June 28, 2006
Free access to all information
From The House at Otowi Bridge: The Story of Edith Warner and Los Alamos, by Peggy Pond Church, University of New Mexico Press, 1959 [I have a signed first edition that I think the (now departed) Irv gave to me [AG can comment, perhaps]:
In 1950 Niels Bohr addressed an open letter to the United Nations in which he said in part
An open world where each nation can assert itself solely to the extent to which it can contribute to the common culture and is able to help others with experience and resources must be the goal to put before anything else [...] The development of technology has now reached a stage where the facilities for communication have provided the means for making all mankind a cooperating unity [...] at the same time fatal consequences to civilization may ensue unless international divergences are considered as issues to be settled by consultation based on free access to all information.
Hell, maybe I ripped it off from Irv's house. I don't think so. I'm not much of a book thief, although I am a very weak book returner. Should I die an untimely death, Joshua has said he will loudly proclaim at the estate sale "THAT BOOK, THOSE BOOKS! ALL MINE, I TELL YOU, MINE!"
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