The Drive to Explore

As the young Truman, I, too, once felt a powerful desire echoing through me:

“I’d like to be an explorer, like the Great Magellan!”

I was filled with enthusiasm—convinced the world was still brimming with mysteries waiting to be uncovered.

But as I grew older, I had to confront a more sobering thought: maybe I was born too late. Maybe, as Truman is told, “there’s really nothing left to explore.” The physical world—at least the surface of it—seemed mapped, measured, and monetized.

And yet, not all was lost. I found hope in the idea that the realm of ideas remained vast and open. Thought itself—our models, systems, simulations, contradictions—offered an unexplored territory, still generous enough to nourish my curiosity.

Intellectual Wandering

Years passed. I became a researcher in computational systems biology, building models to understand the complex machinery of life. But even within science, a new unease crept in: the sense that the golden age of grand discoveries may be behind us.

This feeling crystallized when I read John Horgan’s 1996 book The End of Science, where he argues that science—the human endeavor to uncover the fundamental truths of the universe—might have already reached its peak. The big paradigm shifts, as described by Thomas Kuhn, could be behind us, leaving what remains as incremental polishing, not revolution.

Nearly three decades later, Horgan is still holding to that idea, now backed by a growing body of literature suggesting a decline in “disruptive” scientific breakthroughs. And I find myself both disturbed—and inspired—by the possibility.

Visions of a Spatium Novum

So, what’s left to explore?

Should we be alarmed by the claim that science is “over”? Or relieved? Or simply undeterred?

This blog is my attempt to trace the outlines of that question.

One post at a time, I’ll go looking—not for new continents, but for the space left to map in our thinking. The gaps between models. The unexplored layers. The edges where knowledge becomes belief, and curiosity becomes compass.

Let’s begin. One step at a time. In search of a Spatium Novum.