The End of Discovery : Are We Approaching the Boundaries of the Knowable?

Many scientists make extravagant claims as to the scope and power of scientific thinking, claiming that ultimately it will provide a complete understanding of everything. But Russell Stannard, himself an eminent high-energy physicist, strongly disagrees with this grandiose claim. Indeed, in The End of Discovery , Stannard argues that eventually—perhaps in a few decades, perhaps in a few centuries—fundamental science will reach the limit of what it can explain. On that day, the scientific age, like the stone age and the iron age before it, will come to an end. To highlight the boundaries of scientific understanding, Stannard takes readers on an engaging tour of some of the deepest questions facing science today—questions to do with consciousness, free will, the nature of space, time, and matter, the existence of extraterrestrial life, and much more. For instance, from his own research field, he points out that to understand the subatomic world, scientists depend of particle accelerators, but to understand the very smallest units of nature, it has been calculated that we would need an accelerator the size of a galaxy. Clearly, unless a new approach comes along, we might never understand fully the most basic building blocks of the universe. As a scientist, Stannard remains hopeful that several of the questions addressed will one day be answered. But other puzzles will remain for all time—and we may never even realize it when we have hit an insuperable barrier in those directions. He assures us that there will always be new uses of scientific knowledge. Technology will continue. But fundamental science itself—the making of fresh discoveries as to how the world works—must ultimately grind to a halt. Publishers Weekly Around 1900, many scientists declared that they knew all there was to know. Now, a century later, particle physicist Stannard (Relativity: A Very Short Introduction) throws out a list of scientific problems that he thinks may never be resolved. An infamous problem is string theory: this idea that minuscule vibrating strings are the lowest possible denominators of existence passes all the mathematical smell tests, but the odds of its being experimentally proven anytime soon are about as minuscule as strings themselves. Or take consciousness: will we ever understand the interplay between free will and determinism? And is it true that we live in a block universe in which our entire lives are already embedded in time--and that we just haven't reached the frames in our future? Stannard is at heart a popularizer of science, and his end of science approach is a hook on which to hang a survey of the perplexing theories floating around science today. His presentation is clear enough for even science-savvy high school students--who may be challenged to try to solve Stannard's intractable problems. 23 illus. (Nov.) "Many scientists make extravagant claims as to the scope and power of scientific thinking, claiming that ultimately it will provide a complete understanding of everything. But Russell Stannard, himself an eminent high-energy physicist, strongly disagrees with this grandiose claim. Indeed, in The End of Discovery, Stannard argues that eventually - perhaps in a few decades, perhaps in a few centuries - fundamental science will reach the limit of what it can explain. On that day, the scientific age, like the stone age and the iron age before it, will come to an end. To highlight the boundaries of scientific understanding, Stannard takes readers on an engaging tour of some of the deepest questions facing science today - questions to do with consciousness, free will, the nature of space, time, and matter, the existence of extraterrestrial life, and much more. For instance, from his own research field, he points out that to understand the subatomic world, scientists depend of particle accelerators, but to understand the very smallest units of nature, it has been calculated that we would need an accelerator the size of a galaxy. Clearly, unless a new approach comes along, we might never understand fully the most basic building blocks of the universe. As a scientist, Stannard remains hopeful that several of the questions addressed will one day be answered. But other puzzles will remain for all time - and we may never even realize it when we have hit an insuperable barrier in those directions. He assures us that there will always be new uses of scientific knowledge. Technology will continue. But fundamental science itself - the making of fresh discoveries as to how the world works - must ultimately grind to a halt."--Publisher's description It is generally thought that science, by its very nature, must always progress. But this is not so. One day, fundamental science will come to an end. Not when we have discovered everything, but when we have discovered whatever is open to us to understand - which is not the same thing. Limitations as to what the human brain can comprehend, together with practical considerations to do with the need for ever more elaborate and expensive equipment, are likely to ensure that our knowledge will remain for ever incomplete. A further indication that the world will ultimately retain some of its mystery is suggested by evidence that in certain directions, scientific enquiry might already have come up against the boundaries of the knowable. Author and broadcaster Russell Stannard, himself a high-energy physicist and former Head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the Open University, introduces the general reader to the deepest questions facing us today - questions to do with consciousness, free will, the nature of space, time, and matter, the existence of extraterrestrial life, and why there should be a world at all. In doing so, he speculates as to whether some of these questions will never be answered. Contents......Page 6 List of illustrations......Page 8 Introduction......Page 10 1 Brain and consciousness......Page 18 2 Creation of the cosmos......Page 27 3 The laws of nature......Page 37 4 The anthropic principle......Page 42 5 The size of the cosmos......Page 53 6 Extraterrestrial life......Page 60 7 The nature of space......Page 67 8 Space in relation to time......Page 85 9 The nature of time......Page 109 10 High energy physics......Page 125 11 The quantum world......Page 165 12 Quantum gravity and string theory......Page 216 13 Concluding remarks......Page 232 E......Page 234 M......Page 235 S......Page 236 Z......Page 237 Proposes that science will eventually reach the limits of what can be discovered, explained, or imagined, using unanswered questions about such topics as free will, consciousness, and the existence of extraterrestrial life as examples.