When the telescope and the microscope came along, new worlds were opened for ready exploration by humans in general. But the CERN accelerator and the Webb telescope are accessible only to a few observers and the interpretation of the results is far beyond untutored understanding. The recondite nature of these activities and the limited participation in deliberating over them due to the huge cost of observational apparatus has much to do with lack of imaginative and innovative activity.Widespread access to the telescope and the microscope upset the feudal world views of the time and disturbed the dominant power of the Church. But obscure modern discoveries in high-energy physics and dark matter hardly will rock the complacency of the 0.1 percent running today’s planet.

When the telescope and the microscope came along, new worlds were opened for ready exploration by humans in general. But the CERN accelerator and the Webb telescope are accessible only to a few observers and the interpretation of the results is far beyond untutored understanding. The recondite nature of these activities and the limited participation in deliberating over them due to the huge cost of observational apparatus has much to do with lack of imaginative and innovative activity.Widespread access to the telescope and the microscope upset the feudal world views of the time and disturbed the dominant power of the Church. But obscure modern discoveries in high-energy physics and dark matter hardly will rock the complacency of the 0.1 percent running today’s planet.

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