Chapter 99 Chapter 18 The Magician and the Apprentice: Schools of Natural Science 1

1 The pervasiveness of natural science in the 20th century, and the increasing reliance on natural science in the 20th century, are unprecedented in history.But not since Galileo, when he was forced to abandon his teachings on astronomy, has the twentieth century been so uncomfortable with the natural sciences.This antinomy is a major topic that historians of this century have to deal with.However, before the author takes the liberty to try it, there are several aspects to be clarified about this contradiction. Back in 1910, the total number of physical chemists in Britain and Germany was about 8,000.By the end of the 1980s, it was estimated that there were about 5 million scientists and engineers in the world who were actually engaged in research on the number one experiment.Among them, 1 million people are in the United States, the number one country in science; the number slightly higher than this is in Europe.Although the total number of scientists still accounts for only a tiny minority of the population—even in developed countries—their number has continued to increase alarmingly, almost doubling in the 20 years after 1970, and even the most advanced countries are no exception.In fact, by the late 1980s, the scientist population was only the tip of a larger iceberg.This iceberg, a vast potential technological workforce reflecting the fruits of the educational revolution in the second half of this century (see Chapter 10), represents 2% of the total global population and 5% of the North American population (UNESCO, 1991, Table 5 .1).And real scientists are more and more selected through advanced "doctoral dissertations", and "doctoral dissertations" have become a must-have ticket for entering the science industry.Taking the 1980s as an example, any advanced western country produced 134 doctors of science per million people per year on average (Observatoire, 1991).Countries in this category also spend astronomical amounts of investment in science, mostly from public funds—even in the most typical capitalist countries.In fact, some of the most expensive so-called "big sciences", except for the United States, no other country can afford it alone (by the 1990s, even the United States could not afford it).

But there is a new phenomenon in it.Although about 90% of scientific papers (the number of papers doubles every ten years) are published in 4 languages ​​(English, Russian, French, German), in fact, the development of science centered on Europe came to an end in the 20th century .The period of catastrophe, and especially the year of fascism's temporary triumph, had shifted the center of gravity of science to America, and America has held the leadership ever since. From 1900 to 1933, there were only 7 American scientists who won the Nobel Prize, but from 1933 to 1970, the number increased to 77.Other countries populated by European immigrants, such as Canada, Australia, and the oft-underestimated Argentina, have also become offshore centres, independent centers of research.However, there are also some countries, such as New Zealand and South Africa, because of their small size or political reasons, important scientists have left and left.At the same time, non-European scientists are also rising rapidly, especially in East Asia and the Indian subcontinent, and the growth rate is alarming.Before the end of the Second World War, in Asia, only one person had won the Nobel Prize for Science once—the Indian physicist C. Raman won the Physics Prize in 1930.But since 1946, there have been more than 10 daimyo winners from Japan, China, India, Pakistan and other regions.Of course, just looking at the Nobel Prize records is not sufficient, and it is obviously suspected of underestimating the scientific revitalization in Asia; just as the list of winners before 1933 alone, there is also the risk of underestimating the scientific progress of the United States at that time.However, at the end of this century, there are indeed some regions in the world, in terms of the number of scientists, not only the actual number is relatively low, but the relative ratio is even lower, such as Africa and Latin America.

Surprisingly, however, at least one-third of Asian American laureates received the title under their American names rather than their native origins (in fact, among American laureates, as first-generation immigrants There are as many as 27).Because in this increasingly internationalized world, natural scientists speak the same international language and adopt the same research method, but there is a strange phenomenon that makes them concentrate in one or two places with suitable equipment resources Research centers in the United States, that is, within a small number of highly developed rich countries, especially the United States.During the catastrophe period, the world's talented think tanks left Europe for political reasons; but since 1945, it has mainly been for economic reasons to switch from poor countries to rich countries.This trend is not surprising, considering that since the 1970s and 1980s, research expenditures in developed capitalist countries have accounted for three-quarters of the total global research expenditures.Poor countries (developing countries) are pitifully few, even less than 2% to 3% (UNWorld Social Situation, 1989, p. 103).

