The new responsibilities of physicists

Until the Second World War, physics belonged to the physicists. Discussions, disagreements, and debates about experiments or theories in physics were carried on within a small group of highly trained men. This happy situation ended in 1940. It has probably ended permanently. The developments of nuclear science and of electronics have brought physics and physicists into a new place in our society and in our Government. To understand clearly the complexities of our present position let me recall, by way of contrast, a scientific controversy of the 1920's.