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

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All this seems fantasy, but if so, it is the fantasy of highly intelligent scientists who believe that a comparatively small effort in listening for radio messages from space may pay off richly. And in that belief, the first try was made at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in West Virginia last spring. It heard nothing, but another attempt will be made with improved apparatus.

"Of Passionate Concern." With such bursts through the boundaries of knowledge, with such leaps of faith in the possibilities of the future, it is small wonder that an electric atmosphere pervaded the whole of science in 1960. "I could have lived in no other age in which so intoxicating and beautiful a series of discoveries could have been made," breathes British Mathematician Jacob Bronowski. "If I have any regrets at the thought of dying, it is that we live in so explosive a time that discoveries will continue to be made that I will know nothing about."

By the very reason of his climb up the ever steepening curve, the scientist has more than ever before come into the consciousness of world society—and in that limelight the scientist more than ever before is fumbling for and arguing about his proper role in society itself. "Scientists," says Author-Scientist C. P. Snow, "are the most important occupational group of the world today. At this moment, what they do is of passionate concern to the whole of human society."

And in 1960, what the scientists did was to transform the earth and its future. They were surely the adventurers, the explorers, the fortunate ones—and the Men of the Year.