'There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now,' William Thomson, Lord Kelvin asserted at the British Association meeting in 1900. 'All that remains is more and more precise measurement.' Not to be outdone, the American scientist Albert Michelson said: 'The grand underlying principles have been firmly established; further truths of physics are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.'

LRB 9 February 2006 | PDF Download