We Know Too Much For One Man

Both The Man Of Science And The Man Of Art Live Always At The Edge Of Mystery, Surrounded By It. Both, As A Measure Of Their Creation, Have Always Had To Do With The Harmonization Of What Is New With What Is Familiar, With The Balance Between Novelty And Synthesis, With The Struggle To Make Partial Order In Total Chaos.... This Cannot Be An Easy Life.

[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.

Bertrand Russell Had Given A Talk On The Then New Quantum Mechanics, Of Whose Wonders He Was Most Appreciative. He Spoke Hard And Earnestly In The New Lecture Hall. And When He Was Done, Professor Whitehead, Who Presided, Thanked Him For His Efforts, And Not Least For 'leaving The Vast Darkness Of The Subject Unobscured'.

Today, It Is Not Only That Our Kings Do Not Know Mathematics, But Our Philosophers Do Not Know Mathematics And - To Go A Step Further - Our Mathematicians Do Not Know Mathematics.

A Pragmatist Is Concerned With Results, Not Reality.