When the Subject Is Lasers

You needn’t read any more arrogance into that title than is really there. I’ll give you much humble seasoning: most of the material I’ll give you in these columns is stuff I didn’t know either until I researched it for you. I’m doing it, however, because by golly somebody has to. The general public attitude toward science is so similar to the general attitude toward the Devil a couple of centuries ago that it’s frightening. Be it known, therefore, that there is a profound distinction. You can’t actually prove the extent of any of the Devil’s powers, nor their limitations. In any aspect of scientific technology, you can.

And you should. In 1954 I was interviewed on network radio on the subject of earth satellites. The tone assumed by my interlocutor was one of barely concealed derision, his technique was to ask the listeners subliminally to join him in laughter at this new breed of astrology, and his posture was one of jovial caution, humoring me lest I catch on to what he was up to and become violent. He certainly was not alone in his conviction that artificial satellites would not happen, could not happen, and probably should not. Yet on the night of April 30, 1958, the eve of the first May Day after Sputnik, reporters in seven U. S. cities were stationed on rooftops with their cameramen and spent the night watching the moon, because of a rumor that the Russians would dye it red. Honest. The ability of the public mind to shift overnight from total disbelief to the faith which transcends reason is, once you look at it, infinitely more astonishing than anything science itself has accomplished, yea, or the Devil.

TS

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Theodore Sturgeon

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You needn’t read any more arrogance into that title than is really there. I’ll give you much humble seasoning: most of the material I’ll give you in these columns is stuff I didn’t know either until I researched it for you. I’m doing it, however, because by golly somebody has to. The general public attitude toward science is so similar to the general attitude toward the Devil a couple of centuries ago that it’s frightening. Be it known, therefore, that there is a profound distinction. You can’t actually prove the extent of any of the Devil’s powers, nor their limitations. In any aspect of scientific technology, you can.

And you should. In 1954 I was interviewed on network radio on the subject of earth satellites. The tone assumed by my interlocutor was one of barely concealed derision, his technique was to ask the listeners subliminally to join him in laughter at this new breed of astrology, and his posture was one of jovial caution, humoring me lest I catch on to what he was up to and become violent. He certainly was not alone in his conviction that artificial satellites would not happen, could not happen, and probably should not. Yet on the night of April 30, 1958, the eve of the first May Day after Sputnik, reporters in seven U. S. cities were stationed on rooftops with their cameramen and spent the night watching the moon, because of a rumor that the Russians would dye it red. Honest. The ability of the public mind to shift overnight from total disbelief to the faith which transcends reason is, once you look at it, infinitely more astonishing than anything science itself has accomplished, yea, or the Devil.