How strange it would be if the final theory were to be discovered in our lifetimes! The discovery of the final laws of nature will mark a discontinuity in human intellectual history, the sharpest that has occurred since the beginning of modern science in the seventeenth century. Can we now imagine what that would be like?
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the profound impact the discovery of a final theory of nature would have on human understanding and history.
Steven Weinberg's quote expresses the idea that discovering the ultimate laws that govern nature would be a transformative event in human knowledge, akin to the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. It invites us to consider the significance of such a discovery and its potential to radically shift our perspective on the world and our place in it.
In practice
In a speech about the future of scientific research, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of ongoing inquiry.
It was one time when people thought the value of the fine structure constant was important. Now of course it's still important, of course, as a practical matter,but we now know that the value it has is a function, that in any fundamental theory you derive the fine structure constant as a function of all sorts of mass ratios and so on and it's not really that fundamental.
Americans swept away the instruments of English hereditary inequality - entails and titles of nobility - even before we had a constitution.
It's very difficult to convince other countries that they shouldn't pursue nuclear weapons programs if we ourselves are actively developing a component of a strategic defense system.
[Science] is corrosive of religious belief, and it's a good thing too.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
I'm offended by the kind of smarmy religiosity that's all around us, perhaps more in America than in Europe, and not really that harmful because it's not really that intense or even that serious, but just... you know after a while you get tired of hearing clergymen giving the invocation at various public celebrations and you feel, haven't we outgrown all this? Do we have to listen to this?
Armstrong described the lunar surface as 'beautiful.' I thought to myself, 'It's not really beautiful. It's magnificent that we're here, but what a desolate place we are visiting.'
We must trust to nothing but facts: These are presented to us by Nature, and cannot deceive. We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural road of experiment and observation.
Experiments with animals have long been handicapped by our anthropocentric attitude: We often test them in ways that work fine with humans but not so well with other species.
Science tells us more and more now that there is a strong connection between emotional well-being and health outcomes, and that you can proactively cultivate emotional well-being through relatively simple practices like sleep, social connection and meditation.
[Marijuana] doesn't have a high potential for abuse, and there are very legitimate medical applications. In fact, sometimes marijuana is the only thing that works... [I]t is irresponsible not to provide the best care we can as a medical community, care that could involve marijuana. We have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that.
The Big Bang banged, and for some reason we’re here. And that’s astonishing. And that we can understand that, that’s the most astonishing.
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