Man of the Year: Men of the Year: U.S. Scientists

We scientists are the only people who are not bored, the only adventurers of modern times, the real explorers—the fortunate ones. —1960 Nobel Laureate Willard F. Libby

Not everybody else was bored in 1960, and there were some adventurers—bearing spears in the Congo or banging shoes at the U.N.—who could hardly be called scientific. But the world of 1960 will readily agree with Chemist Willard Libby that U.S. scientists and their colleagues in other free lands are indeed the true 20th century adventurers, the explorers of the...