The IGY in Retrospect 
By Exvuiott B. ROBERTS 
Coast and Geodetic Survey 
United States Department of Commerce 
[With 3 plates] 
On Decemeer 31, 1958, there was concluded a worldwide intellec- 
tual effort often characterized as the greatest cooperative enterprise 
for peaceful purposes in all human history. Between 20,000 and 
30,000 scientists of 67 nations, with innumerable supporting workers, 
endeavored to expand man’s understanding of his physical environ- 
ment. This was the International Geophysical Year. 
It is truly remarkable that such an enterprise was successfully 
planned and executed, in a period of unprecedented political passions 
and tension, through direct contact between scientists themselves 
without recourse to diplomatic intervention or formal treaties. As 
a result we have new and powerful ties on an individual level be- 
tween leading scientists of many lands, mounting understanding for 
one another, a great breach in the Iron Curtain, and a demonstration 
that men of many races and political faiths can work together fruit- 
fully. Even if these accomplishments cannot be exactly evaluated, 
their meaning for the world is deep and pervasive. 
A number of great discoveries were made and more will inevitably 
grow out of the gradual assimilation, in years to come, of the accumu- 
lated data of the IGY. The borders of our knowledge of man’s 
environment were pushed back in several important respects, with an 
already vast and growing store of new knowledge which will sharply 
influence the course of human development. 
The space age was inaugurated under the auspices of the IGY; 
study and exploitation of our last geographical frontiers in Antarc- 
tica and over the oceans began to flourish in a new spirit of inter- 
national cooperation; the age-old concern of all mankind with weather 
received tremendous new impetus; and human beings took bold steps 
toward better understanding of the earth itself, its physical structure 
and its gravitational and magnetic fields; of its earthquakes, oro- 
genic processes and glaciation; of the chemical and physical processes 
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