No individual is alone responsible for a single stepping stone along the path of progress, and where the path is smooth progress is most rapid.
Ernest LawrenceRead
In the Radiation Laboratory we count it a privilege to do everything we can to assist our medical colleagues in the application of these new tools to the problems of human suffering.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of collaboration between scientists and medical professionals to alleviate human suffering.
Ernest Lawrence expresses the belief that the work done in the Radiation Laboratory is not just a job, but a privilege that comes with the responsibility to support medical professionals. The quote highlights the role of scientific innovation in addressing health challenges and underscores the collaborative spirit necessary to transform scientific advancements into real-world solutions for human suffering.
In practice
A speech at a medical conference highlighting the importance of scientific advancements in healthcare.
No individual is alone responsible for a single stepping stone along the path of progress, and where the path is smooth progress is most rapid.
Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright; The band is playing somewhere; and somewhere hearts are light; And somewhere men are laughing; and little children shout; But there is no joy in Mudville- great Casey has struck out.
Certainly, it may bring to light such a deeper knowledge of the structure of matter as to constitute a veritable discontinuity in the progress of science.
From the beginning of the Radiation Laboratory, I have had the rare good fortune of being in the center of a group of men of high ability, enthusiastic and completely devoted to scientific pursuits.
We have reached the age, those of us to whom fortune has assigned a post in life's struggle, when beaten and smashed and biffed by the lashing of the dragon's tail, we begin to appreciate that the old man was not such a fool after all. We saw our parents wrestling with the same dragon, and we thought, though we never spoke a thought aloud, 'Why doesn't he hit him on the head?' Alas, comrads, we know now. We have hit the dragon on the head and we have seen the dragon smile.
I am mindful that scientific achievement is rooted in the past, is cultivated to full stature by many contemporaries and flourishes only in favorable environment. No individual is alone responsible for a single stepping stone along the path of progress, and where the path is smooth progress is most rapid. In my own work this has been particularly true.
The total quantity of all the forces capable of work in the whole universe remains eternal and unchanged throughout all their changes. All change in nature amounts to this, that force can change its form and locality, without its quantity being changed. The universe possesses, once for all, a store of force which is not altered by any change of phenomena, can neither be increased nor diminished, and which maintains any change which takes place on it.
The further a mathematical theory is developed, the more harmoniously and uniformly does its construction proceed, and unsuspected relations are disclosed between hitherto separated branches of the science.
I am not accustomed to saying anything with certainty after only one or two observations.
All drugs are poisons the benefit depends on the dosage.
We are, in a way, temporary ambulatory repositories for our nucleic acids. This does not deny our humanity; it does not prevent us from pursuing the good, the true and the beautiful. But it would be a great mistake to ignore where we have come from in our attempt to determine where we are going.
No amounts of stone and bone could yield the kinds of information that the paintings gave so freely.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.