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Today's Great Challenge
Robert Hazen, experimental mineralogist
George Mason University and Carnegie Institution of
Washington
In our recent book,
Why Aren't Black Holes Black?, Maxine Singer and I
discuss 14 great unanswered questions that challenge
scientists today. My top five unanswered questions are:
Extraterrestrial life: Are we alone? -
Development: How do we develop from a single cell?
-
The Brain: What are the physical origins of memory?
Origins: How did life arise? -
Environment: How many people can Earth sustain?
Each of these questions is the subject of intense research
today, and probably still will be 25 years from now. But it is
equally likely that the most exciting scientific question in
25 years will be something that no one has yet imagined. We
can only ask questions about what we know we don't know, but
many of the most exciting scientific discoveries reveal new
unexpected objects or phenomena. Fifty years ago no one could
have predicted quasars, plate tectonics, homeoboxes, lasers .
. . the list goes on and on. The most exciting part of the
scientific adventure will continue to be the discovery of
things we didn't know we didn't know.
(back to Today's Great Challenge)
Great Challenge
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