Today Science is rediscovering the creative mystery of the universe. The old self-assurance is largely gone. Within the first quarter of the twentieth century a revolution has taken place. The laws of mechanics no longer explain all things. The intellect of man has become aware of something strange and unpredictable at the very heart of existence. Matter and radiation have assumed a complexity which was hardly guessed at in the eighteen hundreds. The exploration of the minute structure of matter seems to take us as far into the unknown as does the exploration of the farthest reaches of space.

Howard H Brinton, 1931