by RArvay » Wed Jun 17, 2015 7:55 am
In the vastness of a university library, I imagined heaven to be just that, except an infinitely large library. I further imagined that each time I finished reading a book, two more would be added to the library, so that throughout eternity, not only would I never run out of reading material, there would always be an increasing amount of knowledge to explore.
After years of being a science junkie, reading everything I could on various subjects in science (at least at my low level of comprehension), I am now beginning to think that my imagination of an infinite library may, in a sense, be being reflected in the world of physical science.
In the early twentieth century, it had been declared that scientists had already discovered all the basic operating principles (so to speak) of the universe. All that remained was to fill in some details, but the big picture was essentially complete.
As we all know, that declaration was spectacularly wrong. The twentieth century was marked by enormous increases in human knowledge. Physics and cosmology were revolutionized by men such as Einstein, Heisenberg and Hubble, and by women such as Vera Rubin. Then came the discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. String theory appeared in the journals, as did reasoned speculations about a multi-verse with an infinite variety of bubble universes.
It was a heady century for science, but can it continue? We should be confident that further and profound advances will be made, but physics may be encountering the law of diminishing returns. I hope not. Even if it is, the prediction of diminishing returns is very unlike the bold statement of the early twentieth century, the one that declared an end to discovery. Discovery is not ending, but the very nature of scientific discovery seems to be changing.
This has been hinted at by a number of established physicists. Einstein, Heisenberg, Hubble and Rubin based their theories on direct observation. Increasingly, however, physics is beginning to operate in areas where direct observation is less and less decisive in formulating theories. For example, no one can see other universes or strings at the Planck scale.
Don’t get me wrong. Direct observation may in some cases be overrated. The ancient Greeks made startling advances in science without direct observation, and without the instrumentation and other infrastructures that modern scientists enjoy. Their thinking (today we might call them thought experiments) laid the foundations for atomic theory and even a concept similar to the Planck length. Current scientific theories may be doing something similar, planting the seeds that may someday be harvested by scientists not yet born.
For laymen like myself, there is an increasing sense of awe regarding the cosmos. The universe is unimaginably vast, but its size is only the beginning point of its awesomeness. The fact that it is intricately ordered and structured, is but one of its many mysteries.
Consider that dark matter and dark energy are said to account for about ninety-five percent of the calculated mass-energy of the universe. Consider further that our knowledge of what these “darks” are is minuscule at best. Of the remaining five percent, there are significant gaps in our understanding. In very many cases, theories are contradicted by observations.
Cosmology may be thought of as the study of the largest large, the observable universe. But the observable universe is almost certainly not all that there is. Is the unobservable universe just a continuation of what we can see? Or does it consist, as does the earth, of a variety of types of landscapes and seascapes? Are there regions of the universe as different from our own limited realm as oceans are from forests?
What is the most fundamental level of nature? Can we be sure that there even is a most fundamental level? Is the Planck length further sub-divisible into an endless regression of ever smaller, but always finite, elements? Likewise on the upper scale, might what we consider to be the cosmos be only an atom within an infinite upward progression of ever larger scale structures?
If any of these speculations contain a germ of truth, then science may be but one book in an unimaginably vast library of knowledge, a library to which books are always being added more swiftly than we can read even one.
If a theory of everything is an unattainable goal, then is there a final, humanly attainable goal? Should the possible absence of one discourage us from continuing the quest? Or is it that the journey is more important than the destination?
In the vastness of a university library, I imagined heaven to be just that, except an infinitely large library. I further imagined that each time I finished reading a book, two more would be added to the library, so that throughout eternity, not only would I never run out of reading material, there would always be an increasing amount of knowledge to explore.
After years of being a science junkie, reading everything I could on various subjects in science (at least at my low level of comprehension), I am now beginning to think that my imagination of an infinite library may, in a sense, be being reflected in the world of physical science.
In the early twentieth century, it had been declared that scientists had already discovered all the basic operating principles (so to speak) of the universe. All that remained was to fill in some details, but the big picture was essentially complete.
As we all know, that declaration was spectacularly wrong. The twentieth century was marked by enormous increases in human knowledge. Physics and cosmology were revolutionized by men such as Einstein, Heisenberg and Hubble, and by women such as Vera Rubin. Then came the discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. String theory appeared in the journals, as did reasoned speculations about a multi-verse with an infinite variety of bubble universes.
It was a heady century for science, but can it continue? We should be confident that further and profound advances will be made, but physics may be encountering the law of diminishing returns. I hope not. Even if it is, the prediction of diminishing returns is very unlike the bold statement of the early twentieth century, the one that declared an end to discovery. Discovery is not ending, but the very nature of scientific discovery seems to be changing.
This has been hinted at by a number of established physicists. Einstein, Heisenberg, Hubble and Rubin based their theories on direct observation. Increasingly, however, physics is beginning to operate in areas where direct observation is less and less decisive in formulating theories. For example, no one can see other universes or strings at the Planck scale.
Don’t get me wrong. Direct observation may in some cases be overrated. The ancient Greeks made startling advances in science without direct observation, and without the instrumentation and other infrastructures that modern scientists enjoy. Their thinking (today we might call them thought experiments) laid the foundations for atomic theory and even a concept similar to the Planck length. Current scientific theories may be doing something similar, planting the seeds that may someday be harvested by scientists not yet born.
For laymen like myself, there is an increasing sense of awe regarding the cosmos. The universe is unimaginably vast, but its size is only the beginning point of its awesomeness. The fact that it is intricately ordered and structured, is but one of its many mysteries.
Consider that dark matter and dark energy are said to account for about ninety-five percent of the calculated mass-energy of the universe. Consider further that our knowledge of what these “darks” are is minuscule at best. Of the remaining five percent, there are significant gaps in our understanding. In very many cases, theories are contradicted by observations.
Cosmology may be thought of as the study of the largest large, the observable universe. But the observable universe is almost certainly not all that there is. Is the unobservable universe just a continuation of what we can see? Or does it consist, as does the earth, of a variety of types of landscapes and seascapes? Are there regions of the universe as different from our own limited realm as oceans are from forests?
What is the most fundamental level of nature? Can we be sure that there even is a most fundamental level? Is the Planck length further sub-divisible into an endless regression of ever smaller, but always finite, elements? Likewise on the upper scale, might what we consider to be the cosmos be only an atom within an infinite upward progression of ever larger scale structures?
If any of these speculations contain a germ of truth, then science may be but one book in an unimaginably vast library of knowledge, a library to which books are always being added more swiftly than we can read even one.
If a theory of everything is an unattainable goal, then is there a final, humanly attainable goal? Should the possible absence of one discourage us from continuing the quest? Or is it that the journey is more important than the destination?
