406 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1949 
gram during World War II, were men who had received their inspira- 
tion and training in independent research under this National Re- 
search Fellowship program. 
Let me now conclude this address by a look to the future. I might 
discuss this in terms of current scientific programs. I could describe 
the race between the cosmic-ray scientists who, from mountain top, 
airplane, and balloon, seek to utilize the still unknown energies of the 
cosmos to search out even more of nature’s fundamental secrets of 
matter and energy, and the high-energy machine scientists who, with 
Van de Graaff generator, cyclotron, betatron, and synchrotron, are 
reproducing cosmic phenomena in the laboratory. It remains to be 
seen which group will discover the most for the fewest millions of 
dollars. This much can be said: both groups are meeting with 
exciting successes, and each stimulates and supplements the other. 
Or I could try to describe some of the opportunities for the use of 
radioactive chemical isotopes, produced by cyclotrons and atomic 
piles, as tools in other lines of research. Of this, Dr. Shields Warren, 
Director of the Division of Biology and Medicine of the Atomic 
Energy Commission, said at the eighth annual science talent dinner 
in Washington this month: 
. an event, the scope of which can be but dimly appreciated, has recently oc- 
curred in the development of atomic energy. First, a revolutionary concept in 
physics has been developed and'proved and active experimentation as to its poten- 
tialities is well under way. Second, a method of tagging atoms by radioactivity 
so that chemical and biologic processes can be followed through in great detail is 
now at hand. Through this radioactivity accurate measurement of minute quan- 
tities is now feasible, for as little as one million billionth of an ounce of radio 
phosphorus may be detected. Third, advance in knowledge of biologic effects of 
radiation permits changing some hereditary characteristics in plants or animals. 
Or I could venture some speculations on the possible future role of 
synthetically manufactured hormones which, administered like 
insulin to a diabetic, could control the tendency to cancer, or produce 
a race of giants, or turn a general into a pacifist, or cure a schizophrenic. 
Or I might review the interesting theories of the universe. Is it 
finite; is it expanding; is it still being created; what maintains the 
heat of the stars and how old are they; what is their internal consti- 
tution and what forces and energies account for their condition? 
But such considerations are ruled out by the limitations of both my 
time and my knowledge. I shall therefore approach the future more 
as I introduced the past, in terms of some of the problems which face 
our society and in whose solution science may be able to assist. 
In view of the prodigious strides which science and technology have 
made in our century, what remains to be accomplished? From our 
own point of view the United States might appear to be at the summit 
of its industrial greatness. The young country which, in 1849, was 
