On the surface, the world we inhabit is a messy and chaotic place. It is a bit like a busy intersection in Kathmandu: a foreigner’s first impression will be that of complete chaos, with all sorts of vehicles and pedestrians coming from seemingly every direction at once. But stepping back, one realizes that there is a sense of order to the swirling motion, and what felt like bedlam actually obeys a set of rules not at all evident to the uninitiated. Science aims to make sense of the messy reality of our world from within, without the luxury of being able to step back as a passive observer. Luckily, we can rely on the work of thousands of scientists before us and millennia of accumulated knowledge. In this essay, we explore different perspectives on the accumulation of scientific understanding and the striking success that mathematical theories have had in describing nature. We speculate on the feasibility of achieving an ultimate theory of nature and reformed approaches to scientific activity with an emphasis on a Kuhnian approach.
Yaakov Fein
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