In Science, Nothing Is Ever 100% Proven.

Science Is The Engine Of Prosperity. All The Prosperity We See Around Us Is A Byproduct Of Scientific Inventions. And That's Not Being Made Clear To Young People. If We Can't Make It Clear To Young People They're Not Going To Go Into Science. And Science Will Suffer In The United States.

Chances Are, The Aliens Will Not Want To Land On Our Backyard, Or Even The White House Lawn, With Their Flying Saucers. They May Have Tiny, Robotic Self-replicating Probes Which Can Reach Near Light Speed And Can Proliferate Around The Galaxy. So Instead Of The Enterprise And Huge Star Ships, The Aliens Might Actually Send Tiny Probes To Explore The Universe. One Might Land On Our Lawn And We Won't Even Know.

We're Headed For What Is Called Type 1 Civilization, Planetary Civilization. Type 2 Would Be Stellar Civilization, Like Star Trek. Type 3 Civilization Would Be Galactic, Like Star Wars. We Are Type 0. We Get Our Energy From Dead Plants, Oil And Coal. But The Question Is: Will We Make It? Will We Make The Transition From Type 0 To Type 1? It's Not Clear.

I Would Hope That The Publicity Around The Higgs Boson Would Increase The Public Awareness Of Physics And Cosmology.

There's The Caveman In Us. The Caveman In You Says, "i Want Direct Contact. I Don't Want A Picture." The Caveman In Our Body Says Once In A While, We Have To Go Outside. We Have To Meet Real People, Talk To Real People, And Do Real Things.