Physical s, armed with new methods and perfected appliances, are helping us to a view of the progress of creation, from its beginning in the , which must interest every student of nature. But however much our attention is aroused by the purely scientific aspect of such general studies, we must, it seems to me, consider, in the case I have now to present, utility, even before abstract interest. I refer to the study of the Sun, for though the most unformed nebula may hold the germs of future worlds, yet for us these possibilities are but interesting conjectures. For, as I have said elsewhere, I recognize that every nebula might be wiped out of the sky tonight without affecting the price of a laborer's dinner, while a small change in the solar radiation may conceivably cause the deaths of numberless men in an Indian famine.
— SAMUEL LANGLEY