Twenty Years' Accomplishments: Problems as well as hopes come more rapidly with the speed of progress

Twenty years ago, on Dec. 2, the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated by man. It was not only initiated by scientists but it was controlled by them. This dramatic climax marked a turn in the course of human affairs. It gave a new terror to war, possibly so much as to convince man that the horrors are to be tolerated to gain any goal. It also gave impetus to the study of science. Research gained new public stature. While the catalyst of alarm from Sputnik was needed to spur the Western world and particularly the U.S.A. to its present efforts in science, the march into new worlds of knowledge is now more rapid than any but the most remarkably foresighted could have predicted. In the next 20 years that march can be expected to continue and accelerate. Like the mountain there to be climbed, nature's fabric of sectrets ...