But even in developed countries, the distribution of science is gradually losing its fragmentation, both because of the concentration of population and resources (for reasons of efficiency) and because, under the enormous growth of higher education, an invisible A class, or so-called oligarchic class. In the 1950s and 1960s, half of the Ph.D.s in the United States came from the 15 most prestigious university research institutes, which increasingly attracted the best young scientists.In a democratic, populist world, scientists have instead become a social elite, concentrated in a handful of well-funded research shrines.As "scientists," they appear as groups because communication ("someone to talk to") is central to their activities.As time went on, their activities became more and more enigmatic to the non-scientist outsider-although, as layman, with popular introductions (sometimes penned by the best scientists themselves), Trying desperately to understand.In fact, as the sciences become more specialized, even scientists have to rely on the help of academic journals to explain to each other developments outside their own field.

It goes without saying that the 20th century relied heavily on science.Prior to this, the so-called "advanced/deep" science, that is, the kind of knowledge that could not be acquired from daily experience, and could not be practiced—or even understood—with years of training, and ultimately culminated in research and study, was practically insignificant compared with today. The scope of application is extremely narrow, and it did not start to change until the end of the 19th century. Physics and mathematics dominated engineers in the 17th century; by the mid-Victorian era, discoveries in chemistry and electricity in the late 18th and early 19th centuries had become indispensable to industry and communication.The research and exploration of professional scientific researchers is also considered to be a necessary vanguard, which can even bring about technological progress.To put it simply, science-based technology was already at the core of the bourgeois world in the 19th century; although the average practical person does not know what to do with these scientific theories.The only use can only come in handy at the right time and turn into ideological play: such as Newton's theorem in the 18th century, and Darwin's theory in the late 19th century.But beyond that, most aspects of human life continue to be dominated by lived experience, trial and error, skill, and trained common sense. just spread.These include agriculture, construction, medicine, and many other human activities that provide for the needs and enjoyments of life.

But in the last third of the 19th century, things changed.Entering the "Age of Empires", not only the prototypes of modern advanced technology began to appear - just to mention automobiles, aviation, radio broadcasting, movies, etc. On (the quantum), genetics (genetics) and so on.What's more, even the most mysterious and revolutionary scientific discoveries are now seen as having the potential for immediate practical application: from wireless telegraphy to the medical use of X-rays, are examples of esoteric theories applied to practical technologies , both were discoveries in the 1890s.However, although the appearance of advanced science in the short twentieth century was visible before 1914; although the advanced technology of the new century was already hidden in advanced science, the latter was still not a time-honored thing at that time. Indispensable everywhere, without which it is difficult to imagine how to live and act every day.

Yet this is exactly what is happening today, as the two thousand years are drawing to a close.As we saw in Chapter 9, applied technologies based on advanced scientific theoretical research monopolized the economic prosperity of the second half of the 20th century, and this was not limited to the developed world.India and Indonesia would not have been able to produce enough food to feed their exploding populations without genetic science, which has reached its current state of agronomy.By the end of the 20th century, biotechnology had become an extremely important part of both agriculture and medicine.The most impressive thing about the application of this kind of advanced technology is that the theories and discoveries it is based on are far beyond the scope of ordinary people's daily life (including the most advanced and most developed countries), so in fact all Only a handful of people in the world—maybe dozens, at most hundreds—understand their practical application from the very beginning.When the German physicist Otto Hahn discovered nuclear fission in early 1939, even some of the most active members of the physics community, such as the great Niels Bohr (1885-1962), doubted that this discovery could Whether it can find practical use in peace or war; as for the immediate application, it is naturally even more doubtful.Generals and politicians would never have known about this discovery if physicists who knew its potential uses hadn't told them about it—unless the latter were themselves senior physicists, which is very unlikely. impossible.Take Alan Turing's famous paper in 1935, which laid the foundation of modern computer theory, as an example.The outbreak of war gave him and other scientists the opportunity to try to apply the theory to practice, mainly to break codes.However, when Turing's paper was first published, except for a few mathematicians, no one was even interested in reading it, let alone paying attention to it.Even in the eyes of his own colleagues, this rough-looking, pale-faced genius was just a newcomer who liked to jog, and he was not an important person at all—at least in the author's memory, he was definitely not like that (but After his death, he was widely worshiped in the circle of homosexuals, quite like a generation of saints).In fact, even when scientists do try to solve well-known and big problems, only a very small number of smart people, in very isolated intellectual circles, know exactly what is going on in the middle.I remember that when the author was doing research in Cambridge, two scholars, Crick (Crick) and Watson (Watsen), were also doing their famous deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) - "double helix" (the Double-Helix) there. ) structure research.Once the results were published, their achievement was immediately recognized as the most decisive breakthrough of the century.Although I even remember meeting Crick at a social occasion, most of us are ignorant of the fact that the laboratory we walk past every day is just a few dozen yards from the gate of our college. Here, and in the little bars where we sit and drink every day, a remarkable invention is brewing.Our ignorance is not due to lack of interest in these things, but because people who engage in such advanced activities cannot find any reason to tell.Because it is impossible for us to make any contribution to their work; I am afraid that we cannot even understand the difficulties they encounter.

