Yes, but why bother

I need to clarify, if only for myself, why I am writing this. Obviously an interested but lightly-informed amateur is not going to find the secret of life, the universe and everything by thinking or blogging about it. Even if physics appears to be mired in fog and complexity, thousand of physicists and billions of dollars says to me 'why bother?'.

Blogging may be the key, not to finding direct answers, but to increasing awareness, first that awareness itself is something special, secondly that impossible questions like the infinite universe or the nature of gravity can be answered and understood by many in terms of familiar models. Thirdly our use of the world's resources is at an unsustainable level, our progress is unstable, and there has to be a mass realisation of our privileged position as intelligent life, and our greater responsibility. As civilisation has developed our wars have moved from nearby tribes, to city states and fiefdoms, to countries and continents, to our present clash between cultures. I think it's a common belief that if we encountered an external threat like an alien invader, the world would unite against it. Well, we may not meet the Clingons or Zargons around here, but we are facing a threat as great as any science fiction writer imagined from LGM, and equally need to unite.

Prof Brian Cox's programme recently showed that an equitable energy target of 5kW per person is impractical by known fossil and renewable sources, it requires viable fusion power. But more was spent on cellphone ring tones last year than on fusion power research, we have some priorities to sort out.

It is impossible for most people to reach professional standard in disciplines they are not apt in and trained for and experienced in, yet we enjoy directly the results of their teaching, writing, acting, cooking, art and music, engineering, doctoring and building. Of course big science also benefits us in pharmaceticals and technology, but physics research and physical fundamentals remain largely inaccessible. String theory, huge accelerators, big telescopes etc appear to us on Horizon TV programmes, yet I think most people would know Hubble for its beautiful images rather than its contribution to our physics knowledge.

I think there is a need for the Big Questions to be simplified, and made accessible and natural by techniques such as familiar models.