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The first serious test of the Rio Convention on Climate Change will come later this month, when the members of the treaty decide what happens next. They need above all to stay cool.
Science policy is in the doldrums, having run out of intellectual steam and strong political commitment. It needs shaking up if it is to support and guide science and technology in a global, knowledge-based economy.
A badly constructed yet fascinating account of the origins of quantum electrodynamics suggests the need for a way of capturing both the spirit of an heroic age and the later history of the concepts that it spawned.