However, no matter how difficult a scientific invention is, once it is invented, it immediately turns to practical technological use.So the transistor was a by-product of solid-state physics research (i.e., the electromagnetic properties of slightly flawed crystals) in 1948 (within 8 years, the inventor was awarded a Nobel Prize); just as the laser was invented in 1960, not from optics research , but it is an incidental result of studying molecular resonance in an electric field (Bernal, 1967, p.563). The inventor of the laser also won the Nobel Prize soon.Cambridge and Soviet physicist Kapitsa (Peter Kapitsa, 1978) also won this honor for his research on low-temperature superconductivity. The experience of wartime research between 1939 and 1946 proved—at least for Anglo-Saxons—that even the most difficult scientific and technological problems can be solved in an almost impossibly short period of time as long as human and material resources are concentrated.As a result, all kinds of pioneering scientific and technological research (such as space programs) are encouraged regardless of cost, as long as they are beneficial to war or beneficial to the country's reputation.As a result, the transformation of laboratory science into practical technology, some of which is even more widely used in everyday life, has been accelerated.The laser is the best example of the rapid transformation of experimental science into practical technology. It first appeared in the laboratory in 1960, and by the end of the 1980s, it had been promoted to consumers in the form of compact discs.The pace of biotechnology is faster.The applicability of DNA recombinant—that is, the combination of genes from one organism with genes from another—was first recognized in 1973.In less than 20 years, the biological sciences have become a major investment in medical and agricultural research.

What's more, the explosive growth of holographic theory and its applications has transformed new scientific discoveries into practical technologies that end users don't even need to know why, with shorter and shorter time lags.The most ideal result is a set of buttons that even a fool can press. As long as you press the right place, you can trigger a series of self-action, self-correction, and even self-decision-making procedures, and no longer need ordinary people. Limited and unreliable Wisdom and technology, and then give any instructions.In fact, a more ideal situation is that this group of programs can be set in advance as a program, without human intervention at all, as long as it is corrected when mistakes are made. The checkout line in a supermarket in the 90s is a prime example of the removal of human action.The cashier only needs to know how to recognize money, know what is yuan jiaofen, what is one yuan and ten yuan, and then put the amount of money handed over by the customer into the cash register.The automatic scanning machine converts the barcode on the product into a price, calculates everything, subtracts it from the amount paid by the customer, and then tells the cashier how much change to return.The actual operation behind this series of programs is actually extremely complicated, and can only be carried out by a set of very sophisticated and detailed software and hardware equipment.But unless something goes awry, late-20th-century technological marvels of this type often require cashiers who know the basics of one, two, and three, have a minimum concentration time, and can tolerate boredom.Literacy is not required, let alone knowledge.For the cashier, it doesn't matter what's going on in the middle, how the machine knows how much the customer should pay, and how much he should find.Conditions of their operation do not need to know the reason behind it.A magician's apprentice no longer has to worry about his lack of knowledge.

For practical purposes, supermarket checkouts do represent the norm in the late 20th century.Advanced and avant-garde miracles of science and technology can be easily used without any knowledge or modification on our part - even if we do understand it, or think we understand it.Because others will do it for us, or even have already thought it out for us.What's more, even if we ourselves are experts in this or that field - that is, can also design, manufacture, or if something breaks, how to fix it - faced with all the other scientific and technological crystallization of everyday life. Products, also had to succumb to the status of a layman.Moreover, even if we really understand and understand the mystery of it, in fact this knowledge is unnecessary and has nothing to do with our actual operation.Like how exactly are playing cards made, and what does it mean to a (honest) player?The facsimile machine was designed (why Los Angeles puts in a piece of paper and London spits out a copy) for those who have no idea of ​​its rationale.The same fax machine will not produce better results if it is used by a professor of the Department of Electrical Engineering.

