50 years ago CP Snow wrote a famous essay called “The Two Cultures“ that described the growing divide between the arts and thr world of science, and how the breakdown in relations and communication was a major hindrance to solving the world’s problems.

The Observer asked a panel of celebrities the most basic of questions about how our world works whilst giving Natalie Angier’s new book (”The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science“) a plug, and as you can imagine, the results were very revealing.

“A good many times,’ he suggested, ‘I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice, I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold; it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: have you ever read a work of Shakespeare’s?’

Q: Why does salt dissolve in water?
Q: Roughly how old is the earth?
Q: What happens when you turn on a light?
Q: Is a clone the same as a twin?
Q: Why is the sky blue?
Q: What is the Second Law of Thermodynamics?

“The New Age Of Ignorance” - The Observer
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2115519,00.html