Why bother to explore the universe?
Why bother to explore the universe? 1/1
/NASA
An image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a corridor of galaxies similar to our Milky Way stretching billions of light-years distant.
Published: 18 April 2014 10:06 AM
Updated: 18 April 2014 04:13 PM
Honey, I want to move to Mars
With problems aplenty here on Earth, why should anyone spend his or her time thinking about the rest of the universe? Who cares whether black holes exist, when the universe began, or why it is expanding  -  let alone why that expansion is accelerating? Does it matter that planets like ours exist around other stars if we are never going to visit them? And is it really important that, as we learned last month, complex patterns in the afterglow radiation from the Big Bang reveal the signature of gravity waves generated in the first millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of the second of cosmic time?Such knowledge will not increase crop yields, help us address greenhouse gas emissions, or end tyranny in the world. It won't help your gas mileage or improve your investment performance. So who cares?Sure, astronomy was important in the past. Helium was first discovered on the sun  -  no birthday party would be the same without that. And gravity  -  well, yes, Newton invented that by contemplating observations of the planets, and Einstein improved his model so your GPS works well. And the nuclear fusion that powers the sun  -  well, that may be useful someday for something other than blowing up Pacific atolls. But in 2014? What can we learn that's of any use by staring into space?Well, one urgent need we have today is something astronomy provides in spades: perspective. We all have problems; our communities, our nation and the planet face some serious challenges. Stepping back and situating these problems in cosmic space and time provides the perspective we often lack. Knowing that it would take 5 million years, flying at the speed of a 747, to reach the nearest planet around another star might suggest we take better care of this one. Realizing that humans have been around only 0.003 percent of the time that life has existed on Earth might suggest a new approach to the millions of other species with whom we share this planet.And then there's the fact that the future holds unknowns.In 1927, the British evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane wrote:"I have no doubt that, in reality, the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine."Were he alive today, he would no doubt be confirmed in his opinion. He probably didn't imagine television, cellphones and Google glasses, nor nuclear warheads, gulf oil spills or Twitter. This lack of imagination is not, of course, Haldane's failing; it is inherent in the human condition. Our hominid brains have evolved on a timescale of millions of years, changing very slowly. Our technology, the product of millions of those brains working together, changes with unimaginable speed.There are roughly 100 billion atoms in each of your neurons, and about 100 billion individual neurons in your brain. There are also 100 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy, and 100 billion Milky Ways in the observable universe. That those four numbers are the same is a coincidence. That the 1 kilogram of matter between your ears can apprehend both the unseeably tiny atoms and the unimaginably large universe is worthy of celebration.Once, as an undergraduate student, I found myself in a car with a very senior astronomer driving to a nighttime observing session in Arizona. He abruptly asked, "What if you were called before Congress and asked to justify public expenditure on astronomy. What would you say?"This was 1970, just after the first Apollo moon landings. I launched into a disquisition on the technological spinoffs from space exploration, from computers to Tang  -  and he cut me off."No," he said. "That's not the reason. The spinoffs may or may not be there, but the reason for a society to invest in exploring the cosmos is the same justification we use for supporting symphony orchestras and poets. These are the activities that distinguish us as human beings."And that, of course, is why we bother to ask questions about the universe: Our curiosity and our imagination are what define us as human. Astronomer David Helfand, president of the American Astronomical Society, is on leave from Columbia University to serve as president of Quest University Canada. His email address is . ***One Day UniversityProfessor David Helfand is one of the featured lecturers at One Day University, a Points-supported event.What: "Students for a day" will choose five 60-minute courses that cover topics such as "What We Know About the Universe (and What We Don't)," "The Future of Health Care" and "Abraham Lincoln: Separating Fact From Fiction." When: 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. May 10Where: Hyatt Regency Dallas at Reunion, 300 Reunion Blvd.More info: Tickets are $239; Dallas Morning News subscribers pay $179 when they use the promo code Points514. To purchase, visit onedayu.com and click on the Dallas event.
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