Therefore, science is showing its magic to the world of the 20th century every day through practical technology that is closely related to the actions of human life.Not only indispensable, but ubiquitous—as Allah is to the devout Muslim—even the remotest human societies know what transistor radios and electronic computers are.There are different opinions about when this ability of human beings to produce superhuman and miraculous effects became a common consciousness, especially in the cities of "advanced" industrial societies, it is even more difficult to determine the exact date, but generally speaking, it must have been It has existed since the first atomic bomb was dropped in 1945.In any case, the 20th century was an era in which science changed the world and human understanding of the world. This is an undoubted fact. It follows from this that the ideology of the twentieth century should flourish in the glory of the triumph of science, just as the secular consciousness of the nineteenth century should, for it is a great achievement of the human will.In the same way, the resistance of traditional religious thought to science and the great doubts about science in the 19th century should also be weakened even more.For not only has the influence of religion declined through most of this century (as we shall discuss later); even religion itself, like every other human activity in the developed world, has come to rely heavily on the Modern technology.In times of crisis, a Catholic, Islamic teacher, or wise man of any religion at the beginning of this century can carry out their religious activities according to the technical methods of the 15th century, just like Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Antoine Laureat Lavoisier and others never existed.In fact, this kind of nineteenth-century science and technology did not seriously interfere with their religious activities, nor was it incompatible with their theology or classic content.But now a Vatican has to hold the communion ceremony through a communication satellite; since the 16th century, it has been preserved in the church of Turin, Italy, and was declared by the Roman Church to be the shroud of Jesus after the crucifixion. carbon) to identify the authenticity of the fake, it is difficult to ignore the contradictions.Khomeini was in exile, broadcasting his speeches to the Iranian populace on a cassette tape recorder; and a country that had decided to dedicate itself to edification was simultaneously pursuing its own nuclear armament.The most sophisticated and complex sciences of our time are accepted "de facto" by mankind through the practical techniques that have emerged from them.In today's New York at the end of the century, sales of high-tech electronic products and photographic equipment have become the professions of Hasidic sects—Hasidic is a Messianic Jewish sect in the eastern United States. In addition to insisting on wearing some sort of 18th-century Polish clothing, he was also known for having a fervent love of intellectual pursuits.In a certain form, the superiority of the so-called "science" is even formally accepted and recognized by religions today.Protestant fundamentalists in the United States, who refute the theory of evolution as inconsistent with the teachings of the Bible (that is, the universe as it is today, was created within 6 days), require schools to use what they call "creation science" (creation science). ) to replace Darwin's theory, at least the two should be combined and confronted. But for all that, there is an awkwardness between the 20th century and its greatest achievements and greatest reliance.The progress of natural science is carried out under the background full of doubts and fears, occasionally even fueled by hatred and rejection of reason and all its products.In the uncharted territory between science and anti-science, in the perpetual search for truth, in a world full of visionary prophets, a new genre of literature (mostly of this century, and especially of the second half of it, by Anglo-Saxon unique to ethnic origin), that is, "science fiction".This new type was first proposed by Jules Verne (1828-1905) at the end of the 19th century, and initiated by H.G. Wells (1866-1946).Although in the most naive representations of science fiction works, such as "space westerns" commonly seen on movies and TV, the spaceship is a horse galloping through space, and the death ray gun is its six-shot revolver. It's a new thing, just a continuation of the old style of its adventure fantasy film.However, in some of the more serious science fiction works in the second half of this century, it can be seen that they tend to be gloomy and gloomy, at least with vague views that are not sure about the current situation and future of mankind. People's doubts and fears of science are mainly based on four feelings: the mystery of science is incomprehensible; the practicality and consequences of science are unpredictable, and there may even be disasters; Yu.Still less should we ignore the fourth mood, namely, that science is inherently dangerous in so far as it disturbs the natural order.The first two ideas are shared by scientists and ordinary people; the latter two feelings are mostly unique to laymen.As an individual layman, facing this feeling of helplessness, he can only seek help from things that are "unexplainable by science", that is, according to Hamlet, "There are many, many things between heaven and earth...far beyond Your reasoning can only imagine."Their escape is to refuse to believe that these things can be explained by "official science"; and to believe hungrily in the unsolvable fog "just