The most important discoveries will provide answers to questions that we do not yet know how to ask and will concern objects we have not yet imagined.
Interpretation
Great discoveries often arise from inquiries we haven't even thought of yet.
This quote by John N. Bahcall emphasizes that the most significant breakthroughs in science and discovery are often driven by questions that are currently beyond our imagination, as well as by phenomena we have yet to conceptualize. It suggests that the future of discovery lies not just in answering known questions but also in recognizing the potential of the unknown, urging a curious and open-minded approach to exploration.
In practice
In a TED talk about the future of technology, one could use this quote to highlight the importance of asking new questions.
One can say, looking at the papers in this symposium, that the elucidation of the genetic code is indeed a great achievement. It is, in a sense, the key to molecular biology because it shows how the great polymer languages, the nucleic acid language and the protein language, are linked together.
Facts are not science - as the dictionary is not literature.
Of course, we would love to know more about the exact moment of Big Bang, but interposing an outside intelligence does nothing to add to that knowledge, as we still know nothing about the creation of that intelligence.
We do not know what the rules of the game are; all we are allowed to do is to watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules. The rules of the game are what we mean by fundamental physics.
Human exploration is something that's been going on for thousands of years, and the models that worked 500 years ago are likely to work again today.
To command their professors of astronomy to refute their own observations is to command them not to see what they do see and not to understand what they do understand.
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