Politics & Power Quote by Irving Langmuir

Langmuir is selling an ideal of science that doubles as a rebuke: the lab, at its best, is a passport-free zone where evidence outranks flags. Coming from a working scientist in the first half of the 20th century, the line carries the aftertaste of two world wars and the anxious rise of nationalist mythmaking. It’s not just a warm thought about cooperation; it’s a claim that the scientific method can outmuscle the tribal reflex.

The phrasing does a lot of work. "Almost from its beginnings" is a quiet hedge that acknowledges how often science has been tethered to empire, patronage, and military need, while still insisting on a deeper tradition of cross-border exchange. "Truly international" elevates collaboration into a defining feature, not a nice-to-have. Then comes the provocative overstatement: "National prejudices disappear completely". The absoluteness is rhetorical pressure, not sociological reporting. Langmuir is describing a norm to aspire to, the way a constitution describes a country more than it describes a Tuesday afternoon.

The subtext is moral: truth-seeking demands a discipline of self-erasure, a willingness to let your identity lose arguments. Yet the context complicates it. By Langmuir’s era, science was also becoming a geopolitical asset - patents, industrial labs, atomic research. His ideal reads partly as defense: if science is going to be used by nations, it must not be owned by them. The quote works because it frames objectivity as a civic virtue, and the scientist as someone obligated to outgrow the nation’s worst habits.