Quantum mechanics
a “virtually unmatched intellectual achievement” and a “philosophically more mature understanding of science”
We can now look back nearly one hundred years to the early decades of the last century to review the revolution in scientific thought which then occurred about the manner in which the universe operates at its most basic atomic and subatomic levels. It is difficult to comprehend from this perspective the magnitude of the insights which then took place. As Brian Greene said in Fabric of the Cosmos (2000): “By 1927 classical innocence had been lost… Gone were the days of a clockwork universe whose individual constituents were set in motion at some moment in the past and obediently fulfilled their inescapable, uniquely determined destiny. According to quantum theory, the universe evolves according to a rigorous and precise mathematical formalism, but this framework determines only the probability that any particular future will happen – not which future actually happens[1].
With the opportunity for further reflection upon these events a decade later, he was able to measure the significance of the intellectual achievements of that era against the backdrop of scientific discovery generally, concluding that “[f]or a generation of physicists to have confronted such a radical departure from the intuitions formed out of thousands of years of collective experience, and in response to have recast reality within a wholly new framework based on probabilities, is a virtually unmatched intellectual achievement”[2].
However, perhaps the last word should go to an informed non-specialist in the area, who, when commenting anecdotally on another subject-matter altogether, also made comment upon the combined impact of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics from the point of view of their contribution to the philosophy of science itself:
"These two discoveries led to an overthrow of the Newtonian paradigm which in turn led to a philosophically more mature understanding of science (my emphasis). Our understanding of Newton’s laws today is not that it is wrong, but that it is an approximation of nature and has its range of validity. Newtonian mechanics break down at the domain of the very small and the very large. In the domain of the very small, that of electrons and atoms, the theory of Quantum mechanics takes over. While in the range of the very large, that of galaxies and the universe, Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity reigns supreme. But in our everyday domain – of cars, houses and stones – Newtonian mechanics is still used and with invariable success. Even in calculating the trajectory of rockets and satellites, NASA scientists still use Newton’s equations as they are accurate enough for their purposes. The Newtonian equations also have the added advantage of being a lot less complicated mathematically than Einstein’s.
The philosophically mature understanding of science is that scientific laws are a collection of human generalisations on the behaviour of nature, ... but they are nowhere near the truth". [3]
With the opportunity for further reflection upon these events a decade later, he was able to measure the significance of the intellectual achievements of that era against the backdrop of scientific discovery generally, concluding that “[f]or a generation of physicists to have confronted such a radical departure from the intuitions formed out of thousands of years of collective experience, and in response to have recast reality within a wholly new framework based on probabilities, is a virtually unmatched intellectual achievement”[2].
However, perhaps the last word should go to an informed non-specialist in the area, who, when commenting anecdotally on another subject-matter altogether, also made comment upon the combined impact of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics from the point of view of their contribution to the philosophy of science itself:
"These two discoveries led to an overthrow of the Newtonian paradigm which in turn led to a philosophically more mature understanding of science (my emphasis). Our understanding of Newton’s laws today is not that it is wrong, but that it is an approximation of nature and has its range of validity. Newtonian mechanics break down at the domain of the very small and the very large. In the domain of the very small, that of electrons and atoms, the theory of Quantum mechanics takes over. While in the range of the very large, that of galaxies and the universe, Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity reigns supreme. But in our everyday domain – of cars, houses and stones – Newtonian mechanics is still used and with invariable success. Even in calculating the trajectory of rockets and satellites, NASA scientists still use Newton’s equations as they are accurate enough for their purposes. The Newtonian equations also have the added advantage of being a lot less complicated mathematically than Einstein’s.
The philosophically mature understanding of science is that scientific laws are a collection of human generalisations on the behaviour of nature, ... but they are nowhere near the truth". [3]