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In essence, everything can be called that, in principle, at least already know. President Bush can look forward to the new century, the general belief. Newton's theory of the motion, has been confirmed by generation after generation of scientists, and to explain everything from the track on the planet, reflected the trend of the times, the fall of an apple, as well as leading to a projectile. What is more important is that in the decades before James Clerk Maxwell establishment of a precise theoretical basis.           Oh, Bitter-Sweet Progress     The first year of a new century always appears auspicious. The year 1900 was no exception. Americans welcomed it in with the three Ps: Peace, Prosperity, and Progress. It was the culmination of many outstanding achievements and looked forward, with great confidence, to a century of continued progress. The twentieth century would be an age of knowledge and certainty. Ironically it ended in uncertainty, ambiguity, and doubt. …[However], while our new millennium may no longer offer certainty, it does hold a new potential for growth, change, discovery, and creativity in all walks of life.   On April 27, 1900, Lord Kelvin, the eminent physicist and president of Britain’s Royal Society, addressed the Royal Institution, pointing out “the beauty and clearness of the dynamical theory.” Finally Newton’s physics had been extended to embrace all of physics, including both heat and light. In essence, everything that could be known was, in principle at least, already known. The president could look ahead to a new century with total conviction. Newton’s theory of motion had been confirmed by generations of scientists, and it explained everything from the orbits of the planets to the times of the tides, the fall of an apple, and the path of a projectile. What’s more, during the preceding decades James Clerk Maxwell had established a definitive theory of light. Taken together, Newton’s and Maxwell’s two theories appeared to be capable of explaining every phenomenon in the entire physical universe.   Yet the cusp of the twentieth century presents us with an irony. 1900 was a year of great stability and confidence. It saw the consolidation and summing up of many triumphs in science, technology, engineering, economics, and diplomacy. As Senator Chauncey Depew of New York put it, “There is not a man here who does not feel 400 percent bigger in 1900 than he did in 1896, bigger intellectually, bigger hopefully, bigger patriotically,” while the Reverend Newell Dwight Hillis claimed, “Laws are becoming more just, rules more humane; music is becoming sweeter and books wiser.” Yet, at that very moment other thinkers, inventors, scientists, artists, and dreamers, including Max Planck, Henri Poincaré, Thomas Edison, Guglielmo Marconi, Nikola Tesla, the Wright brothers, Bertrand Russell, Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Proust, Sigmund Freud, Henry Ford, and Herman Hollerith were conceiving of ideas and inventions that were to transform the entire globe.   …While the twentieth century began with confident certainty it ended in unsettling uncertainty. Never again will we have the same degree of pride in our knowledge. In our infatuation with science and technology we overestimated our ability to manipulate and control the world around us. We forgot the power of the mind’s irrational impulses. We were too proud in our intellectual achievements, too confident in our abilities, too convinced that humans would stride across the world like gods.   Today we are wiser and more cautious. We are suspicious of great plans and global promises. We view with caution the sweeping proposals of experts and politicians. We savor unbounded optimism with a generous pinch of salt.         —F. David Peat, From Certainty to Uncertainty - The Story of Science and Ideas in the Twentieth Century.             Indexes/06