50 years ago

During the past few months, three great achievements in science and technology have justifiably received world acclaim: (1) the launching of artificial Earth satellites by scientists in the U.S.S.R.; (2) the development and control of thermonuclear fusion by scientists in Great Britain and the United States; (3) the launching of an artificial Earth satellite by scientists in the United States. We have used the expression 'by scientists in' deliberately... Scientific discoveries are not suddenly made by men who, by birth or consent, are entitled to claim a certain nationality; they are the results of good training, patient and sometimes long-continued work often fraught with disappointment, team-work sometimes spiced with real personal genius, and all these are based on the work of previous generations.

From Nature 8 February 1958.

100 years ago

Mr Mallock (January 30, p. 293) seems to presume, as a great many others do, that an apparatus on the aëroplane principle “demands constant attention on the part of the aëronaut” to maintain its stability in the air. We are apt to get ideas from watching the behaviour of little bits of paper floating in the gusts of wind, and to forget that the flying machine of the future may run into tons of weight. Though a frail canoe may easily capsize, the big ship seldom turns over even in the roughest of seas. Even so primitive a contrivance as we may presume that of Mr. Farman to be is some 33 feet across and weighs, complete, half a ton. Such a structure is not easily upset by mere puffs of wind. But it is also evident that a machine can be designed possessing nearly perfect automatic stability... A well-designed and well-balanced machine is automatically stable without any pendulums or other appliances; in fact, it forms a pendulum of itself.

From Nature 6 February 1908.