In A Free World, If It Is

Taken As A Story Of Human Achievement, And Human Blindness, The Discoveries In The Sciences Are Among The Great Epics.

Discovery Follows Discovery, Each Both Raising And Answering Questions, Each Ending A Long Search, And Each Providing The New Instruments For A New Search.

The Atomic Bomb Made The Prospect Of Future War Unendurable. It Has Led Us Up Those Last Few Steps To The Mountain Pass; And Beyond There Is A Different Country.

When You See Something That Is Technically Sweet, You Go Ahead And Do It And You Argue About What To Do About It Only After You Have Had Your Technical Success. That Is The Way It Was With The Atomic Bomb.

[about The Great Synthesis Of Atomic Physics In The 1920s:] It Was A Heroic Time. It Was Not The Doing Of Any One Man; It Involved The Collaboration Of Scores Of Scientists From Many Different Lands. But From The First To Last The Deeply Creative, Subtle And Critical Spirit Of Niels Bohr Guided, Restrained, Deepened And Finally Transmuted The Enterprise.