The Bigger Picture, Where Our Attention Should Be

A Guardian story about scientists prediction that they will soon be able to create matter from light spurred me to revisit a theme. Why is it, especially in this age of discovery and scientific developments, why do we still see so much focus on mundane arguments and unsolvable conflicts?

Researchers have worked out how to make matter from pure light and are drawing up plans to demonstrate the feat within the next 12 months.
The theory underpinning the idea was first described 80 years ago by two physicists who later worked on the first atomic bomb. At the time they considered the conversion of light into matter impossible in a laboratory.
But in a report published on Sunday, physicists at Imperial College London claim to have cracked the problem using high-powered lasers and other equipment now available to scientists.
"We have shown in principle how you can make matter from light," said Steven Rose at Imperial. "If you do this experiment, you will be taking light and turning it into matter."

E=MC². So many implications in that equation, and the only one the vast majority of people consider is whether we should have the bomb; and even that is less discussed these days than it was in my youth.

 Knowing, even the concept is not well known by the majority of the population, or often researched. Even the urge to know is not followed as well and as frequently as our times allow. We are more likely to act like idiots than we are to contemplate and understand. And patience be damned, right.

Sure, if Heisenberg had it right there is no satisfaction in seeking to know, (he never said that, but I can imagine today's thoughtless hoards employing such an excuse), still we have reached a level of progress that makes the old understandings passe:

Quantum mechanics is generally regarded as the physical theory that is our best candidate for a fundamental and universal description of the physical world. The conceptual framework employed by this theory differs drastically from that of classical physics. Indeed, the transition from classical to quantum physics marks a genuine revolution in our understanding of the physical world.
One striking aspect of the difference between classical and quantum physics is that whereas classical mechanics presupposes that exact simultaneous values can be assigned to all physical quantities, quantum mechanics denies this possibility, the prime example being the position and momentum of a particle. According to quantum mechanics, the more precisely the position (momentum) of a particle is given, the less precisely can one say what its momentum (position) is. This is (a simplistic and preliminary formulation of) the quantum mechanical uncertainty principle for position and momentum. The uncertainty principle played an important role in many discussions on the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics, in particular in discussions on the consistency of the so-called Copenhagen interpretation, the interpretation endorsed by the founding fathers Heisenberg and Bohr.
This should not suggest that the uncertainty principle is the only aspect of the conceptual difference between classical and quantum physics: the implications of quantum mechanics for notions as (non)-locality, entanglement and identity play no less havoc with classical intuitions.

But, never mind expanding your minds when the time for consumer goods on sale rolls around.