50 Years Ago

The Architecture of Molecules. By Prof. Linus Pauling and Roger Hayward — “We are now living in an atomic age. In order to understand the world, every person needs to have some knowledge of atoms and molecules.” This is the beginning paragraph of a fascinating work of art ... The question as to how some understanding of science, however superficial, can be brought to the man and woman in the street has exercised many organizations as well as individuals. At a practical level, of course, it is unnecessary to know anything about electric currents in order to turn a switch and bring on the light. Babies love to do it before they are one year old. But for all too many people science is still magic even when they are twenty-one ... Linus Pauling worries. He thinks, quite rightly, that young people ought to want to know why the 'lead' of a pencil comes off on to the paper, what an atom of hydrogen or uranium 'looks like' ... Undoubtedly many an arts sixth-former will pick the book off the school library shelf and will learn a great deal by browsing through it.

From Nature 4 December 1965

100 Years Ago

The nation's attitude towards science is, I think, largely due to the popular idea that science is a kind of hobby followed by a certain class of people, instead of the materialisation of the desire experienced in various degrees by every thinking person to learn something about innumerable natural phenomena still unsolved; and, having learned, to control and apply them intelligently for the benefit of the human race ... It is to the new generation now being educated that we must look for betterment of our position ... We must make all education more scientific.

From Nature 2 December 1915 Footnote 1