APPENDIX Z55: 1999: Cosmologist Martin Rees
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APPENDIX Z55:
1999: Cosmologist Martin Rees
Noted astrophysicist and cosmologist Martin Rees
(b. 1942,
(b. 1942,
England, and President
of the Royal Society
2005-2010)
of the Royal Society
2005-2010)
noted the following in the nale of his 1999 work
“Just Six
“Just Six
Numbers”:***
“But it remains a fundamental challenge to
understand the very beginning – this must await a
‘nal’ theory…. Such a theory would signal the end
of an intellectual quest that started with Newton,
and continued through Maxwell, Einstein and their
successors. It would deepen our understanding of
space, time, and the basic forces….
This goal may be unattainable. There could be no
‘nal’ theory; or, if
there is, it could be beyond our
there is, it could be beyond our
mental powers to grasp it. But even if this goal
is
is
reached, that would not be the end of challenging
science. As well as being a ‘fundamental’
science, cosmology is also the grandest of the
environmental sciences. It aims to understand
THE TRANSCENDENT DYNAMIC
how a simple ‘reball’ evolved into the complex
cosmic habitat we nd around us – how, here on
Earth, and perhaps in many biospheres elsewhere,
creatures evolved that are
able to reect on how
able to reect on how
they emerged.”*
from the author –
Every once-in-a-while, Sir Martin, a sort-of
‘simple
‘simple
concept’ makes-an-appearance on the world stage
– a ‘simple concept’ which simultaneously
apparently
apparently
‘solves’ an array of formidable, inter-related, and hitherto
seemingly intractable issues.
*** Martin Rees, Just Six Numbers. Great Britain: Weindenfeld & Nicolson, 1999. pp. 176-177
