The limits of science...?

Question

Given that humans have a limited lifespan, and that we can only learn a finite amount of information in a lifetime:

Will there come a day when mankind reaches the limits of it's knowledge and can continue no further with technological advances? I'm not speaking of the near future, but when the scope of knowledge becomes so vast that a child will have to study his entire life and still not cover the scope of research done in a given area, will our technology come to a standstill?

Answer 1

I agree with you...  I'm "only" :) 45 years old, but in my lifetime, I've seen information availability skyrocket.  

When I was young (until about 8 years old), we only had 3 television stations in the area in which we lived.  At last glance, Charter Communications (our cable provided) provides over 200 channels.  

I got my ham radio license at age 17 so I could "chat" with people all over the country and the world.  My youngest daughter (15 today as a matter of fact) can't understand why anyone would need all that "big ugly radio equipment" just to talk to people, that's what cell phones and the internet are for.

Also, being retired now, I have plenty of time to play on Y!A and surf the web.  I can literally start on a "surfing safari" on one topic and end up on a completely different topic 3 hours later and it seems like only minutes.  

What you are starting to see also is a greatly accelerated learning curve and timeframe than when I was a kid.  I was not exposed to Algebra until the 8th grade, and when I went to school, that was the honors curriculum.  My 19 year old took algebra (elementary algebra) in the 6th grade, and she was not in the honors math program (she's my journalist) :)...

So that's very long way to come to this conclusion.  Information availabilty is a good thing, but, like anything else, too much can also be problematic.  I think you are going to see an overload in the future, and I further believe that you can make an argument that it is happening as we speak.

Good question - you get a star!! :)

Answer 2

no, i dont think so...you must take note that human evolves with time, and we have an infinite hunger for knowledge and learnings....think in the sense of humanity...and not on a per human context only....

Answer 3

The more we know, the more we realise how much we don't know [ That's a no to your question ! ]