Fellow countrymen and women,
Lend me your ears. Put yourselves in my shoes.
If you are the Emperor of Einsteiniana and
(i) A group of your patriotic scientists have discovered the 'theory of everything' or nearly done so
(ii) You are afraid of terrorists and other evil empires,
what will you do?
In my contemplation, for a wise Emperor the following would be an appropriate course of action:
1. Hide that theory and keep it top secret.
2. From my Defense department I will directly provide encouragement in the form of funds, grants, etc to misdirected scientists going the wrong way and do so also through other third parties to avoid suspicion.
3. Silence scientists insistent on going the right way by denying them funding, restricting their access to publication of their findings, blacklist them and if all else fails, kill them.
4. Provide a forum for discussion of foundational physics to establish how much knowledge is actually out there and award prizes to those that further mystify and becloud the topic.
5. Label as crackpots and noisemakers, activists campaigning for the truth to be made a public thing. They should be forgiven for in their innocence they know not that they jeopardize the safety and security of Einsteiniana.
6. Fund conferences in exotic islands to discuss things far away from the theory of everything.
7. Fund experiments but filter out the truth and keep this with my closely knit group of scientists having custody of the theory, while doctoring the findings entering the public domain.
8. When I get to my wits end as the truth continues its characteristic behavior of persistently struggling to emerge from secrecy with the advent of the internet aiding and abetting its struggle, I will seek opinion about how humanity's future should be steered.
9. Apologize and pay compensation for the wrongs done to 'dissenting' scientists at the appropriate time in future.
Let me stop here for now, so I won't be tagged a whistleblower. Any wise Emperor would do all these things for the sake, safety and future of humanity. With the human, economic, information and computing resources available to the Empire it is very unlikely that the theory of everything is not already known or almost known by a select few. No gainsaying that evil people are amongst us and we cannot underestimate what they can be capable of if they have details of a theory of everything. Mutually assured destruction is no longer an option with the advent of suicide bombers.
This is meant to be a satire in the mould of George Orwell's 'Animal Farm' but the reality of human civilization is that truth must sometimes be suppressed at least temporarily for the interest of the authorities. Galileo was a crackpot who did not appreciate the above facts and was more or less killed for saying and advocating the truth at the wrong time. I therefore sympathize with honest toilers like Peter Jackson, John Duffield, Eckard, Joy Christian, Tom to mention a few, but they have to be more understanding of my predicament as Emperor, the custodian of humanity's safety and security.
If you are the Emperor of Einsteiniana would you not do likewise?