The End of Discovery: Are We Approaching the Boundaries of the Knowable?

One of the odd things about 21st-century science is that ever more money seems to be spent on ever more spectacular projects, yet the ultimate answers seem to be getting further away. From the Human Genome Project to the Large Hadron Collider and the Very Large Telescope, scientists are doing their best to push the frontier of knowledge, but it’s increasingly pushing right back. Could science and its time-honoured methods finally be running out of steam?

That’s the intriguing possibility explored by Russell Stannard, Professor Emeritus of Physics at the Open University. As a nuclear physicist, Stannard knows all too well the limitations put on the knowable by quantum theory, the laws of the sub-atomic world. Since the 1920s, it’s been clear that it’s not just hard to know everything about what’s happening at these levels – it’s impossible. But as Stannard shows, other limitations are starting to emerge too, which suggest we can’t even know what the Universe is really like.

Stannard explains the basics then ponders the Big Questions – the result is clear and readable. But I suspect many people intrigued by his thesis will get impatient with this approach and the rather superficial treatment of ideas at the cutting edge of science.

Robert Matthews is science consultant to Focus

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