Friday, May 25, 2007
Think about this:
I just read that physicists just predicted the end of cosmology because the universe will change over the next 250 billion years in such a radical way that most of it will be unobserveable.
That is: the assumptions of scientists at that time who have to start from scratch will be much different than the ones the guys and ladies practicing today will have. They won't have as much to work with based on what they will be able to observe.
Here's why I bring it up: what these people are saying is not that the laws of physics will have changed: they are saying that science will not be able to observe much of what would be necessary to predict or understand them. The underlying assumption is that this hasn't happened at least once already. Somehow people in the future could be victims of their own limited position and instruments but not us.
Seriously.
That is: the assumptions of scientists at that time who have to start from scratch will be much different than the ones the guys and ladies practicing today will have. They won't have as much to work with based on what they will be able to observe.
Here's why I bring it up: what these people are saying is not that the laws of physics will have changed: they are saying that science will not be able to observe much of what would be necessary to predict or understand them. The underlying assumption is that this hasn't happened at least once already. Somehow people in the future could be victims of their own limited position and instruments but not us.
Seriously.
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