We are quickly approaching the end of the millennium and the 'magical' year 2000. Many futurologists in the sixties thought science and technolo­gy w… - Diederik Aerts

" "

We are quickly approaching the end of the millennium and the 'magical' year 2000. Many futurologists in the sixties thought science and technolo­gy would offer man unprecedented possibilities for solving his problems. The fall of the Iron Curtain and the implosion of the Eastern Block also created, just a, few years ago, grand expectations. The dream did not come true, however. Rather than ending up in a technological paradise and a peace-loving world, we woke up in a torn world with virtually unsolvable environmental problems and agonising social conditions.

English
Collect this quote

About Diederik Aerts

Diederik Aerts (born April 17, 1953) is a Belgian theoretical physicist and a professor at Brussels Free University (Vrije Universiteit Brussel - VUB), where he directs the Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies (CLEA).

Limited Time Offer

Premium members can get their quote collection automatically imported into their Quotewise collections.

Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.

Additional quotes by Diederik Aerts

The classical concept of 'physical entity', be it particle, wave, field or system, has become a problematic concept since the advent of relativity theory and quantum mechanics. The recent developments in modern quantum mechanics, with the performance of delicate and precise experiments involving single quantum entities, manifesting explicit non-local behavior for these entities, brings essential new information about the nature of the concept of entity.

What is reality? What is space? And what is time? These are the three questions that we want to investigate taking into account the knowledge that we have gained by modern physics. Our intuitive prescientific conception of the world in relation with these three concepts is not very precise but could be summarised as follows. - Reality is everything that exists now in the present. The past has been real but is not anymore and the future is what shall become real but is not yet. - Space is the theatre where reality is in. It englobes all of reality. Till the birth of relativity theory all physical theories where compatible with this intuitive scheme. But when relativity theory entered the scene, these intuitive conceptions of space and time, and what is less recognised even till today, also the conception of reality, has got into problems.

Limited Time Offer

Premium members can get their quote collection automatically imported into their Quotewise collections.

Poincaré analyses how the reality of three dimensional Euclidean (or non-Euclidean) space, has been constructed from our daily experiences as a human being with the objects that are most important for us (rigid bodies), and closely around. This does not mean that this three dimensional space is an ‘invention’ of humanity. It exists, but the way we have ordered, and later on formalized it, by means of specific mathematical models, does make part of it. In other words, what we call the three dimensional reality of space partly exists in its own and partly exists by the structures that we have constructed, relying on our specific human experience with it.

Loading...