ilya_prigogine_isabelle_stengers_alvin_tofflerbookfi-org

43
THE TRIUMPH OF REASON
the theoretical content of scientific descriptions and ultimately
defined the new method of investigation introduced by modern
science.
Experimental procedure can even become a tool for purely
theoretical analysis. It is then a "thought experiment," the
imagining of experimental situations governed entirely by theoretical
principles, which permits the exploration of the consequences
of these principles in a given situation. Such
thought experiments played a crucial role in Galileo's work,
and today they are at the center of investigations about the
consequences of the conceptual upheavals in contemporary
physics, namely, relativity and quantum mechanics. One of
the most famous of such thought experiments is Einstein's famous
train, from which an observer can measure the velocity
of propagation of a ray of light emitted along an embankment,
that is, moving at a velocity c in a reference system with respect
to which the train is moving at a velocity v. According to
classical reasoning, the observer on the train should attribute
to the light, which is traveling in the same direction as he is, a
velocity of c- v. However, this classical conclusion represents
precisely the absurdity that the thought experiment was designed
to expose. In relativity theory, the velocity of light appears
as a universal constant of nature. Whatever inertial
referer.ce system is used, the velocity of light is always the
same. And since then Einstein's train has gone on exploring
the physical consequences of this fundamental change.
The experimental method is central to the dialogue with nature
established by modern science. Nature questioned in this
way is, of course, simplified and occasionally mutilated. This
does not deprive it of its capacity to refute most of the hypotheses
we can imagine. Einstein used to say that nature says
"no" to most of the questions it is asked, and occasionally
"perhaps." The scientist does not do as he pleases, and he
cannot force nature to say only what he wants to hear. He
cannot, at least in the long run, project upon it his most cherished
desires and expectations. He actually runs a greater risk
and plays a more dangerous game the better his tactics succeed
in encircling nature, in setting it more squarely with its
back to the wall.l7 Moreover, it is true that, whether the answer
is "yes" or "no," it will be expressed in the same theoretical
language as the question. However, this language, too,