I had the opportunity to talk with a real live physicist not long ago. He is not currently working on chasing down the beginning of time, but is employed by a video game company creating movement algorithms that are more realistic. I asked him all sorts of questions: what the Big Bang? Why was the Big Bang? What was here before the Big Bang? He listened patiently. Then he explained something so obvious it had completely escaped me. He said scientists aren’t really trying to tell the story of the beginning of the universe at all. They’re only trying to reveal, and then prove, the physical laws that govern space and time. He said, “We invent a story that matches those laws. As those laws morph, or new laws are discovered, the story will naturally change.” The bottom line is that science is not as interested in a good story as it is with an accurate outline. I left my conversation with the physicist with the distinct feeling that even though we like to think that science is replacing old questions with new certainties - science is really replacing old certainties with new questions. For us non-scientists, it explains why the beginning of a story is usually not a question of fact – but only of philosophy.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 15:09:51 +0000
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