More funds are being invested in research and development than ever before. There is no doubt that this contributes to the development of the welfare and progress of civilization. However, more and more scientists are wondering if modern science is approaching its end. The Atlantic has published the results of surveys of researchers that assess the importance of scientific discoveries made recently and decades ago. We will share the alarming findings of leading scientists.
Golden Age of Science
In the past, scientists have often discovered strange and contrary to common sense phenomena, whose nature is mysterious even to specialists, and this contributed to the further development of science. At the end of the 18th century, the Italian scientist Luigi Galvani discovered the phenomenon of muscle contraction in a frog under the influence of an electric current. Surprised by his discovery, he carefully studied the phenomenon, which made him the founder of electrophysiology. At the end of the 19th century, German physicist Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen accidentally discovered an unknown X-radiation, which was called X-ray. This breakthrough in science led to the discovery of radioactivity, the structure of the atomic nucleus, and a revolution in classical physics.
It is difficult to determine how significant this or that discovery is. It sometimes takes several decades before the scientific community, including the Nobel Committee, recognizes the merits of a scientist who has obtained important results. There is no perfect system for immediately determining which research should be funded and which scientists should be rewarded. The best known way to understand the meaning of a discovery is to interview independent experts.
Growth in funding, publications and the number of scientists in the 20th century.
The Atlantic asked about a hundred physicists from leading institutions to rank the Nobel Prize-winning studies according to their importance to science. Scientists compared 1370 pairs of discoveries with each other, determining what is more important, for example, the discovery of a neutron or the discovery of relic radiation - thermal radiation that fills the entire Universe, which arose during the era of hydrogen recombination. This made it possible to evaluate each decade of the 20th century by how great a contribution to physics was made at that time. It should be noted here that the years of the discoveries themselves were taken into account, and not the receipt of Nobel prizes.
In the first decade, according to the respondents, little interesting happened. Swedish inventor Niels Gustav Dahlen created an automatic regulator for light sources on beacons and buoys. It was a solar valve that allows burning gas to escape at night or in bad weather. And from 1910 to 1930, the golden age of physics followed. Quantum mechanics began to develop, and Albert Einstein proposed the theory of relativity (for which he never received the Nobel Prize). Understanding the laws of the universe began to change radically. X-ray crystallography was invented, the neutron and antimatter were discovered, and the principle of wave-particle duality was proposed. In addition, fundamental knowledge of radioactivity and nuclear forces was gained.
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The beginning of the crisis
After this period, there was a significant decline followed by a resurgence in the 60s. The rise was associated with the discovery of the CMB and the development of the Standard Model of particle physics. The latter is the best theoretical construct available to date, describing the properties of three of the four fundamental interactions of all known particles and predicting several that have not yet been discovered. However, the period of the 40-80s is still inferior to the period of the 10-30s in importance. The best discoveries of recent decades are no longer as important as those that took place in the first half of the 20th century.
More recently, news about the discovery of the Higgs boson and gravitational waves thundered all over the world. However, the existence of these phenomena was predicted decades ago. Until now, the Nobel Committee prefers to reward physicists for work done in the 70s and 80s. Only a few discoveries made in the late 90s have won awards, including the creation of a Bose-Einstein condensate, the study of graphene, and proof of the accelerated expansion of the universe.
A similar picture can be seen in other fields of science, including chemistry and biology. Although the second half of the 20th century is richer in discoveries than the first, this difference is insignificant, and in recent years, the Nobel Prize has been received mainly by veterans. From all this follows a grim conclusion: despite the increase in funding, human resources and the development of technology, scientific research is becoming less effective. Biologists have discovered CRISPR and deciphered the human genome through the efforts of many institutions, but the effect of this so far pales in comparison with the discovery of DNA by Francis Crick and James Watson. Research tools are getting bigger, but we are discovering fewer and fewer particles compared to the vast pantheon that became known in the 20th century.
End of an era
Of course, this approach has disadvantages. First, not all significant breakthroughs receive a Nobel Prize. Albert Einstein received an award for the discovery of the photoelectric effect, and not for his theoretical developments, which were confirmed much later. In addition, the bias of the members of the Nobel Committee, who still prefer to reward old works, cannot be ruled out. Mathematicians and scientists from other fields do not receive awards, and the huge array of less important discoveries is also not considered. However, the situation cannot but inspire concern.
Several explanations can be given for the slowing down of scientific progress. Economists Benjamin Jones and Bruce Weinberg observed that the average age of a scientist who made discoveries has recently risen from 37 to 47, about a quarter of his working career. This means that the researcher has to know more and take longer to learn to do important work. At the moment, to make a major discovery, the efforts of dozens of people and scientific groups are needed. When Rutherford discovered the atomic nucleus, he was alone, and the Higgs boson was discovered with the participation of thousands of people. During the 20th century, research teams quadrupled.
All this could be a sign that science is almost close to its end. There is nothing more to explore, and the remaining mysteries of the universe, such as the existence of dark matter, will remain inaccessible due to their excessive complexity. There is another point of view, according to which people themselves create new areas of knowledge (computer science) and focus on their research, and not on breakthrough discoveries. Nevertheless, a decrease in the return on science affects the growth of labor productivity. According to economists Tyler Cowen and Robert Gordon, the economic boom was driven by the invention of internal combustion engines, radios, telephones, assembly lines, and more. However, supersonic airliners and spaceships have not found the same spread.
