Horizon
Just listening to the last Horizon .. about black holes .. some of the most mysterious things in the universe.
Someone said to me that science is about posing questions to be answered. At the end of the 19th century or there abouts some scientists thought they'd learnt all there was to know but really they were just at the start of a whole new way of approaching things.
I love the quote in this programme about quantum mechanics .. "This subatomic world that quantum mechanics describes is nothing like the world we experience. Quantum mechanics tells us how the world works at a fundamental level and it is stranger than you could imagine. In the quantum world the mere act of observing changes what you see. You can't say where something is .. only where it's likely to be and anything that is possible, no matter how unlikely, happens all the time. All our notions about how things behave changed. For example an object has a known location. I'm here, you're there but at a quantum mechanical scale objects can be at many different places at the same time literally. Yet strange as the world of quantum mechanics is theorists believe it is the true nature of reality. Quantum mechanics is so weird it may sound like science fiction but it's not science fiction, it's science fact and it's done better than any other idea in physics. It's allowed us to make the best predictions we've ever made so like it or not it describes the world"
Again the programme is full of the idea that this is the whole truth .. this happens so often in physics. At the end of the 19th century some scientists believed they knew everything about science and that there was no more to learn when really they were just on the brink of a whole new era. It's possible they thought this because they couldn't envisage the way methods of investigating things would change and improve, But it seems that many things are put forward as the possible theory of everything. Even the word "everything" is puzzling .. everything in the universe etc? Outside the universe?
I mean are there things that we can't even imagine. Should imagine that there must be.
I suspect so.
Anyway .. I had no idea it was on til yesterday when I was told. Had I seen it? Um, no .. as usual!!! lol!!
Someone said to me that science is about posing questions to be answered. At the end of the 19th century or there abouts some scientists thought they'd learnt all there was to know but really they were just at the start of a whole new way of approaching things.
I love the quote in this programme about quantum mechanics .. "This subatomic world that quantum mechanics describes is nothing like the world we experience. Quantum mechanics tells us how the world works at a fundamental level and it is stranger than you could imagine. In the quantum world the mere act of observing changes what you see. You can't say where something is .. only where it's likely to be and anything that is possible, no matter how unlikely, happens all the time. All our notions about how things behave changed. For example an object has a known location. I'm here, you're there but at a quantum mechanical scale objects can be at many different places at the same time literally. Yet strange as the world of quantum mechanics is theorists believe it is the true nature of reality. Quantum mechanics is so weird it may sound like science fiction but it's not science fiction, it's science fact and it's done better than any other idea in physics. It's allowed us to make the best predictions we've ever made so like it or not it describes the world"
Again the programme is full of the idea that this is the whole truth .. this happens so often in physics. At the end of the 19th century some scientists believed they knew everything about science and that there was no more to learn when really they were just on the brink of a whole new era. It's possible they thought this because they couldn't envisage the way methods of investigating things would change and improve, But it seems that many things are put forward as the possible theory of everything. Even the word "everything" is puzzling .. everything in the universe etc? Outside the universe?
I mean are there things that we can't even imagine. Should imagine that there must be.
I suspect so.
Anyway .. I had no idea it was on til yesterday when I was told. Had I seen it? Um, no .. as usual!!! lol!!
posted by Zeb at 3:39 AM
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