h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What about the three body problem? Isn´t that meant to be rather unknowable?

You have by undivided attention

True, another chaotic system so maybe that is the route to go down. A discussion of chaos and why it means we can never have perfect knowledge about how chaotic events will behave.

Evidently....


MY undivided attention.

Thanks 3dots for the post on the previous page.

This idea of shades of grey, the application of probability and endlessly refinable, I agree with; I can also see the point of challenging the premise and asking a different more pertinent question other than the binary Yes/No implied in the task

Maybe that's the kind of racy, out-of-the-box thinking that examiners just ) but my instincts tell me not answering the question put, however debonaire and intelligently it's tackled, will ultimately fail. That the question itself contains an yawning philosophical schism on the nature of knowledge on the part of who wrote, is I suppose a further reason for making a really good* leaflet to promote science and education.

*ahem*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark

Wrong forum - HOW??

Well, from here, it looks as if an answer that seems to fit the bill, contains a summary of what science is, what it does and what it finds difficulty with contemporaneously:
.
Are there any questions that science CAN NEVER answer?

[selected & edited material from this thread] and, eg ... 'but the answer to the question is, We Don't Know - yet'.
.

?

... by 'contemporaneously' in the first sentence I meant to add a bit of perspective -
'twas ever thus and will remain so (at least for my/your/your children' lifetimes).

Traveller in Time on top
"Science will never know who it will be to say the last words.
Or what these words will be.
Or what the first words have been.
Indivudual human behaviour patterns can not be predicted.

(reading Asimov Foundation) "

Took a break from doing those s*dding equations (see thread: 'HELP with equations!) and decided to do this instead: flex my creative side, which I always enjoy. and I'm rather pleased with the results. If I cna find some way of sharing the result of this hard work I will.

So I came here to ask other than chaos (which I've just now finished covering) is there any other example of a scientific questions that science CAN NEVER ANSWER?

I was just re-reading the thread and we winnowed down some ideas that we agreed couldn't be bound by future science

However I'm still searching for a second example - any other ideas?

Actually, I just had a cool idea...

Scientists have discovered through experimentation that some insects can see into the ultraviolet, but science can't tell us what that looks like.

Yes but I wouldn't call the question a very scientific one.

Well what I went with in the end - and this may not be a scientific question either - leaping off from the unpredictability of complex systems is that science cannot know where the next useful idea will come from or what ideas will coalesce (i.e Humans activities are complex too.)

I then turned that around and made it a direct challenge to the reader to come up with the next scientific idea to change the world. Having just gone through the current research and ongoing, that seemed a satisfactory conclusion to reach, one that encouraged the 16 year old supposed to be the audience that science is cool.

And now through the wonders of technology here is what , with all of your help (THANK YOU!! ), I've been working on.

Brochure (L-R) panels 5, 6 & 1
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2488/4115501520_6f8a94395a_o.png

Brochure (L-R) panels 5, 6 & 1
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2628/4114732163_2e34ec4ffc_o.png

I hope my rather superficial gloss in places where necessary for space is forgivable.

Spot the copy > paste error in the above post.

-----------------
"Preview!" They said, "Preview!" But did I listen?

<<"Preview!" They said, "Preview!" But did I listen?>>
Science can definitely answer that one

Well conceivably, you could grow a pair of genetically modified eyes based on your DNA that can see ultraviolet. Same goes for the electric sense, although that would take a more creative approach. Whether your brain will be able to learn to make sense of the input is to be seen, but the idea is not unimaginable.

A question which I've wondered about for a long time... and recently my 9 year old daughter asked me, which surprised me -

I see a red light, and know that it is red, because I have been told that that colour is called red.

If, however, I looked at the same light through someone elses eyes, would it look the same? Obviously that person would also say it is red, because they have been told it is red, but *do we see things the same?*