Science and Public Policy: Promises and Constraints 59 



Should a greater balance in geographical distribution ulti- 

 mately be achieved mainly through Congressional activity, and 

 without the explicit advice and support of the best scientists 

 throughout our country, it is very possible that the resulting 

 distribution of money would not be optimum, even within the 

 framework of more uniform distribution. There is always the 

 danger that significant amounts of money will go to institutions 

 of little capacity and promise, rather than to nearby institutions 

 of greater capacity and promise, if the best scientists and engi- 

 neers speak only for their own narrow institutional needs and 

 lose the respect of those who control Federal budgets. 



Let me turn next to opportunities in science. 

 Opportunities When I was a young lad, showing a boy's inter- 

 m Science est in science, parents and relatives gave me 



the familiar array of books and scientific kits 

 on birthdays and Christmas in order to cater to this interest. 

 The assortment of books inevtiably included copies of Jules 

 Verne's works, which I must confess I read very soberly and 

 laboriously somewhat like a monkish scholar working his way 

 through the books of the Old or New Testament. As everyone 

 knows, Jules Verne, who was just approaching the peak of his 

 reputation a century ago, had a marvelous sense for future 

 technology viewed in the large. He saw innovations several 

 generations ahead of his time, describing in the language of 

 his day such things as the journeys of the Nautilus and a trip 

 to the moon. As a boy I was inclined to regard him as one of 

 the greatest scientists in human history. 



Some thirty-five years later, I returned by chance to Jules 

 Verne as part of reading matter gathered up at a bookstand 

 for a transatlantic plane trip and had a great revelation. Even 

 though his romance and vision seemed in a sense even more 

 remarkable than it had when I was a boy — maturity had 

 brought me closer to him as an individual — I realized that he 

 would have had a bit of difficulty passing an examination in 

 undergraduate physics. The feats of the Nautilus, which plowed 

 along at forty or fifty miles an hour, required a far better 



