Gell Mann is wise man, he read 10 thousand book, so he can talk many topic. He is great thinker! Gell Mann is 1969 Nobel Prize winer in PHYSICS.
The contribution:In 1952 he became a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, during 1952-1953 he was instructor at the University of Chicago, from 1953 to 1954 he was Assistant Professor, in 1954 he was appointed Associate Professor for research on dispersion relations. In this period he developed the strangeness theory and the eightfold way theory. In 1956 he was appointed Professor, his research then turned more to the theory of weak interactions.
Quantum mechanics has been hailed as the most precise theory ever known among the many scientific achievements of mankind. Though the interpretation of quantum mechanics is still outstanding, the accuracy of its results and predictions are irrefutable. This can be demonstrated by the various kinds of electronic technologies around us.
Unfortunately, the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, the two brilliant achievements of mankind in the 20th century, stand in sharp contrast to one another, despite one is capable of describing the largest structure of the universe and the other explains the smallest structure of matter. And based on their present interpretation models, it is not possible that both are correct. From the unified field theory which Einstein endeavoured on for the second half of his life to the "theory of everything" relentlessly sought after by scientists nowadays, has the search gone into a dead end? The putting forward of the superstring theory was the dawn of hope for the deadlock. The theory not only reconciles the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, but also made them complementary to each other. Once again, our views on spacetime encountered a revolutionary change. Should this miraculous theory represents 21 century physics that fells accidentally into the 20 century, since it might not have been discovered for another century by the normal progression of science, or is it just like what Yang Zhen-ning believed: "not a real thing"?
In the domain of astronomy and physics, there have been many more “miraculous” theories similar to superstring. The new star in recent years is dark energy. Prof K S Cheng and his colleague of the Physics Department of the University of Hong Kong gave an incisive introduction on this subject in the 4-6/2005 issue of the Space Museum Newsletter (Astronomical Novelty - What is Dark Energy?). For the past few years, after flipping through and careful reading of astronomical and scientific journals and websites, my thought on dark energy is just like what Richard Feynman tried to explain to his colleagues in Caltech why boson had integer spins and fermion had half-integer spins. His final conclusion was: After all, we still do not know what this is all about!
Nature is always so mysterious and interesting. To those of us who have a devotion to pondering and passion for the universe, astronomy has given us lots of inspiration. Most importantly, it enables us to realize how insignificant we are but not inferior, and how great mankind is but remains humble.