Fred J. McCall wrote :
wrote:

On Jul 8, 6:12 am, Pat wrote:

How exactly does knowing what exactly the universe looked like ten
thousand years after it first came into being, or a hundred years after
it first came into being, going to help us?

Understanding the basics of how the Universe works - dark matter, dark
energy, string theory - could lead to new technology, the way that
understanding the atom did.


Not bloody likely. 'How the Universe works' is not a local
phenomenon, nor one we can get to. Atoms are everywhere.


We don't have enough energy, we don't have enough land.


And nothing coming out of a telescope will make more of either.

Maybe you were being sarcastic or maybe you haven't heard of Kepler,
Tycho Brahe, Newton and the Newtonian law of gravity. Not found by
looking in a microscope, the telescope was more useful.

Ditho for Henri Poincaré and relativity. Observations of the orbit of
Mercury were important for that.

For making energy, General Relativity from Einstein, specially the
E=mc^2 part (or if you prefere the complete formula,
E^2 = m^2c^4 + (pc)^2). Again, it is the observations on the orbit of
Mercury that were quite important in finding that.

As Quadibloc said it would be good to understand dark matter and dark
energy.


Alain Fournier