The Region Of The Mysterious Is Rapidly

In Fact, We Will Have To Give Up Taking Things For Granted, Even The Apparently Simple Things. We Have To Learn To Understand Nature And Not Merely To Observe It And Endure What It Imposes On Us. Stupidity, From Being An Amiable Individual Defect, Has Become A Social Crime.

We Academic Scientists Move Within A Certain Sphere, We Can Go On Being Useless Up To A Point, In The Confidence That Sooner Or Later Some Use Will Be Found For Our Studies. The Mathematician, Of Course, Prides Himself On Being Totally Useless, But Usually Turns Out To Be The Most Useful Of The Lot. He Finds The Solution But He Is Not Interested In What The Problem Is: Sooner Or Later, Someone Will Find The Problem To Which His Solution Is The Answer.

Pauling Was Shocked By The Freedom With Which The X-ray Crystallographers Of The Time, Including Particularly Astbury, Played With The Intimate Chemical Structure Of Their Models. They Seemed To Think That If The Atoms Were Arranged In The Right Order And About The Right Distance Apart, That Was All That Mattered, That No Further Restrictions Need To Be Put On Them.

In Science Men Have Learned Consciously To Subordinate Themselves To A Common Purpose Without Losing The Individuality Of Their Achievements. Each One Knows That His Work Depends On That Of His Predecessors And Colleagues, And That It Can Only Reach Its Fruition Through The Work Of His Successors. In Science Men Collaborate Not Because They Are Forced To By Superior Authority Or Because They Blindly Follow Some Chosen Leader, But Because They Realize That Only In This Willing Collaboration Can Each Man Find His Goal.

The Beauty Of Life Is, Therefore, Geometrical Beauty Of A Type That Plato Would Have Much Appreciated.