We Have Sought For Firm Ground And

If God Has Made The World A Perfect Mechanism, He Has At Least Conceded So Much To Our Imperfect Intellect That In Order To Predict Little Parts Of It, We Need Not Solve Innumerable Differential Equations, But Can Use Dice With Fair Success.

If Alpha [the Fine-structure Constant] Were Bigger Than It Really Is, We Should Not Be Able To Distinguish Matter From Ether [the Vacuum, Nothingness], And Our Task To Disentangle The Natural Laws Would Be Hopelessly Difficult. The Fact However That Alpha Has Just Its Value 1/137 Is Certainly No Chance But Itself A Law Of Nature. It Is Clear That The Explanation Of This Number Must Be The Central Problem Of Natural Philosophy.

It Is Natural That A Man Should Consider The Work Of His Hands Or His Brain To Be Useful And Important. Therefore Nobody Will Object To An Ardent Experimentalist Boasting Of His Measurements And Rather Looking Down On The 'paper And Ink' Physics Of His Theoretical Friend, Who On His Part Is Proud Of His Lofty Ideas And Despises The Dirty Fingers Of The Other. Experiment And Theory In Physics

All Attempts To Adapt Our Ethical Code To Our Situation In The Technological Age Have Failed.

The Human Race Has Today The Means For Annihilating Itself--either In A Fit Of Complete Lunacy, I.e., In A Big War...or By The Careless Handling Of Atomic Technology, Through A Slow Process Of Poisoning And Of Deterioration In Its Genetic Structure.