LAWRENCE KRAUSS - Nature's Imagination
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0:01 - 0:04The most fascinating thing about science is the ideas,
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0:04 - 0:07it's the lifting of the human spirit.
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0:15 - 0:18We can justify what we do by the technological spinoffs,
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0:18 - 0:24and it's true General Relativity is esoteric, but you couldn't use your GPS machine without it.
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0:24 - 0:28Turns out the effects of General Relativity into satellites have to be incorporated,
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0:28 - 0:32if not, within a second you'd lose all knowledge of where you were on Earth with the GPS satellites, so
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0:32 - 0:37it's true that even the most esoteric ideas sometimes have technological spinoffs,
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0:37 - 0:46but I think it is misplaced to argue for doing fundamental research just because of these technological spinoffs.
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0:47 - 0:50The questions themselves have to be worth asking to be able to spend the money on it,
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0:51 - 0:57but having said that, it is absolutely true that our current standard of living
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0:57 - 1:02vitally depends on the curiosity-driven research that was done a generation or two before.
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1:10 - 1:15Discoveries come along that change everything when you didn't expect it,
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1:15 - 1:17and they come along because you didn't know what you were looking for,
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1:17 - 1:21and if we stop investing in fundamental research now,
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1:21 - 1:26it is true that our standard of living a generation from now, our children,
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1:26 - 1:29the legacy we leave our children, will be much poorer,
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1:29 - 1:33and in fact, it's one of the reasons why I argue that not just to live off selling natural resources,
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1:33 - 1:36but to think about the future, about doing fundamental research,
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1:36 - 1:43because the countries that are going to be able to compete in the XXI Century are those that are best at technology and ideas, and research.
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1:43 - 1:49So there is of course, not just this altruistic, idealistic notion of understanding the Universe,
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1:49 - 1:55if we want to address the challenges of the XXI Century, from energy and climate change,
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1:55 - 1:57we need to invest in fundamental research now.
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2:00 - 2:02I'm always worried about predictions about the future,
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2:02 - 2:06and people always ask me what's the next big thing, and I say if I knew I'd be doing it,
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2:06 - 2:12but what I'm convinced of, is that the most important things that we know 50 years from now,
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2:12 - 2:15will be things we have no idea about right now.
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2:15 - 2:20Nature continues to surprise us in ways we could never have expected.
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2:20 - 2:23Nature is much more imaginative than the human imagination is,
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2:23 - 2:28and in order to make progress, we keep having to question nature, explore it,
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2:28 - 2:32because it will yield those surprises that will change, not just our picture of ourselves,
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2:32 - 2:35but the way we carry out our lives.
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2:40 - 2:42As far as I know, people don't ask the question:
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2:42 - 2:47"What's the value of a Mozart symphony or a Picasso painting?"
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2:47 - 2:50Science is a cultural activity,
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2:50 - 2:54and it's produced some of the most amazing ideas that humans have ever thought about.
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2:54 - 2:59And the cultural value of science, of understanding where we are, where we come from,
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2:59 - 3:05is the same as art, music and literature. Great art, music and literature forces us to reasess our place in the Cosmos.
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3:05 - 3:11That's what science does at its best, and if we are so empoverished that we have to stop asking questions,
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3:11 - 3:16but where we come from and we're we going, it's indeed a sad time.
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3:16 - 3:20These are the most interesting questions the humans have ever asked,
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3:20 - 3:26and by comparison to the money we spend in many other things, that is, in my opinion, much more useless,
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3:26 - 3:28the investment is very small.
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3:28 - 3:34And so, if we are at the point where we have to say: "look, we can't stop asking these esoteric questions,
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3:34 - 3:39that change our picture of ourselves, then it's a sad time for humanity.
- Title:
- LAWRENCE KRAUSS - Nature's Imagination
- Description:
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Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/theinspirationjourney
"Science is a cultural activity" Lawrence Krauss
CREDITS
MUSIC: Symmetry - Keith Kenniff
NARRATION: Lawrence Krauss - Before and After The Universe. University of MelbourneBBC Is Everything We Know About The Universe Wrong - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Horizon_episodes
BBC What is Reality? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Horizon_episodes
BBC Human Planet - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Pl...
Facebook Home - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lep_DSmSRwE
Time-Lapse Earth - https://vimeo.com/61487989
Home - http://www.homethemovie.org/
Blue Planet - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Pla...)
Hubble- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_(...)
Mindrelic Manhattan in Motion - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SsSAaJ6BII
The Tree Of Life - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tree_of_Life_(film)
BBC What is Reality? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Horizon_episodes
BBC How Big is The Universe - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Horizon_episodes
BBC How Small is The Universe - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Horizon_episodes
Understand Music - https://vimeo.com/54763818
The Quiet City: Winter in Paris - https://vimeo.com/62959319
Baraka - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baraka_(...)All copyrighted materials contained herein belong to their respective copyright holders, I do not claim ownership over any of these materials.
- Duration:
- 04:54