Where do we go from here?

SEP 01, 1969

Current emphasis on studies of very small systems and very short time intervals, on the one hand, and large‐scale objects of astronomical dimensions, on the other, should lead to increasing interaction and unity between them.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3035779

Arthur E. Ruark

BECAUSE ALL SCIENCE feeds on unsolved problems, it is our privilege, from time to time, to make some forecast of the future. Naturally, the forecaster can do nothing about some great surprise that may come, with sudden force, to change the course of a whole science. Nevertheless, in a well developed science such as physics, one can see some invariant driving forces. There are tides in the affairs of physics that drive us onward without cease. The greatest tide of all appears to be explicit faith in the unity and consistency of natural behavior. This faith implies that parts of our subject that develop in relative isolation will come together to form a broader, more perfect structure.

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More about the authors

Arthur E. Ruark, Atomic Energy Commission.