Retrospective view on the last half century

Abstract

The year 2014 is a significant anniversary. Personally, it is 80 years since I was born. More importantly, it is one hundred years since the outbreak of the World War I, a catastrophe from which most of the world's present problems resulted. The slaughter was bad enough but without this bloodbath we might have been spared Lenin's paradise, the great depression, Germany's embrace of an evil maniac, which occurred roughly at the time of the above mentioned birthday, the continuing spectre of a nuclear holocaust, and forty years of the cruel and smothering rule of the heart of Europe by a totalitarian regime. However, although often distressing, humanity's random walk has been forward. For example, an important paper by Ornstein and Zernike in the theory of liquids appeared in 1914. We can only hope that the positive direction of our random walk continues...