This selection is well written and easy to read. It seems to me that Jungk at times glorifies the scientists, making them almost godlike. Indeed, to Jungk, Göttingen is almost a metaphor for Mount Olympus, Felix Klein as Zeus.
It was interesting to read that after World War I, Americans would often come to study the sciences in Europe because America was still teaching the old physics; this contrasts with the scenario today, where the United States is one of the technological leaders of the world.
In the earlier part of the reading, Jungk seems to set up the story for a main character; however, as soon as he chooses one to follow, the story then builds up to another man, and then another, in Göttingen, this dwelling place of the gods of science.
By the third chapter it is clear that this idyllic place can no longer be as such. Like the modern world, science was becoming more closely involved with technology; the question was no longer "What can we do?" but "How can this help us?" Science became politically motivated.
I was somewhat (but not entirely) surprised to read that after the discovery of the neutron and the mentioning that it could be a source of great atomic power, that this had almost no impact on science at the time it was first learned. I was surprised because it was just more than a decade after the discovery of the neutron that the first atomic bombs were produced and demonstrated a vast power to the world. Yet I was not surprised because it seems that many great discoveries are not immediately known to be great.