The End of Discovery

Praised as "lucid and provocative" (New Statesman) and "a tour of some of the deepest questions facing science" (The Independent), this fascinating book highlights the outer limits of scientific understanding, taking readers on an engaging tour of some of the most perplexing issues facing science today--questions to do with consciousness, free will, the nature of space, time, and matter, the existence of extraterrestrial life, and much more. Stannard argues that eventually--perhaps in a few decades, perhaps in a few centuries--fundamental science will reach the limit of what it can explain. As a scientist, Stannard remains hopeful that several of the questions he addresses here will one day be answered. But other puzzles will remain for all time--and we may never even realize it when we have hit an insuperable barrier in those directions. He assures us that there will always be new uses of scientific knowledge. Technology will continue. But fundamental science itself--the making of fresh discoveries as to how the world works--must ultimately grind to a halt.