The Immoderate Publicity of Science

In recent years, many of the sciences have found it increasingly easy to demonstrate how indispensable they are to modern life. This has been conspicuously true since the World War, during which science in the broadest sense made itself felt as a constructive factor in the solution of innumerable problems. This period of stress presented many serious difficulties that needed to be overcome promptly. The physicists and chemists, in particular, bent their energies to the task, with results that brought widespread acclaim. In the works of either construction or destruction, chemistry and physics contributed in many new and unanticipated ways. Necessity became the mother of invention in the scientific laboratories. The latter deserve much, and they have been justly lauded. One hears on many sides that “science has come into its own” in the last decade.