- WHEN WILL SCIENCE MAKE ENDS MEET?

 

Many of the most influential physicists of the first half of the 20^th century, pose in this photo at Solvey Conference, in 1927.

Two major events have happened recently in the field of experimental Physics, one a few years earlier with the confirmation of the Higgs boson, and the second this very year with the detection of gravitational waves.

The interesting part is that both theories describing the observed phenomena have been developed many years ago, one hundred years for the gravitational waves and sixty for the Higgs boson.

Of course there is no wonder it took so long for the confirmation to come, as both phenomena needed very big, very expensive and of great precision machinery (namely the Cern accelerator and the LiGO installations) to be put to work.

Another interesting fact is that these two phenomena lay at the extreme ends of Physics, the micro and macro realm, whose unification is the Holy Grail of modern Physics in the quest for understanding the Cosmos.

As these theories of the extremes, quantum mechanics and relativity, were proposed in the early 20^th century, it would seem all too logical that the unification of the four forces that govern the Universe should already have been achieved by now, but this is not the case.

And as if the task of bringing the two theories together was not hard enough for the theoretical Physics of the mid 20^th century, there came the enigmas of dark matter and dark energy at the end of the same century, to add some extra degree of difficulty to the problem.

If we dare an extrapolation of the time needed between theoretical conception and physical proof, corrected for the exponential growth in the technological means, we should have good reason to expect that these “dark” problems will be answered somewhere in the ‘30s.

But will it put an end to the complexity of today’s Physics, if the Theory of Everything becomes a reality, or we will just find that another Russian “matryoshka” is hidden inside?

Anyway, this major breakthrough is expected to produce some elegantly simplified formulas that may tell not a great deal to the general public, but would say a lot to the scientists, much like J. C. Maxwell’s equations have done at the second half of 19^th century.

And as of the practical benefits that may emerge, certainly there will be quite a few, probably not as a giant leap but rather as a firm step.

But, if the essence of what is important for the mankind is the primary criterion for calling a major scientific discovery a breakthrough, then fighting against the life threatening diseases cannot be overestimated as a serious candidate for that title.

It is no secret, that the progress in medicine can be attributed to a significant extent to the progress of the technology of the diagnostic tools and the development of both invasive and non invasive methods.

But in spite of tremendous progress in that field, we are still far away from feeling optimistic about curing the numerous diseases that could bring our lives to an untimely end.

Cancer, is for example one of the major and most terrifying health issues, because we do not know how to prevent it, so we feel that we have no control over it, and the eventual cures are seldom guaranteed to last a life span.

Progress in quantum mechanics that may arise either from the Theory of Everything, or independently, may shed some new light on the tumor triggering mechanism, and provide the necessary understanding and insight to fight back, this very old but still life threatening disease. 

Further, it makes sense to believe that the greatest discoveries should produce some answers to the greatest source of anxiety in humans, which is the fate of their conscious existence in relation to their natural presence on the planet Earth.

It is not hard to guess, that the drive to tackle the mysteries of the Earth initially, and the Universe thereafter, have as prime motor that agony, but we are still looking at problems that are “illuminated by the lamp post” as the story goes, because the rest are kept in the shadows of our comprehension.  

G. Metaxas