astro picture for the day/ thought for the day

Credit: ESO/F. Comeron

thought for the day,

Particle physicists infered that protons decay in the 1970s.  Some were alarmed; others not so much. Most scientists of that time had learned psychologicaly, that the universe may have some disturbing consequences, like stars explode and the sun will burn out.  Or, that the Earth is not the center of the universe and that it is a sphere and not a plane.

In some sense, religion was created to avoid uncomfortable facts.  The Mesopotamian Epic of Gilbamesh is about immortality and so is Egyptian religion and the idea of Heaven in general. Mathematical science faces facts directly.  Religion sweeps facts under the rug. I'm wondering if the fact that humanity is a science and technologicaly dependent species is an uncomfortable fact? Google "scientific humanism" or "humans are the science and technologicaly dependent species" and you get next to nothing.  This is a fact that should be obvious.  The fact that mathematics is the unified view of things is perhaps harder.  One has to do some reading and thinking and rethinking.  This is kindof what this blog is for!

Quote for the day

"the most successfull programs of unification always came about when there was some urgent question to be answered. In most cases, the urgent question was that something seemed to be wrong in the present understanding, and the correct answer then turned out to be that the only way to get it right was to say that this effect and that effect cancel, and the only way to make them cancel was to put them into one big theory together and show that they were the same force." - Gerard't Hooft