Why we still don't understand the world's true nature
It’s the ultimate scientific quest – to understand everything that there is. But the closer we get, the further away it seems. Can we ever get to grips with the true nature of reality?
PHYSICS 29 January 2020
By Jason Arunn Murugesu , Joshua Howgego and Gilead Amit
Pantherius/Getty
We humans have a bit of a problem with reality. We experience it all the time, but struggle to define it, let alone understand it.
It seems so solid and yet, when we examine it closely, it melts away like a mirage. We don’t know when it began, how big it is, where it came from and where it is going, and we certainly have no clue why it exists.
Nonetheless, the desire to understand reality seems part of our nature, and we have come a long way. What was once explained in terms of divine creation is now in the purview of science. Over the past 200 years or so, we have peeled back the layers of reality, even if we are still not entirely sure what we have revealed.
If anything, the mystery has only deepened. We are now at a point where it is equally credible to claim that reality is entirely dependent on subjective experience, or entirely independent of it. Reality has never felt so unreal.
Lets delve into the latest ideas about reality, from our own everyday experience to the fundamental physics that seeks to describe the true nature of the cosmos. The ideas can be dizzying, but there is no greater intellectual challenge than trying to grasp the meaning of everything.