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"The administration of the great system of the universe ... the care of universal happiness of all rational and sensible beings, is the business of God and not of man. To man is allotted a much humbler department, but one much more suitable to the weakness of his powers, and the narrowness of his comprehension; the care of his own happiness, of that of his family, his friends, his country.... But though we are endowed with a very strong desire of these ends, it has been entrusted to the slow and uncertain determinations of our reason to find the proper means of bringing them about. Nature has directed us to the greater part of these by original and immediate instincts: Hunger, thirst, the passion which unites the two sexes, the love of pleasure, and the dread of pain, prompt us to apply those means for their own sake, and without any consideration of their tendency to those beneficent ends which the great Director of Nature intended to produce by them.'' -Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759.
“As far as I can see, there is one consideration which stands at the threshold of all moral teaching. If men as individuals surrender to the call of their elementary instincts, avoiding pain and seeking satisfaction only for their own selves, the result for them all taken together must be a state of insecurity, of fear and of promiscuous misery. If, besides that, they use their intelligence from an individualist, ie. A selfish standpoint, building up their life on the illusion of a happy unattached existence, things will be hardly better. In comparison with the other elementary instincts and impulses, the emotions of love, of pity and of friendship are too weak and too cramped to lead to a tolerable state of human society. The solution of this problem, when freely considered, is simple enough, and it seems also to echo from the teachings of the wise men of the past always in the same strain: All men should let their conduct be guided by the same principles; and those principles should be such, that by following them there should accrue to all as great a measure as possible of security and satisfaction, and as small a measure as possible of suffering.” • -Albert Einstein, Morals and Emotions, 1938
“… New methods of curing or preventing diseases; all new discovered fossils in different countries, as mines, minerals, and quarries; new and useful improvements in any branch of mathematics; new discoveries in chemistry, such as improvements in distillation, brewing, and assaying of ores; new mechanical inventions for saving labour, saw mills and carriages, and for raising and conveying of water, draining of meadows etc; all new arts, trades and manufactures that may be proposed or thought of; surveys, maps, and charts of particular parts of the sea coasts or inland countries; course and junctions of rivers and great roads, situations of lakes and mountains, nature of the soil and productions of new methods of improving the breed of useful animals; introducing other sorts from foreign countries, new improvements in planting, gardening and clearing land; and all philosophical experiments that let light into the nature of things, tend to increase the power of man over matter and multiply the conveniences or pleasures of life” -Benjamin Franklin: The Founding Document of the American Philosophical Society 1743
“If we assume that radium contains a supply of energy which it gives out little by little, we are led to believ that this body does not remain unchanged, as it appears to, but that it undergoes an extremely slow change. Several reasons speak in favour of this view. First, the emission of heat, which makes it seem probably that a chemical reaction is taking place in the radium. But this is no ordinary chemical reaction, affecting the combination of atoms in the molecule, No chemical reaction can explain the emission of heat due to radium. Furthermore, radioactivity is a property of the atom of radium; if, then it is due to a transformation, this transformation must take place in the atom itself. Consequently, from this point of view, the atom of radium would be in a process of evolution, and we should be forced to abandon the theoryof the invariability of atoms, which is the foundation fo modern chemistry.” • –Mme Curie 1904
Ernest Rutherford, 1871-1937
Lord Kelvin’s greatest hits: • “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now,. All that remains is more and more precise measurements.” • “Radio has no future” • “wireless telegraphy is all very well, but I’d rather send a message by a boy on a pony” • “I can state flatly that heavier than air flying machines are impossible’! • “the earth is not more than 10 million years old” Lord Kelvin, 1824-1907
(Radium represents) “the unlimited ascent to knowledge, and through knowledge to physical power and dominion over nature. Radium has taught us that there is no limit to the amount of energy in the world available to support life.” -The Interpretation of Radium, 1909 by Frederick Soddy
3-The Reality of Economics: Energy, Work, Power within 3 phase spaces.
“We must go on to do all in our power to conquer the doubts and fears, the ignorance and greed, which made this horror possible… Today, we are faced with the pre-eminent fact that, if civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships- the ability of all peoples, of all kinds to live togetherand to work together, in the same world, at peace… The Work, my friends, is peace. More than an end of this war- an end to the beginnings of all wars. Yes an end, forever, to this impractical, unrealistic settlement of differences between governments by the mass killing of peoples… The only limits to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.” -Franklin D Roosevelt, April 11 1945 (Draft speech written for Jefferson Day events)
The more important responsibility of this Atomic Energy Agency would be to devise methods where by this fissionable material would be allocated to serve the peaceful pursuits of mankind. Experts would be mobilized to apply atomic energy to the needs of agriculture, medicine, and other peaceful activities. A special purpose would be to provide abundant electrical energy in the power-starved areas of the world. Thus the contributing powers would be dedicating some of their strength to serve the needs rather than the fears of mankind. The United States would be more than willing--it would be proud to take up with others "principally involved: the development of plans where by such peaceful use of atomic energy would be expedited. Of those "principally involved" the Soviet Union must, of course, be one. President Eisenhauer, December 8, 1953 Before the General Assembly of the United Nations on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy `
“…and with an equal speed, atomic engines of various types invaded industrialism. This spectacle of feverish enterprise was “productivity”. This crowding of new rich people was the bright side of this phase of the new epoch of human history. Beneath that brightness was a gathering darkness… a deepening dismay. If there was a massive increase in production, there was also a huge destruction of values. • The coal mines were manifestly doomed to closure at no very distant date, the vast amount of capital invested in oil was becoming un-salvagable. Millions of coal miners were being flung out of employment by the superior efficiency of the new machinery. The rapid fall in the cost of transite was destroying high land values at every center of population. Gold was undergoing headlong depreciation. All of the securities upon which the credit of the world rested were slipping and sliding. The banks were tottering. The stock exchanges were scenes of feverish panic. This was the reverse of the spectacle. These were the black and monstrous under consequences of the ‘leap into the air’. The thing had come upon an unprepared humanity. It seemed as though human society was to be smashed by its own magnificent gains… for there had been no foresight of these things. There had been no attempt to anywhere compute even the probable dislocation this flood of in-expensive energy would produce in human affairs…” • “And now, under the shock of the atomic bombs, the great masses of population which had gathered into the enormous dingy town centers of that period were disposed and scattered disasterously around the surrounding rural areas. It was as if some brutal force, grown impatient at last at man’s blindness had with a deliberate intention of a re-arrangement of population upon more wholesome lines shaken the world. • The catastrophes of the atomic bombs which shook men out of cities and businesses and economic relations, shook them also out of their old established habits of thought. To borrow a word from the old fashioned chemists; “men were made nascent. They wree released from old ties. For good or evil, they were ready for new associations.” • -H.G. Welles, The World Set Free, 1910
‘I do not pretend that birth control is the only way in which population can be kept from increasing... War... has hitherto been dissappointing in this respect, but perhaps bacteriological war may prove more effective. If a Black Death could be spread throughout the world once in every generation survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full... The state of affairs might be somewhat unpleasant, but what of that? Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people's... There are three ways of securing a society that shall be stable as regards population. The first is that of birth control, the second that of infanticide or really destructive wars, and the third that of general misery except for a powerful minority...War has been throughout history, the chief source of social cohesion by providing an external necessity for a society to accept political rule.’ -Bertrand Russell, Impact of Science on Society, 1952 Dirty Bertie
