Book Review: Evolution in Science and Religion by Robert Andrews Millikan

This book is divided into three parts, each being one of a seriesof Terry Lectures at Yale for 1927. The opening chapter, “ TheEvolution of Twentieth Century Physics,” discusses eight empirical results the explanation of which leads to a distinctively different conceptual approach to the physical universe in the twentieth century from that held in the nineteenth century. These results are: 1) The unification of the electromagnetic spectrum to include radio waves, light, and radiant heat, 2) The discovery of x-rays and their instrumental use, 3) The discovery of radioactivity leading to the concept of the transmutation of the elements, 4) The formula E =mc2, 5) Quantization in the photoelectric effect, 6 ) Quantization in spectroscopy, 7) The apparent independence of spectroscopic frequencies from anything structural in the atom, and finally 8) The quantization of angular momenta.