 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This image of a "tree of knowledge" is an attempt to represent the future shape of scientific research for next century. The technical system being completely transformed, the research landscape is also transformed.
The first prediction that we can put forward is the one of a qualitative increase in precision and in complexity. Precision regarding time : measurement instruments reaching the femto-second and, for instance, the development of femto chemistry, opening the possibility to visualize elementary chemical reactions like the ones generating proteins in our body, and also the possibiliy to built computing facilities out of organic molecules conveniently arranged.
The counterpart of these expected performances is a parallel increase in complexity, which puts radically into doubt the former paradigm of science itself. The 20th century has given the demonstration of the limits that the nature of language imposes to theory and calculability (Gödel and Türing). The movement of next century knowledge should be to overflow this apparent obstacle by the development of holistic though rigourous intellectual approaches : cognitive sciences in the center, ethology, descriptive sciences, simulation techniques.
This "classification" which will be modified and improved, has been put in the shape of a tree to remind that Science, as every manifestation of life, grows bottom up, like a bush offering its leaves to the energy coming from the sun.
