The end of discovery
By: by Russell Stannard
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 228
ISBN-13: 9780199585243
Subjects: Science; History; Philosophy; Physics; Theory of Knowledge
Description: "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.
Notes: Includes index.

"Are we approaching the boundaries of the knowable?"--Dust jacket.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: Brain and consciousness; title: Creation of the cosmos; title: The laws of nature; title: The anthropic principle; title: The size of the cosmos; title: Extraterrestrial life; title: The nature of space; title: Space in relation to time; title: The nature of time; title: High energy physics; title: The quantum world; title: Quantum gravity and string theory; title: Concluding remarks.