I quoted this fact, which, although it sounds so incredibly fantastic, is quite true, to Einstein with the intention of justifying the opinion that it contained the key to a development which would initiate a new epoch in history and would be the panacea of all human woe. I drew an enthusiastic picture of a dazzling Utopia, an orgy of hopeful dreams, but immediately noticed that I received no support from Einstein for these visionary aspirations. To my disappointment, indeed, I perceived that Einstein did not even show a special interest in this circumstance which sprang from his own theory, and which promised such bountiful gifts. And to state the conclusion of the story straight away I must confess that his objections were strong enough not only to weaken my rising hopes, but to annihilate them completely. Einstein commenced by saying: "At present there is not the slightest indication of when this energy will be obtainable, or whether it will be obtainable at all. For it would presuppose a disintegration of the atom effected at will--a shattering of the atom. And up to the present there is scarcely a sign that this will be possible. We observe atomic disintegration only where Nature herself presents it, as in the case of radium, the activity of which depends upon the continual explosive decomposition of its atom. Nevertheless, we can only establish the presence of this process, but cannot produce it; Science in its present state makes it appear almost impossible that we shall ever succeed in so doing." The fact that we are able to abstract a certain number of calories from coal and put them to practical use comes about owing to the circumstance that combustion is only a molecular process, a change of configuration, which leaves fully intact the atoms of which the molecules are composed. When carbon and oxygen combine, the elementary constituent, the atom, remains quite unimpaired. The above calculation, "mass multiplied by the square of the velocity of light;" would have a technical significance only if we were able to attack the interior of the atom; and of this there seems, as remarked, not the remotest hope.