National Geographic UK - 03.2020

I

IN THIS SECTION

A Giant Geode

Microbial Art

Mudskipper Parenting

Arctic Racing

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC VOL. 237 NO. 3

EXPLORE

Finding Our Way

to the Future

THE MOST AMBITIOUS SCIENTIFIC MISSION MAY BE TO INSPIRE

HUMANITY TO ACT, SAYS THE AUTHOR, A CO-CREATOR OF COSMOS.

BY ANN DRUYAN

IT WAS A RAINY NIGHT when the future became a

place, one you could visit. A downpour at sunset

couldn’t discourage the 200,000 people who had

gathered for the opening ceremony of the 1939 New

York World’s Fair. “World of Tomorrow” was the

theme of this art deco land of promise.

There were television sets, calculating machines,

and a robot. For the first time, people saw these things

that would change their lives. But on that night

they had come to hear the greatest scientific genius

since Isaac Newton. Albert Einstein was to give brief

remarks and flip the switch that would illuminate the

fair. The spectacle promised to be the largest flash of

artificial light in technical history, visible for a radius

of 40 miles. A wow—but not as mind-blowing as the

source of this sudden, unprecedented brilliance.

Scientists would capture cosmic rays and transmit

them to Queens, where they would supply the energy

that would turn night into day, flooding with blinding

ILLUMINATING THE MYSTERIES—AND WONDERS—ALL AROUND US EVERY DAY

MARCH 2020 17