Scientist Says Theory Needs Added Stress

"If we look at science only in terms of technical applications, we entirely miss the point," Victor F. Weisskopf, visiting lecturer in Physics, said last night. He claimed that people today tend to think of the scientist as a machine-man for making bombs, and in doing this, they lose the value of pure science.

To most people science is responsible for the "best toothpaste there is," one which manufacturers stamp with the sign, "scientifically tested," he said. Thus, although science certainly plays an important part in modern life, it is so poorly integrated that it remains, in its purest form, unappreciated and unknown.

Weisskopf, generally regarded as one of the world's leading theoretical physicists, delivered the first annual Albert Einstein Memorial Lecture in the Harvard Hillel House.

In the development of the universe, man has finally evolved as the only being capable of rational thought. Therefore, Weisskopf claimed, man is responsible for the state of the world, and since science has been mainly responsible for the physical potentialities now at man's disposal, he must now, more than ever, try to understand the theoretical and philosophical side of physical concepts.

"Science has introduced many ideas which are greatly under-estimated as pure ideas and are looked at mainly in terms of what tangible objects they will produce," he maintained. Weisskopf cited the theory of electromagnetic fields, Einstein's Theory of Relativity, "one of the greatest ideas human thinking ever brought about," the Darwinian concept of evolution, and the little known quantum theory as examples of scientific ideas with profound philosophical implications.