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A key point of that piece in the Atlantic, if I remember correctly, was that there are no breakthroughs now because we already know, for the most part, what is
by x3tm 8y ago
A key point of that piece in the Atlantic, if I remember correctly, was that there are no breakthroughs now because we already know, for the most part, what is there to be known. We know the most important ideas/theories about the world we live in (evolution, the standard model, general relativity, etc.) and so the 'rest is detail' now.
I've reached a similar conclusion about fundamental physics. At the very least we are stuck with what we have for a very long time.
This may seem to be anti-scientific or anti-progress but who proved that scientific progress is unbounded?
- hoaw 8y agoYes, that is essentially the main point. I am just not sure it is that relevant. Even if science is getting harder, so is the utility by itself. Transportation is very useful everyday, going to the moon is (while impressive and inspiring) useful mostly once. On the other hand I am not sure it has become harder to make science useful as such. Every incremental step in e.g. transportation can potentially matter a lot. So I have a bit of a hard time connecting that science would be harder and that it doesn't serve us. I am sort of left wondering what the agenda would be.
- sampo 8y ago> we already know, for the most part, what is there to be known This is also what what generally believed about physics in the 1890s, right before everything exploded with Relativity and Quantum Physics. "it was generally accepted that all the important laws of physics had been discovered and that, henceforth, research would be concerned with clearing up minor problems and particularly with improvements of method and measurement" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_physics#20th_century:_birth_of_modern_physics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_physics#20th_centur...