The characteristic feature of our age results from the wedding of science and engineering. It is the working together of disciplined curiosity and purposeful ingenuity to create new materials, new forces, and new opportunities which powerfully affect our manner of living and ways of thinking.

A Scientist Speaks: Excerpts from Addresses by Karl Taylor Compton - During the Years 1930-1949 (p. 1), Undergraduate Association, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1955