Past and future
I've observed an important relationship between David Harris' intro "Appreciating Successes" and Ray Orbach's "Focus on the Future" in the March issue of symmetry.
Both theorists and experimental physicists need to retrace the past of their fields so as to ensure a promising future. Physicists, especially theorists, have advanced their respective fields by using different approaches, but one thing is common to them all, appre-ciating successes and focusing on the future; the prediction of existence of neutrino (future) by reflecting on the fact that established theories (past) conflicted with some experimental results. The impressive success of general relativity could not have been possible without appreciating the success of Newtonian mechanics.
Grand Unified Theories can also record impressive successes if physicists cultivate the culture of reflecting deeply on past successes and fervently focusing on future possibilities.
Ayodele Adebayo, Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria
Click here to download the pdf version of this article.