Knocking on Heaven's Door - Lisa Randall [198]
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, in a speech to the Ninth Judicial Circuit, referred not only to the significance of scientific thinking, but also to the important contrast between “micro” and “macro” thinking—words that apply as much to the small-scale and large-scale elements of the universe as to the detailed and global ways we think about the world. As we have seen in this book, one of the factors in addressing issues—scientific as well as practical and political—is the interplay between the two scales of thought. The awareness of both is one of the factors that contributes to creative ideas.
Justice Kennedy also noted that among the elements of science that he likes are “the ridiculous solutions [that] often turn out to be the ones that are true.” And this is indeed sometimes the case. Nonetheless, good science, even when it leads to superficially far-fetched or counterintuitive conclusions, is rooted in measurements that show these conclusions to be true, or in problems that call for the apparently crazy solutions we conjecture might be real.
Many elements combine to form the foundation of good scientific thinking. In Knocking on Heaven’s Door, I have attempted to convey the significance of rational scientific thought and its materialist premises, as well as the ways in which scientific thinking tests ideas through experiments and discards them when they don’t measure up. Scientific thought recognizes that uncertainty isn’t failure. It properly evaluates risks and accounts for both short- and long-term influences. It allows for creative thinking in the search for solutions. These are all modes of thought that can lead to advances—both in and out of the laboratory or office. The scientific method helps us understand the edges of the universe, but it can also guide us in critical decisions for this world that we now live in. Our society needs to absorb these principles and teach them to future generations.
We shouldn’t be afraid to ask big questions or to consider grand concepts. One of my physics collaborators, Matthew Johnson, got it right when he exclaimed, “Never before has there been such an arsenal of ideas.” But we don’t yet know the answers and are waiting for experimental tests. Sometimes answers come more quickly than expected—as when the cosmic microwave background taught us about the early exponential expansion of the universe. And sometimes they take longer—as with the LHC, which still has us waiting.
We should soon know more about the makeup and forces of the universe, as well as why matter has the properties it does. We also hope to learn more about the missing stuff that we call “dark.” So, as our “prequel” ends, let’s return to the line from the Beatles song that accompanied the introduction to my earlier book, Warped Passages: “Got to be good-looking ’cause he’s so hard to see.” New phenomena and understanding might be challenging to find, but the wait and challenges will be worth it.
INDEX
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use your e-book reader’s search tools.
Page references in italic indicate illustrations
acceleration, 71, 86–87, 98–101, 103–7, 123, 131–36
accuracy
in particle physics, 208–10
use of term, 203
Adams, John C., 368
Adler, Fred, 40
Adoration of the Magi (Giotto), 28–29, 29
aesthetic criteria
in art, 264–68
in science, 268–70
Alberts, Bruce, 413, 415
Alda, Alan, 128
ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment), 164, 216
Al-Kindi, 23
Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02), 392
alpha particle, 97–98, 98
AMANDA (Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array), 393
American Heritage Dictionary, 45–46
American