An Unfolding Scientific Revolution in Cosmology

Summary

Your browser does not support the audio tag. Download: PDF | EPUB | MP3 | WATCH VIDEO There is a tendency, among both scientists and non-scientists, to assume that our current scientific theories are correct in some fundamental sense … but the history of science suggests otherwise. Almost all of the theories that were at one time viewed as correct have been abandoned. — David Merritt, 2020 Whenever I get tired of the insanity of human politics (which is all the time these days), I read about astrophysics and cosmology. What I like about this field is that it’s perhaps the most high minded of scientific pursuits; it’s driven not by the search for wealth or technological gain, but by the innate desire to understand the cosmos. Of course, human sociology does enter the equation (as always), which is why astrophysics provides a fascinating window into both the universe at large, as well as the philosophy of scientific progress. My reading of modern astrophysics and cosmology is that the field is in the midst of a (slow-burning) scientific revolution. Let me tell you about it. The birth of science Astronomy is arguably the field that sparked the scientific revolution. When Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei placed the sun at the center of the solar system, it allowed Johannes Kepler to formulate (between 1608 and 1621) a set of empirical laws that described planetary motion. Five decades later, Isaac Newton demonstrated that Kepler’s equations were a consequence of a law of universal gravitation, in which the force of gravity falls with the inverse square of distance. Newton’s theory was a stunning revelation that unified the study of motion. According to Newton, when a ball is tossed on Earth, its motion is determined by the same equations that describe the orbit of the planets. Looking at the known solar system, astronomers found that Newton’s equations worked with exquisite precision. And so the foundations of science were put in place. In hindsight, the stage wa...