This is an entertaining and fairly level headed “what the future will bring” piece. It covers the promise and perils of a pretty diverse set of topics: nuclear power, space travel, power transmission, aviation, food production, urban growth, race relations and even (sort-of) outsourcing.
.Science Never Stops
The world has made vast strides in the last 75 years; even greater triumphs lie ahead if mankind has the courage to go on with the job.
By Harland Manchester
Illustrations by John Gaydos
MAN, standing upon the eminence of 1947 and gazing into the future, may well be dazzled and also perplexed by the promise of science to redeem his world. New discoveries and improved techniques on a hundred fronts present golden chances for a richer and fairer existence—if man has the sense, the honesty and the guts to seize and exploit them for the good of all.
Science is a blank check, and this is no time to be niggardly in filling it out. There are, of course, the doubters, like the 19th-century patent commissioner who wanted to close his office because nothing remained to be invented. If these timid souls look about them, they will see men and women who were living when there were no telephones, electric lights, automobiles, airplanes, radios, motion pictures, antitoxin serums or antiseptic surgery, to mention a few advances of the last 75 years.