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The Scientist at His Last Quarter Hour
| Article
# : |
10082 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1986 |
2,404 Words |
| Author
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Louis de Broglie
Louis de Broglie, a French physicist, was awarded the 1929
Nobel Prize in physics for discovering the principle that an
electron or any other particle behaved in a dual manner--as a
wave and as a particle. It was de Broglie's discovery of the
wave/particle duality that augmented Einstein's view that
matter and energy were interconvertible. De Broglie, now 93,
resides in Paris. |
When we have reached the end of our lives (and which of us, whatever his age may be, is sure of not being about to reach it?), it is only natural that we should try to understand the meaning of life and to pass judgment on the activities we may have carried out during our existence. In particular, anyone who has devoted the greater part of his time to scientific research must, of course, be led during his "last quarter of an hour" to consider the material and spiritual value of science, the place it occupies in the progress of civilization and in the general evolution of the human race, and the prospects which we may see for the significance and the destiny of the universe and of thought. On the assumption that we have come to our last quarter of an hour, let us therefore ponder these grave problems.
The Appearance Of Life
A few million years ago, life appeared on the surface of the earth, no doubt in a very humble form in which living matter was hardly distinguishable from inert matter. Then, over the centuries and millennia, driven by a mysterious force whose true nature we are still far from understanding, it spread through the waters, into the air, and onto firm land, producing more and more complicated organisms which were better and better adapted to very diverse conditions of life. According to the date of paleontology, it is most probable that all of the species have arisen from one another, although we do not know by what continuous or discontinuous processes (progressive evolution or sudden mutations) the living forms which have existed or still exist on the earth have successfully come about.
During this long and astounding history of the development of life on our planet, of this grandiose epic which Mr. Jean Rostand has given the striking name of "the adventure of protoplasm," living organisms have adapted themselves with incredible flexibility to the conditions of existence offered to them and have reached that degree of prodigious complexity and admirable precision to be found in the evolved species and, in particular, in the higher vertebrates. Apart from being astonished by physical-chemical mechanisms that ensure the continuation of life in individuals and its perpetuation through successive generations, how can one fail to admire the perfection of those "sense organs" which allow a living being to know its environment and, thanks to its mobility, to find there what can be useful to it and avoid as far as possible the dangers which may lie in wait for it? The marvelously precise structure and the extraordinary sensibility of organs, such as the eye and ear of the higher animals, stagger the
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