral 
Positron Neutron Stone Mountain Earth system nebula 
Neutrino Mesotron Proton Atom 
Figure 1 
the line, at its left end. Larger and larger objects will be placed 
farther and farther to the right. We next divide the line into two 
parts by a vertical line. All objects to the left of this vertical line 
are too small to be seen with the naked eye, so this region is called the 
microscopic region. In it are placed different kinds of particles such 
as molecules, atoms, the proton, the neutron, the mesotron, the electron, 
positron, and neutrino. These particles are placed nearer and nearer 
to the origin of the line as they become smaller and smaller. It is 
worth noting that nature seems not to have given us anything smaller 
than the electron, in spite of the fact that there is plenty of room for 
particles between the electron and the origin of the line. 
To the right of the vertical dividing line we place all objects large 
enough to be seen with the naked eye. This region is called the 
macroscopic region. We might put in here, stones, mountain, earth, 
