Is science infinite?

Question

Do you think there will be always something new to discover? Always a new and smaller particle to be discovered? Or will we have a theory of everything soon and have no need for science?

Answer 1

Science will continue to thrive for ever because there would never come a time that there remains nothing unknown because perennially changes keep taking place with every passage of time and time goes on and on for ever. Science therefore would be only as finite as time can be. For all we know, time may well be infinite and the whole universe a Continuum with no end.

Answer 2

The conception of science hasn't been clarified here. Dr. Knowitall says it's the study of available knowledge, and concludes that a finite realm like the universe will yield finite knowledge. But if there's continuity in the universe, then we'll be able to view it from an infinite number of levels - from the everyday to the atomic and subatomic,etc.

One thing we have found is that behavior is pretty quirky at the subatomic level, suggesting that activity at any given level of observation is peculiar to that order. (I'm not saying it must, but it seems that way.) So if we can discover new orders of the universe, I don't see why there wouldn't be new things to learn from it. Nor do I see where there should be a rock-bottom to this: if you can divide, you can subdivide, and so on. So if there's an atomic level, in principle there's a sub-atomic one, and a sub-sub-atomic level,...

Back to the definition of science. To say it's the study of available knowledge is not fully thought through: if you're studying something, you're learning from it, and the new knowledge wasn't available before. By inquiring, you make it available. So it might be better to consider science in terms of *inquiry* rather than knowledge, which leaves it open-ended and never-completed. Which seems more sensible to me, since people don't seem to leave well enough alone - they've got to know more. So I don't see a theory of everything appearing "soon" - not an airtight one, anyway.

The next point may be just my pet peeve, but try it on for size. Asking whether science is infinite has always smacked of self-aggrandizement: the implication is that there is no end to our potential. Since knowledge is power - and it does give us a lot of power - there's more than a hint we could make ourselves (as a species) into omniscient beings, even omnipotent - all-knowing, all-powerful, the cosmic king of the hill. I'd prefer to say that science is *indefinite* rather than infinite.

I don't think this contradicts what I just said about science's unending task. If there is a rock-bottom, we'll know when we get there, but for the time being it doesn't seem to exist. We are human, and only human, so we're bound to be missing part of the picture, meaning we have to inquire. Our potential has not yet been fully tapped, so let's find out what there is to know; but let's not make the mistake of regarding ourselves as too cool for the universe.

(Actually, how would we know we'd reached the limit of knowing? That seems dumb. That'd be like growing up in a big house with boarded-up windows and locked doors, where you never leave. I'd have no idea what's on the other side of this wall, but could I really say there's nothing there at all outside? Ah, hell.)

Answer 3

Sort of. Think Lego's.

There are a finite number of building blocks, but an infinite number of things you can build.

I believe I have a crude understanding of the theory of everything. The principal is that we can't go faster than light because we are light. I.e. All matter is photonic in nature.

The endless stream of new and smaller particles are simply part of the endless ways you can manipulate electro-magnetism to store energy.

Now if this really is the case, it doesn't end science, because knowing how everything is done, doesn't mean you know everything that can be done.

You might know every instrument in the orchestra, doesn't make you Beethoven.

Answer 4

It is almost impossible to say that science has an ending. The world is created to be explored and the only possible way is certainly science. We are not sure even if the Archimedes principle or the Newton laws that we learn in our textbooks are the real things?! Who knows if there is another way to define the theories found by these great scientists? That's just how infinite science is to me.

Answer 5

That's a double-barrel question. Science is the systematic study of available knowlege. I believe the universe to be finite, so there's only so much one can learn about it. But it's most likely that humankind will become extinct before the slightest fraction of this knowlege is discovered.

Answer 6

Then again, does humanity have the wisdom to comprehend all there is to know? How about the logic in other universes (that's a theory worth considering)? I think the question is, how much can the human mind absorb?

Answer 7

first, yeah science is infinite because humans are a very needy and lazy race even when we are on machine that make us move by our thoughts they will just invent a machine that thinks those thoughts instead of us and also people make alot of money by inventing new stuff, so is always an incentive

Answer 8

There will always be a NEED for Science.

Answer 9

Scince may not be infinite. It is open ended. So far.