Below is a quote from a hardcopy volume of the National Geographic that I have had for a long time, since 1985. I have read it many times over a space of many years and each time it still captivates me. I have included this quote below from a collection articles titled "Worlds within the Atom". The quote below appears at the end of the article and captures Murray Gell-Mann's answer to the question, where will an understanding of the universe' deepest secrets lead us?
"There will be new technology, certainly.... But most remarkable will be that a handful of beings on a small planet circling an insignificant star will have traced their origin back to the very beginning - a small speck of the universe comprehending the whole" ~ Murray Gell-Mann.
"... a small speck of the universe comprehending the whole".
References:-
- Murray Gell-Mann Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Gell-Mann
- Nobel Prize in physics in 1969 for his discovery of a system for classifying subatomic particles
- National Geographic - Volume 167 No 5, May 1985. "Worlds Within The Atom" pg 634.