Time scales: speculations about the future of physics

For the past five years the American Institute of Physics has sponsored a series of visits by various physicists to a number of universities and colleges. One of the purposes of these visits is to acquaint the students and faculty of these institutions with some of the results of current researches. While discussing the present, questions are inevitably raised about the future of physics. Faculty and students, for different reasons and from different vantage points, appear extremely interested in the subject. The following text was written with this subject and this audience in mind. The lecture was never delivered as such, although many of the ideas expressed here were discussed in several of the lectures actually given.

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