Q&A: Why Has Science “Gotten Stuck”?
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Why Has Science “Gotten Stuck”?
Question
Hello and blessings, Rabbi,
what caused the world of science to stop discovering new things and significant new understandings about reality and the universe ever since the discovery of the atom? Why does it feel like we’ve reached a point where everything is only developing, but there aren’t really any truly new discoveries?
Answer
You’ve decided that there are no new discoveries, and that this has been the case since the discovery of the atom. You apparently know something that I don’t.
What???
Relativity, quantum mechanics, dark matter and dark energy, all of particle physics, and many other dramatic discoveries like cosmic background radiation and so on—that’s just physics. You could also talk about DNA in biology, or technology (no need to elaborate), or chemistry, and so on.
And even if nothing had been discovered since then, what kind of emotional extrapolation is that? A few decades without discoveries and you’re already despairing?