ROSY PICTURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26633, 2 December 1947, Page 5

ROSY PICTURE

LIFE IN ATOMIC AGE REVOLUTIONARY CHANGES NEW YORK,, Nov. 30. “Atomic bombs can annihilate all life on earth, but if war ceases atomic energy can make man live as long as Methuselah,” writes the Chancellor of the Chicago University, Professor Robert Hutchins, in a magazine article. “Atomic energy makes all our conceptions of daily living obsolete. It eradicates virtually all our limitations and cures all our maladies, and opens the door to a way of life as uncomplicated as that of the South Sea native basking in the sun and plucking his food from the (breadfruit tree. Our paramount problem in the atomic age will be what to do with our spare time.

“Heat will be so plentiful that it will be used to melt snow as it falls. Lawns and gardens will be luxuriant, for atomic energy promises fertilisers and soil balancers more powerful than any known to-day. There will be flowers such as we do not have at

present, for the atomic principle has the power to alter forms of plant life just as it alters the structure of minerals. Factories will operate only a few hours a week to produce more goods than can be used. “They will produce, among other things,' new metals, new types of selfinsulating building materials, new fabric goods, furnishings, and communication devices which will eliminate space and time, and vehicles which will run for a year on 2oz or. less of atomic fuel. Most human ailments will be cured as rapidly as they are diagnosed.” Professor Hutchins predicts that, with the aid of present isotope tracer studies, the mystery of cancer growth will be understood within seven years. He says that if we are permitted to live at all the end of human suffering is in sight.