You will also allow me to thank the Academy for inviting me to lecture in Stockholm, for its hospitality, and for the opportunity afforded me for admiring the charm of your people and the beauty of your country.

You will also allow me to thank the Academy for inviting me to lecture in Stockholm, for its hospitality, and for the opportunity afforded me for admiring the charm of your people and the beauty of your country.

If we consider what science already has enabled men to know-the immensity of space, the fantastic philosophy of the stars, the infinite smallness of the composition of atoms, the macrocosm whereby we succeed only in creating outlines and translating a measure into numbers without our minds being able to form any concrete idea of it-we remain astounded by the enormous machinery of the universe.

Thanks to the high standing which science has for so long attain and to the impartiality of the Nobel Prize Committee, the Nobel Prize for Physics is rightly considered everywhere as the highest reward within the reach of workers in Natural Philosophy.

The mystery of life is certainly the most persistent problem ever placed before the thought of man. There is no doubt that from the time humanity began to think it has occupied itself with the problem of its origin and its future which undoubtedly is the problem of life. The inability of science to solve it is absolute. This would be truly frightening were it not for faith.

Have I done the world good, or have I added a menace?

Long experience has taught me not always to believe in the limitations indicated by purely theoretical considerations. These, as we well know, are based on insufficient knowledge of all the relevant factors.