100 YEARS AGO

The appearance on clear evenings of the zodiacal light after sunset at this season of the year in this latitude is usual, and it has been frequent and beautiful to observe in this district for many nights. It would be interesting if the readers of NATURE could detect any definite movement of the arm of light, for much yet remains to be discovered about this phenomenon, and any observer can make this point a study... The very remarkable sunset of March 6 has probably been observed by many readers of NATURE. The "fire-finger" left in a perfectly perpendicular position for upwards of fifty minutes after sunset was visibly withdrawn, without losing colour or size or changing from the perpendicular, and was a vivid and beautiful adjunct to a sunset afterglow strangely reminding one of the "Krakatoa sunsets" of years ago. This finger of fire the writer has only observed once before, after a similar-coloured sunset over the estuaries of the Medway and Thames last summer, but London smoke dimmed the effect.

From Nature 13 March 1902.

50 YEARS AGO

A conference was held during January 19–20 in London of the organization Science for Peace, which was attended by 180 scientific workers... After lengthy discussion, a statement of principles was adopted. Recognizing the danger of a third world war the statement runs... "We think it our duty to ensure that science is used solely to improve the conditions of life and to advance the arts of peace". It is the scientist's duty "to inform and enlighten the public both about the benefits that science can bring, and about the destructiveness and misery of modern war". ... What people want to hear about is not the horrors of atomic warfare, not the A.B.C. of atomic energy, but dispassionate analysis of present deadlocks, and expert suggestions as to what can be done... In so far as we contribute to the release of tension among the nations, we contribute not only to the safety and independence of our country, but also to the support and sustenance of the great scientific tradition in which we have been fostered and to removal of the suspicion that scientists are indifferent to the often revolutionary consequences of their own discoveries.

From Nature 15 March 1952.