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This story is part of our “Cosmic Perspective” special, which confronts the incredible vastness of the universe and our place in it. Read the rest of the series here.
Though it may not be perfect, science is the best means to objective knowledge. Through observation, experimentation, and mathematical abstraction, science strives for a third-person perspective, a view from outside the objects we investigate. This is perhaps most evident in physics, which seeks to describe things at every scale. “We take ourselves out of a system in order to make it stable. [it] As an object that can be thought of.” Jenan IsmaelPhilosopher at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.
The separation of scientific understanding and subjective experience began in the 16th century, when Galileo Galilei proved that the motion of objects on Earth and in the heavens could be described according to mathematical laws. And you can’t say that it didn’t work. Today, physicists can proudly look upon a giant tower of ideas and equations that meticulously predict how reality works at nearly every level, from the grand story of the origin and evolution of the universe to the minutiae of the subatomic particles that make up the universe.
But in recent years, more and more physicists are becoming aware of the concept…
