Light’s Virtues and Vices

Science follows an established methodology when tackling a problem. If, for instance, the problem concerns a natural entity—the nucleus of an atom, a star, the molecule of heredity—science strives to gather as much information as possible on that entity, and to record its properties and behaviour. Once at least a partial record of that behaviour has been created, an attempt is made to interpret it on the basis of a more general scientific theory, which normally takes years to formulate. Thus, it only became possible to understand the chemical properties of molecules once quantum theory had been developed; the true nature of time emerged from the theory of relativity; and the correct answer to the simple question “Why do the stars shine?” (“Because of nuclear processes”) was only given a few decades ago.