What Question Will You Be Remembered For? [1]

John Brockman has run out of questions, and it’s a shame. For 20 years, as a sort of homage to his late friend, the conceptual artist James Lee Byars, who in 1968 started “The World Question Center,” [5] Brockman has been posing an “Annual Question” to some of the sharpest minds in the world, many of them scientists. Reviewing what might be a representative sample—“What is the most important invention in the past 2,000 years?” [6], “What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?” [7], and “What scientific idea is ready for retirement?” [8]—it’s clear what Brockman wanted from his responders: to be intellectually daring, vulnerable, and contentious. Which is fitting, given the motto of Brockman’s website, Edge.org, to which the responses are posted: “To arrive at the edge of the world’s knowledge…”