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?
I don't know much about climate change. But I'm pretty sure we better figure out what to do to lessen its impact - at least its health impact - and that's not going to happen unless you have a lot of young talent interested in these topics.
If someone says that he can think or talk about quantum physics without becoming dizzy, that shows only that he has not understood anything whatever about it.
We only know God in His works, but we are forced by science to admit and to believe with absolute confidence in a Directive Power-in an influence other than physical, or dynamical, or electrical forces.
Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful.
I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion, or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it.
LSD is a catalyst or amplifier of mental processes. If properly used it could become something like the microscope or telescope of psychiatry.
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