I suspect there comes a point in everyone’s
life when they start to wonder if they are spending their days well
and if whatever they are toiling away at is really worth the effort. For the most part, it probably gets marked down as “middle age angst”, apathy, or something similar and people
make a few changes and then plough on, much as before. In science, though, the answers matter because what "we" as a society chose to fund and what "we" as individual scientists chose to prioritise can really affect the future of mankind. The potential is always there for any individual scientist to change the world for the better.
Even though my scientific career has not been all that long, I have been a lot of scientific conferences and I have come away from some of them feeling that the most important things for mankind are not always those receiving highest priority.
Even though my scientific career has not been all that long, I have been a lot of scientific conferences and I have come away from some of them feeling that the most important things for mankind are not always those receiving highest priority.
Today’s post, then, is just a question- “what do you think matters to
mankind?” “Which questions and problems should scientists/mankind be
trying to answer most urgently?”
For what it is worth, the picture below is doodle from my notebook- my own crude, first-draft attempt to answer these questions (in no particular order- click to enlarge).
What would you prioritise?
For what it is worth, the picture below is doodle from my notebook- my own crude, first-draft attempt to answer these questions (in no particular order- click to enlarge).
What would you prioritise?
 |
| click to enlarge |
I am asking these questions for several reasons, one reason is in response to an article on line called "What are the most important questions to answer in physics?" You can find the the article on this site, by Dr M. Rulison-
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/9xhDZz/www.oglethorpe.edu/faculty/~m_rulison/top10.htm
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/9xhDZz/www.oglethorpe.edu/faculty/~m_rulison/top10.htm
I don’t claim to be qualified
enough to attempt to answer that question, or comment upon Dr Rulison’s ideas,
but they do make interesting reading.
On a lighter note, pictures have
now emerged of a baby pygmy hippo born in early September in Zurich zoo. The print
version of The Telegraph newspaper had a wonderful photograph of it, but I can’t
find this online. You can see a video of the baby hippo here- (WARNING: this
video has music)
