To mark the 25th anniversary of its excellent science section, The New York Times, in an article this week, poses a provocative question: 'Does science matter?' It warns against a growing public distrust of science and a rising tide of irrationalism and fundamentalism sweeping the world today.
It's never clear to me why scientists and mathematicians think they are more rational than the rest of us mere mortals when many of them entertain the existence of fantastic entities every bit as improbable as ghosts, goblins and the Holy Trinity.
In cutting-edge cosmology, some astrophysicists now believe a mysterious energy with an appropriate new-age name, quintessence, is pushing the universe apart. Others think strange mathematical entities known as membranes collide regularly (on a cosmic time scale, of course), creating and destroying the universe in endless cycles - a lot like the periodic scuffles between Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva in the apocalyptic Hindu legend.
These people are not cranks, but respected professors from some of the world's leading universities.
Many mathematicians, practitioners of the most exact science, believe there exist super-infinite numbers, numbers so mind-bogglingly 'big' compared with which any natural or real number you could come up with, however large, would be a tiny-bitsy drop in the unimaginably vast ocean of infinities. Others think ordinary numbers, mathematical sets and classes are more real than tables, chairs and people.
One person's superstition is another's reality.
