# § VI explained — The World Set Free > Chapter companion for The World Set Free by H. G. Wells. ## What happens This chapter illustrates the widespread skepticism and resistance to scientific discovery and invention in the late 19th century, using a domestic conversation between a father and his schoolboy son about the possibility of human flight. The father shows the boy a photograph of an early flying machine, but the boy remains doubtful, citing the authority of his headmaster, 'Old Broomie,' who insists no man will ever fly. The chapter concludes by noting that the boy later lived to fly across the Atlantic and edit his father's reminiscences. ## Themes in this chapter ### Technological Progress and Its Consequences The chapter explores the resistance to technological innovation, using the example of early aviation and the disbelief that humans would ever fly. ### The Inevitability of Change and Adaptation Despite the skepticism of figures like Old Broomie, the chapter shows that progress is unstoppable, as the boy later flies across the Atlantic. ## Character check-ins ### Old Broomie Mentioned as the headmaster who tells his class that no man will ever fly, representing the skeptical authority of the time. ## Key lines > I wish, Daddy, that you wouldn’t write all this stuff about flying. The chaps rot me. The boy asks his father to stop writing about flying because his friends tease him about it. _Illustrates the social pressure against embracing new ideas._ > But old Broomie, he told all the boys in his class only yesterday, ‘No man will ever fly.’ No one, he says, who has ever shot grouse or pheasants on the wing would ever believe anything of the sort. The boy cites his headmaster's authoritative claim that human flight is impossible, based on hunting experience. _Shows how established authority can resist scientific progress._ > Yet that boy lived to fly across the Atlantic and edit his father’s reminiscences. The skeptical boy later in life flew across the Atlantic and compiled his father's memoirs. _Demonstrates the eventual triumph of technological progress over initial resistance._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_world_set_free_se/chapters/vi - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_world_set_free_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_world_set_free_se/chapters