physics
All posts tagged physics
Quantum Theory.
We shall leave the problem of theoretical unification to the physicists and instead briefly consider a philosophical unification of Relativity and quantum theory. Is this possible? Contemplating the subatomic realm seems like a Zen exercise. The nuclear reality embodies duality and multiplicity, such as is clear in the complicated structure of atoms and particles. It transgressed the narrow world of opposites. We have to realize that in spite of the different parts and components, the subatomic world is an undivided whole, where the boundary between the observer and the observed is blurred. Object and subject have become inseparable, spatial and temporal detachment is an illusion. When the American physicist J.R. Oppenheimer (1902-1967) describes the structure of probability clouds, he almost sounds like a Zen Master: “If we ask, whether the position of the electron remains the same, we have to say no. If we ask, whether the place of an electron changes with the course of time, we have to say no. If we ask, whether the electron is in a state of rest, we have to say no. If we ask, whether the electron is in motion, we have to say no.”