在不可能中寻找意义

Finding Meaning in the Impossible THERE ARE QUESTIONS in science that have been studied for so long without anyone turning up answers that they seem to move into the realm of “unsolvable” or even “impossible.” This is the realm we explore in Scientific American’s October issue (page 28). When the editors first discussed this idea, a real concern became immediately apparent: Will our readers be disappointed at the very premise of an unanswerable question? Why dive in if we can’t satisfy their, and our, curiosity with a solution? But we soon realized that this open-endedness is part of the appeal. Often the most fascinating questions are the ones with no obvious or direct rewards. …