Caption: Convocation - 1930
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can to see what phenomena you may have to deal with in your generation. 1 do this with less hesitation because I un sure that you engineers will build gn iter structures; that you agriculturists will multiply products; that you social" scientists will give US a better economic and social order; that you scientists will evolve new theories; and that you literary people will write it all down in Addisonian prose and some in Ulini poetry, and modern "jour1 nalese' in which accuracy of statement will be subordinated to spectacular presentation! Some people believe that by and by we shall be able to command an amount of energy far beyond that at our disposal today. Some think this will come from the tides or winds or sun. Others tell us of the possibility of decomposing the atom. W e are told that from a pound weight of some radio-active material we can get as much energy as we now get from a hundred and fifty tons of coal. Some tell us that a pound weight of some other radio-active material may possibly hold power equal to that of a hundred and fifty tons of dynamite—enough to blow a modern city into oblivion. W e are comforted, however, by a great scientific authority, no less than Mr. Millikan, who tells us that new evidence "born of further scientific study is to the effect that it is highly improbable thai there is any appreciable amount of available sub-atomic energy for man to tap." Transportation will undoubtedly be greatly quickened throu h the use of the airplane. The application of power to production will be immensely increased md if this application is wisely made and its results wiselv used it will be possible to decrease labor and give men the leisure for mental, m o r a l and physical improvement. The long dis lance transmi sion of electric power max 1 id to a new < period f 1 il or home industries. < As to the "invariable laws" o\ the ph) sical universe, we must remember that our formulation o( these invariable laws ha Ptolemy \> rnicu 1 frequently changed, We no louder believe in theory of the olar S) tem, or in those oi Co I aPlao or Descartes, or, even with the fulhu I )
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