> If the foundational assumptions are wrong or impossible to challenge, time t can extend indefinitely. This is an important point, but fortunately nature has

> If the foundational assumptions are wrong or impossible to challenge, time t can extend indefinitely. This is an important point, but fortunately nature has provided us with a solution. Namely that teenagers are defiant and look for ways to distance themselves from their elders. This is Planck's principle that science advances one funeral at a time [0] > A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it ... > An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth. — Max Planck, Scientific autobiography, 1950, p. 33, 97 The biggest impediments have historically been multi-generational organizations whose power requires limiting access to science. Famously the centralized church in the time of Galileo. More recently the cigarette and oil industries. Things like big personalities and legislative priorities tend to have much shorter time scale and usually allow for science to ratchet forward generationally. Big personalities die, legislators turn over every few years in the best case or in a few generations in the worst case. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle