![]() ![]() Yet on the whole, physicists remained calm, expecting that these oddities would eventually be explained by existing theory. ![]() And the electron, the carrier of electricity, was discovered in 1897. Two months later, Henri Becquerel accidentally found that a piece of uranium ore emitted something that fogged photographic plates. Roentgen discovered rays that passed through flesh because they were unexplained, he called them X rays. But late in the final decade, a few curiosities came to light. As physicist Alastair Rae put it, "By the end of the nineteenth century it seemed that the basic fundamental principles governing the behavior of the physical universe were known."* Indeed, many scientists said that the study of physics was nearly completed: no big discoveries remained to be made, only details and finishing touches. ![]() I'm interested in the future of the future." ROBERT DONIGER, 1996 INTRODUCTION Science at the End of the Century A hundred years ago, as the nineteenth century drew to a close, scientists around the world were satisfied that they had arrived at an accurate picture of the physical world. Timeline by Michael Crichton For Taylor "All the great empires of the future will be empires of the mind." WINSTON CHURCHILL, 1953 "If you don't know history, you don't know anything." EDWARD JOHNSTON, 1990 "I'm not interested in the future. ![]()
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