AOF Activities & Events

The Birthday of Science marks the day Thales of Miletus (in 585 BCE) correctly predicted a solar eclipse. A better choice might be the discovery of fire or the wheel, but we don't know exactly when that happened, or who did it. We do know about Thales. His prediction was significant because the idea of cause and effect (causality) applies to all science. Given any phenomenon, with the exception of purely random quantum events, in principle we can trace its cause or causes, and the cause of those causes, back through time -- until all cause-tracks merge at the "Big Bang," beyond which, presumably, no tracks remain. The seeds of our life and future were sewn then. The Large Hadron Collider is an effort to re-create those first moments.

Science desires a beginning that applies to the big picture, and a sense of order and predictability.  That is where causality leads us.