135
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. Spagnulo, The Geopolitics of Space Exploration, Springer Praxis Books,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69125-7
Conclusions
“All things are one”.
Heraclitus
For thousands of years, the Universe has been an inscrutable mystery, an infinite
and unknown ocean that surrounded our planet for no obvious reason. For centuries, humans have been developing a theory to explain the phenomenology of
events and the structure of the cosmos. Then, in the twentieth century, two developments radically changed our concept of the very nature of the Universe, and
consequently, of human life.
In the first half of last century, quantum physics overturned every scientific law
known until then, with indisputable results from a mathematical point of view. Yet
much of it remained illogical in common sense thinking. Even today, it is hard to
accept some of its stranger concepts, such as the fact that atomic particles, the
smallest constituents of matter, only seem to exist when they respond to the presence of a conscious observer.
Only a few decades later, humankind launched space probes into the solar system to peer into the infinite unknown, which had fascinated and troubled us for
thousands of years. Scientists were able to study the planets and their moons,
discover distant galaxies and even hear the cosmic noise of the Big Bang’s
radiation.
Quantum physics and space exploration were such shocking developments for
modern science because they projected it into a completely new dimension.
What was there before the Big Bang? Are we sure that the galaxies captured by
the Hubble Space Telescope really have that shape and those colors that we see in
the photos? Is the Universe a quantum fluctuation?.
1
The answers are still fuzzy,
and much still remains a mystery regarding the nature of the Universe and our own
lives within it.
1
https://www.nature.com/articles/246396a0.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. Spagnulo, The Geopolitics of Space Exploration, Springer Praxis Books,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69125-7
Conclusions
“All things are one”.
Heraclitus
For thousands of years, the Universe has been an inscrutable mystery, an infinite
and unknown ocean that surrounded our planet for no obvious reason. For centuries, humans have been developing a theory to explain the phenomenology of
events and the structure of the cosmos. Then, in the twentieth century, two developments radically changed our concept of the very nature of the Universe, and
consequently, of human life.
In the first half of last century, quantum physics overturned every scientific law
known until then, with indisputable results from a mathematical point of view. Yet
much of it remained illogical in common sense thinking. Even today, it is hard to
accept some of its stranger concepts, such as the fact that atomic particles, the
smallest constituents of matter, only seem to exist when they respond to the presence of a conscious observer.
Only a few decades later, humankind launched space probes into the solar system to peer into the infinite unknown, which had fascinated and troubled us for
thousands of years. Scientists were able to study the planets and their moons,
discover distant galaxies and even hear the cosmic noise of the Big Bang’s
radiation.
Quantum physics and space exploration were such shocking developments for
modern science because they projected it into a completely new dimension.
What was there before the Big Bang? Are we sure that the galaxies captured by
the Hubble Space Telescope really have that shape and those colors that we see in
the photos? Is the Universe a quantum fluctuation?.
1
The answers are still fuzzy,
and much still remains a mystery regarding the nature of the Universe and our own
lives within it.
1
https://www.nature.com/articles/246396a0.