Following on from my last blog, I've heard a number of people asking why the LHC particle accelerator was actually built, seeing it has cost so much, and will continue to cost so much. Well, according to the BBC, "the Large Hadron Collider will re-create the conditions just after the Big Bang in an attempt to answer fundamental questions of science and the universe itself. "
It reminds me of a quote from a book entitled God and the Astronomers by Robert Jastrow, founder of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The book was published in 1978 and Jastrow described himself as an agnostic. This is the quote:
The scientists' pursuit of the past ends in the moment of creation. This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the words of the Bible: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth" ... For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
I like it!
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