Physics in $1981±50$

NOV 01, 1981

Comparing where we are now with what we would have predcited 50 years ago makes us no wiser in predicting the next 50 years

DOI: 10.1063/1.2914362

Norman F. Ramsey

50 years is just the wrong interval of time to predict the future. We could all predict the state of physics 24 hours from now: It will be about the same as it is now. And depending upon the outcome of some current experiments on the decay of the proton, I might in a few years be able to make a fairly reliable prediction about the state of physics in $10^{33}$ years—namely nucleons will have decayed away and there won’t be any physics. But 50 years is too long to be able to make detailed predictions and, of course, too short to make cosmological predictions.

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Norman F. Ramsey, Harvard University.

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