because" these mysteries seem irrational and utterly absurd.At least, in this unknown and unknowable world, everyone is equal, and everyone is equally powerless.The more obvious the triumph of science, the stronger the hunger for the unsolvable.Soon after World War II ended with the atomic bomb, the American public (1947) became obsessed with seeing large numbers of "UFOs" (UFOs) (a new Yankee fad that soon became known as their cultural follower) followed by the British), apparently inspired by the imagination of science fiction.They firmly believe that these UFOs must be visitors from outer space civilizations; their civilizations are not only different from ours, but also superior to ours.Among them, the most fanatical "witnesses" even kept claiming that they saw foreign visitors with strange shapes appearing from these "flying saucers";This phenomenon has become a worldwide spectacle, but if you look at the distribution map of these extraterrestrial visitors, you can find that the visitors are particularly partial to the Anglo-Saxons, and they always like to land or circle over their regions.In addition, if anyone raises any doubts about the "UFO" phenomenon, they will be dismissed by these UFO fans as scientists' narrow-mindedness, because they cannot provide an explanation for this phenomenon, and the resulting jealousy will cause trouble.There is even a conspiracy theory that some people deliberately conceal advanced wisdom so that ordinary people will live in ignorance that is "unfathomable". These ideas are different from traditional society's belief in magic and miracles; they are also different from human beings' curiosity about gods and ghosts since ancient times.In traditional societies, strange things that happen in reality are often a natural part of life that cannot be fully controlled-in fact, experiences such as seeing an airplane or picking up a microphone are far more important than those in nature. The strange phenomenon is much more surprising to traditional people.And since the invention of printing, from the legendary stories of single-sided woodcuts to today's popular magazines sold at the checkout counters of American supermarkets, there have been all kinds of weird and weird reports.People's reactions today are none of the above feelings, but a kind of resistance to scientific claims and rule, sometimes even conscious resistance.For example, since scientists confirmed that fluoride can effectively reduce tooth decay in modern urbanites, some fringe groups (with the United States as the center of the trend) have strongly opposed the practice of adding fluoride to drinking water.The objection is not only based on the fact that everyone should have the freedom to choose whether to have tooth decay; but also considers fluoridation as a despicable conspiracy (this is the most extreme view), and it is a means of forced poisoning by people with intentions , harming the bodies of ordinary people.Dr. Strangelove (1963), directed by Stanley Kubrick, has an extremely vivid description of this kind of consciousness, fully revealing human beings' doubts about science and their fear of its consequences. exhaustive. The infirmity of North American culture also helps to spread such fears as life becomes increasingly engulfed by modern technology—including medical technology—and the risks that come with it.Americans are fond of litigation and like to go to court to solve all life's problems. This strange habit makes us see more clearly the fears in their hearts (Huber, 1990, pp. 97-118).Don't you see that spermicidal contraceptives (supermicide) lead to deformed fetuses?Don't you see that high-voltage power lines are harmful to the health of nearby residents?The gulf between experts with their standards of judgment and ordinary people with their hopes and fears is widened by the gap in opinion between the two sides.In the calm analysis of experts who only care about "10,000", they may think that under the weight of interests, it is worth paying a small amount of risk for the greater benefit.But for individuals who fear only "just in case," it is natural to want the risk to be zero (at least in theory). In fact, this sense of fear is exactly the fear of unknown scientific threats held by ordinary men and women who only know that they live under the control of science.The intensity and focus of their fears vary according to viewpoints and fears of modern society (Fischhof et al, pp. 127-152). However, in the first half of this century, the source of the greatest harm to science was not the above-mentioned ordinary people who groveled under the uncontrollable power of science; it was those who thought they could control science.Looking at the world, there are only two regimes (except for the regimes that return to religious fundamentalism in the future are special cases) that actively interfered with scientific research based on "isms", and both were committed to unlimited technological progress.One even committed itself to an ideology that identified itself with "science" and celebrated the conquest of the world by reason and experimentation.However, both Stalinist style and German nationalism adopted science for the purpose of practical technology; while science as a thing challenged all worldviews and values ​​that existed in the form of a priori truth.In practice, therefore, both regimes rejected science and could not accept its gesture of challenging the established. Consequently, both regimes are deeply disturbed by "post-Einsteinian" physics.The Nazis denounced it as "Jewish" heresy, and the Soviet ideological theorists attributed it to insufficient "materialists" (the word, here, according