Physics: The Edge of Knowledge Putting It Together: Summary Comments and Activities In this series of TEDTalks, we’ve heard how the pursuit of fundamental physics has led us to a beautiful and concise set of laws. As it stands today, experimental observations, both at the smallest scales of the elementary particles and the largest distances of the cosmos, agree well with the predictions of these laws. Nevertheless, many questions remain unanswered: What is dark matter? What is the correct quantum theory of gravity? Does supersymmetry exist? Are there extra dimensions of space? These are just some of the big questions for which we don’t yet have answers. New discoveries may be just out of reach, ripe for discovery with the next round of experiments, or harder to find. In the latter case, we’ll need all our ingenuity to design and build the most effective experiments or to discover the key theoretical idea(s) that will push us forward. The successes of fundamental physics attest to humanity’s insatiable desire for exploration and our thirst to understand the world around us and our place within it. Whatever the future holds, we can be confident of one thing: humanity will keep finding big questions to ask. Summary Activities 1. Starting with Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of mechanics and gravitation, explore the key ideas in fundamental physics, many of which have been highlighted in these TEDTalks. Present what you’ve learned in the form of a script for a radio or television program, a syllabus (complete with suggested readings) for a course you might design, or an interactive timeline (how far into the past can you extend your timeline?) Here are some names to get you started:  James Joule, John Dalton & Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot  Ludwig Boltzmann & Josiah Willard Gibbs TED | Wiley The Edge of Knowledge Instructor Materials But even if we one day succeed in finding a fundamental “theory of everything,” there will still be plenty to challenge our understanding. As Nobel-prize winning physicist Steven Weinberg points out, “In the Middle Ages Europeans drew maps of the world in which there were all kinds of exciting things like dragons in unknown territories.” Yet even without "here be dragons," our modern-day world is far from boring. 1          Michael Faraday, André-Marie Ampère & James Clerk Maxwell Max Planck Ernst Rutherford Albert Einstein Erwin Schrödinger & Werner Heisenberg Paul Dirac & Wolfgang Pauli Edwin Hubble, Arno Penzias & Robert Wilson Sheldon Glashow, Steven Weinberg & Adbus Salam Peter Higgs 3. How much money does your country invest in fundamental science as a percentage of GDP? How does this expenditure compare with other countries? What are the arguments against increased spending on basic research, and what do you think of them? Create an infographic to communicate the data, then discuss the impact of fundamental science and whether the level of spending is justified. Good sources include:  Cox, B (Presenter) and TED (Producer. (2011). Why we need the explorers [Video].  Baden, D. (2012, December 13). Why mustn’t we let fundamental science fall off a cliff? Ask Siri. Center for American Progress / Science Progress.  Hand, E., Mole, B., Morello, M., Tollefson, J., Wadman, M., and Witze, A. (2013, April 16). A back seat for basic science. Nature News.  The Guardian: Science funding crisis (Directory of relevant articles)  National Science Foundation: International Research and Development Data  OECD: Research and Development Statistics.  dos Remedios, C. (2006). The value of fundamental research. Discussion paper prepared for the International Union of Pure and Applied Biophysics.  de la Pena, J.A., Berlucchi, G., Bokensberg, A., Moreau, N., dos Remedios, C., (2004). The value of basic research [Position statement]. International Council for Science. TED | Wiley The Edge of Knowledge Instructor Materials 2. Write a short science fiction story incorporating any of the following ideas from fundamental science:  Quantum mechanics allows objects to be in two places at once.  Einstein’s theories tell us that time travel into the future is possible (although time travel into the past is forbidden).  Einstein’s theories predict that space and time are malleable.  Matter is largely empty space.  The Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics predicts multiple realities.  Models of the universe require the existence of dark energy.  Anti-matter exists and with current technology it can be produced and stored in small quantities.  String theory requires the existence of extra spatial dimensions. 2 TED | Wiley The Edge of Knowledge Instructor Materials About the Authors: Jeff Forshaw is professor of particle physics at the University of Manchester and the author of more than 100 scientific papers and books, including two best-selling popular science books. Peter Millington is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sheffield, working on the mathematical underpinnings of the very early universe. 3