I Asked 12 Scientists: What Is The One Fact Humanity Needs To Know?

“If civilisation was destroyed, what scientific information would you pass on to the survivors?”

Rebecca Hendin / BuzzFeed

Richard Feynman, the physicist, was once asked: "If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words?"

He replied: "I believe it is the atomic hypothesis that all things are made of atoms — little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another."

I asked some scientists the same question (although I said they were allowed a little more than one sentence).

Rebecca Hendin / BuzzFeed

"Energy is always conserved, never created or destroyed. Life and the processes that surround us in the world and the universe are governed by the constant flow of energy transforming from one state to another, never disappearing but emerging in a different form.

"Our state of being, of breathing, of consuming, of reproducing is a cycle of energy transfer from chemical to heat to chemical to mass, etc. Our state of experiencing the world through sight, sound, touch, communication is the conversion of electrical energy to heat or light. Inside our sun is a conversion of mass energy into heat and movement energy, keeping all of us alive.

"All scientific experiments start with the same question: What happens when I add a bit of energy or change the energy balance, where does the energy then go? What biological, chemical, or physical processes does that energy transfer trigger?

"Philosophically, this is also a very nice sentiment when thinking of those who have died. Their energy, stored up in their mass, will never be destroyed; it will be conserved and transformed into something else or will simply remain constant."

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