Mystery

Prominent scientists—from Newton to Einstein to Steven Weinberg—have always acknowledged the essential role of mystery and wonder in the advancement of science.

A mystery in the older sense is like a prime number, which cannot be resolved into any combination of factors, but remains fully, inexorably, and unchangeably itself. A mystery in the newer sense, however, is a puzzle that can and will be worked out, or solved.

We need the presence of mystery in the same way that the coherence and beauty of a landscape require the presence of a horizon, whether as a line defining the field of vision or as a dark boundary that gives sharper definition to the world that is illuminated. Or as language needs the refreshment of silence. We need a sense of communion with that w... See more

Mystery gets too little respect. Scientific progress has always been sustained by a tension between what is known and what is unknown, between the things that may be questioned and those that must be presumed.

“science is not a collection of truths,” but rather “a continuing exploration of mysteries.”