If the Periodic Table is only partially completed, and these scientists (and others) do manage to unlock the secrets that reside in the Universe, such as the nature of time; the understanding and manipulation of gravity; or a knowledge of the meaning of dark matter...will the planet be prepared for such discoveries?
I understand that knowledge is the goal, but it seems that on a planet of seven-billion people, the majority of whom live in poverty and without clean water...our scientific priorities are skewed. I don't think that we are ready for such knowledge, when we ignore the needs of so many on such basic levels. Perhaps finding out the answers to the questions that are being asked will lead to a new "Golden Age"...but that seems unlikely, given science's propensity to sell it's secrets to the warmongering billionaires that run the planet.
At some point science will develope so far that you won't actually be able to get a good grasp of the whole deal within one lifetime and we will start to forget stuff we know currently.
I sort of wish the neutrinos had been going above the speed of light as it would humble us as a species. I get ignored both when people claim such science has an existential basis and, also, that such research is futile as it fails to give us an existential answer. Perhaps people aren't pure scientists in the main and want big sweeping answers derived from the most tiny and detailed of studies. I guess that is why middle-aged housewives who have never set foot inside a scientific research faculty can have the same weight of opinion, apparently, on climate change as research scientists.
One thing that annoys me is the idea that the scientific community is 1) in the pocket of big spooky industries, 2) a massive colluding singular organisation and 3) a mass of inhumane individuals dropping bleach into the eyes of monkeys and mocking the religious the next.
From my brief time carrying out scientific work it was more a case of who owed who a favour and who had access to what piece of (usually woefully outdated) machinery. There was a total 'make do and mend' vibe about the whole thing, and this was with a pretty major Scottish scientific institution famed for the sort of research I was doing, though I was only doing a basic version of it.
I suspect scientific research can be a bit of all of the above, depending on where the money's coming from. When I was a naive young student many moons ago, I did a Medical Geography module and it was an eye-opener in that regard. It makes sense of course.
It has been announced by a group of really drunken French physicists (trying saying "physicist" three times really quickly) that they have found the "GOD PARTICLE".
I bet God didn't even realize he had misplaced it. tsk.
I don't know what they intend to do with it, now that they have located it. Hopefully they won't be attempting their only version of the Big Bang, because I just don't think that would be good for the planet. If it helps mankind in some way, however, with some spectacular new way to kill ourselves, well then, it can't be all bad.
justabagofatoms wrote:I don't know what they intend to do with it, now that they have located it. Hopefully they won't be attempting their only version of the Big Bang, because I just don't think that would be good for the planet.
Ehhhh... didn't you know? That's exactly what they have been doing all these years, recreating the initial conditions of the big bang. That's mainly what a large hadron collider is used for, creating thousands of mini-bangs per day.