to Lenin's definition) but in fact, both sides disagreed. This tolerance, because as a modern country, standard "post-Einstein" physicists are absolutely indispensable.However, National Socialism, by sweeping out the Jews and all kinds of opposition, not only deprived itself of the physical genius of Europe, but also destroyed the original superiority of German science in the early 20th century. From 1900 to 1933, 25 of the 66 Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry were awarded to Germany;The German and Russian regimes were also incompatible with biological sciences.The racist politics of Nazi Germany so frightened serious geneticists that they distanced themselves after World War I from any policy of breeding human genes, largely because of racist criticism of eugenics. Deterred by the fanatical passions of the country (this policy also includes eliminating the "unsuitable" under the law of winners and losers).Sadly, however, we have to admit that there were indeed many people in the German biological and medical circles who were quite supportive of the racist policies of the Nazis (Proctor, 1988).As for the Soviet regime under Stalin, genetics was at odds with ideological grounds.Because its national policy is committed to the principle that "any" change can be achieved with enough effort.But science dismisses it, pointing out that this is an impossible outcome, either for evolution in general, or for agriculture in particular.As in other cases, disputes between two groups of evolutionary biologists—the one following Darwin, who believed that hereditary traits are determined by innate genes, and the other, following Faramack ( Lamarck, arguing that genetic material is acquired, acquired and evolved in a lifetime—in fact, in the eyes of most scientists, the matter has been settled, and the winner is the Darwinian.Regardless of anything else, the simple absence of satisfactory evidence of acquired genetic material can determine the answer.But under Stalin, a radical non-mainstream biologist, Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (1898-1976), once won the support of the political authorities with Lamarckian ideas.He believed that agricultural production could be greatly increased if the usual old-fashioned production and husbandry processes were shortened according to Lamarck's procedure.At that time, it was naturally extremely unwise to sing against the authorities; the most famous Soviet geneticist, academician Vavilov (Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov, 1885-1943), just because he disagreed with Lysenko's fallacies (other A decent geneticist in the Soviet Union also disapproved of Lysenko), died of illness in a labor camp.However, Soviet biology was committed to refuting the theory of genetics. According to the understanding of the outside world, it became the official position followed by all after World War II, and it continued until at least after Stalin's death.Such irrational policies have done great harm to Soviet science, and there will be endless troubles. The two regimes of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, although very different in many respects, shared a common belief that their citizens subscribed to a "true creed", but this creed was not a divine oracle, but a secular political— — Consciousness authority ruling.Thus, the uneasiness about science common to many societies finds official official caliber here—unlike other countries, which have learned the lesson of the personal Faith is unknown.In fact the rise of religiously orthodox secular regimes, as we have seen (see Chapters 4 and 13), was a short-lived by-product of the time of the catastrophe.In any case, insisting on stuffing science into the straitjacket of ideology is simply against the effect. If it is really implemented seriously, the result can be imagined (such as the Soviet Union's practice of messing with its biology).Even if we let science be free, but insist on the supremacy of consciousness, the phenomenon is ridiculous (such as the physics circles in Germany and Russia).In the late 20th century, the official style of imposing conditions on scientific theories was taken over by regimes based on religious fundamentalism.But these uneasy feelings of incompatibility between people and science have persisted, not to mention the fact that science itself is becoming more and more inconceivable and uncertain with each passing day.It was not until the second half of the 20th century, however, that this psychology was driven by a fear of the practical effects of science. Admittedly, scientists themselves know better than anyone, and before anyone else, that their discoveries may have unintended consequences.Ever since the first atomic bomb was actually used, certain scientists have warned their heads of government to beware that the world now has this destructive force at its disposal.But equating science with potential disaster is a concept developed only in the second half of this century.Its first phase—the nightmare of a nuclear war—belongs to the post-1945 period of superpower confrontation.The second stage of the Internet belongs to the crisis period unveiled in the 1970s, and its scope is broader.But back to the time of catastrophe, perhaps due to the serious deceleration of world economic growth, human beings still have peace of mind, dreaming of the scientific dream that man will conquer the sky.At least, if the worst happens, people think that nature is boundless and has a way of readjusting to human mishaps.On the other hand, the only thing that bothered scientists at the time was that they didn't know what their theories really meant.