EVERY atom-model that is worthy of notice was designed in view of a certain limited group of facts. That is to say, every valuable atom-model is the invention of somebody who, being acquainted with certain of the ways in which matter behaves, set himself to the devising of atoms of which an assemblage should behave like matter in those ways. Of course, it would be a most wonderful achievement to conceive atoms, of which assemblages should behave like matter in all ways; but this is too exalted an ambition for this day and generation, no man of science bothers with it. Each atom-model of the present is partially valid, not universally; and nobody can rightly appreciate any one of them, unless he knows the facts for which it was designed. I might add that he should also know the relative importance, in the world and in life, of the facts for which it was designed. But this also is too exalted an ambition; we do not know much, if anything, about the relative importance of facts sub specie aternitatis, and can hardly refrain from regarding with an especial favour the facts which happen to have been successfully explained. At all events it is clear that every account of an atom-model should be preceded by an independent account of the things it is meant to explain. For the favorite atom of these days, the atom of Rutherford and Bohr, I have provided this preliminary account of the facts in the First Part of the article. Let me give a brief outline of the most important among them, before entering upon the task of constructing an atom-model to reproduce them.
EVERY atom-model that is worthy of notice was designed in view of a certain limited group of facts. That is to say, every valuable atom-model is the invention of somebody who, being acquainted with certain of the ways in which matter behaves, set himself to the devising of atoms of which an assemblage should behave like matter in those ways. Of course, it would be a most wonderful achievement to conceive atoms, of which assemblages should behave like matter in all ways; but this is too exalted an ambition for this day and generation, no man of science bothers with it. Each atom-model of the present is partially valid, not universally; and nobody can rightly appreciate any one of them, unless he knows the facts for which it was designed. I might add that he should also know the relative importance, in the world and in life, of the facts for which it was designed. But this also is too exalted an ambition; we do not know much, if anything, about the relative importance of facts sub specie aternitatis, and can hardly refrain from regarding with an especial favour the facts which happen to have been successfully explained. At all events it is clear that every account of an atom-model should be preceded by an independent account of the things it is meant to explain. For the favorite atom of these days, the atom of Rutherford and Bohr, I have provided this preliminary account of the facts in the First Part of the article. Let me give a brief outline of the most important among them, before entering upon the task of constructing an atom-model to reproduce them.
MORE than any other word of the language, the word atom is implicated with the history of human speculations concerning the nature uf things. It is introduced when people cease to content themselves with observing, and begin to philosophize. There are many of the fundamental and essential writings of the literature of physics in which it does not appear, or appears without warrant. These are the descriptions of things observed, the accounts of experiments, the records of measurements, on which the edifice of theoretical physics is founded. There are many articles of what is commonly called the “theoretical” sort in which it does not occur. Such are the papers on the motions of planets, on the vibrations of elastic solids, on the currents in electrical networks, on the courses of light-rays through optical systems-papers which are essentially descriptions, although they give the impression of being something greater and deeper because they relate to idealized cases, and are phrased in the laconic language of mathematics. When the word atom appears justifiably in a discourse, it means that the author has departed from the safe routine of describing observed and observable events, however selectively, however skilfully, however intelligently. It signifies that he has gone beyond the limits of observation, and has entered upon the audacious adventure of constructing by the side of the real universe an ideal one, which shall act as the real one does, and be intelligible through and through.
“Bohr was primarily a philosopher, not a physicist, but he understood that natural philosophy ... carries weight only if its every detail can be subjected to the ... test of experiment” (Heisenberg in [59], p. 95). As a result his approach differed from that of theschool-philosopherswhom he regarded with a somewhat “sceptical attitude, to say the least” ([59], p. 129) and whose lack of interest in “the important viewpoint which had emerged during the development of atomic physics” he noticed with regret ([59], p. 183).But it also differed, and to a considerable degree, from the spirit of what Professor T. S. Kuhn has called a “normal science.” Looking at Bohr's method of research we see that technical problems, however remote, are always related to a philosophical point of view; they are never treated as “tiny puzzles” whose solution is valuable in itself, even if one has not the faintest idea what it means, and where it leads: “For me” Bohr writes to Sommerfeld in 1922 ([59], p. 71) “[the quantum theory] is not a matter for petty didactic details, but a serious attempt to reach ... an inner coherence.” Emphasis is put on matters of principle ([59], p. 36) and minor discrepancies, or “puzzles” in the sense of Kuhn, instead of being deemphasized, and assimilated to the older paradigm,are turned into fundamental difficultiesby looking at them from a new direction, and by testing their background “in its furthest consequences by exaggeration” ([59], p. 329). A noteworthy example of Bohr's “non-normal” and rather metaphysical approach to physics is his scepticism in the face of the success of his own atomic model.
A few days later, while finishing his dinner, Mr Tompkins remembered that it was the night of the professor's lecture on the structure of the atom, which he had promised to attend. But he was so fed up with his father-in-law's interminable expositions that he decided to forget the lecture and spend a comfortable evening at home. However, just as he was getting settled with his book, Maud cut off this avenue of escape by looking at the clock and remarking, gently but firmly, that it was almost time for him to leave. So, half an hour later, he found himself on a hard wooden bench in the university auditorium together with a crowd of eager young students. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ began the professor, looking at them gravely over his spectacles, ‘In my last lecture I promised to give you more details concerning the internal structure of the atom, and to explain how the peculiar features of this structure account for its physical and chemical properties. You know, of course, that atoms are no longer considered as elementary indivisible constituent parts of matter, and that this role has passed now to much smaller particles such as electrons, protons, etc.’
A few days later, while finishing his dinner, Mr Tompkins remembered that it was the night of the professor's lecture on the structure of the atom, which he had promised to attend. But he was so fed up with his father-in-law's interminable expositions that he decided to forget the lecture and spend a comfortable evening at home. However, just as he was getting settled with his book, Maud cut off this avenue of escape by looking at the clock and remarking, gently but firmly, that it was almost time for him to leave. So, half an hour later, he found himself on a hard wooden bench in the university auditorium together with a crowd of eager young students. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ began the professor, looking at them gravely over his spectacles, ‘In my last lecture I promised to give you more details concerning the internal structure of the atom, and to explain how the peculiar features of this structure account for its physical and chemical properties. You know, of course, that atoms are no longer considered as elementary indivisible constituent parts of matter, and that this role has passed now to much smaller particles such as electrons, protons, etc. ‘The idea of elementary constituent particles of matter, representing the last possible step in divisibility of material bodies, dates back to the ancient Greek philosopher DEMOCRITUS who lived in the fourth century B.C. Meditating about the hidden nature of things, Democritus came to the problem of the structure of matter and was faced with the question whether or not it can exist in infinitely small portions.
THE GREAT CHAIN OF QUANTUM BEING: WHAT THE PHYSICISTS ARE TELLING US / Louis Gallo listen: there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go —cummings Max Planck's announcement in 1900 that energy flows in discrete bundles rather than uniformly, as energy "should," did not instantly destroy the foundations of a classical world view that had prevailed since Newton's day. It took physicists nearly a quarter of a century to grasp the full significance of quantum theory. But 1900 is too convenient a date to ignore, and without distorting the history of ideas unduly we can refer to it as the point in time when science launched its relentless assault upon reason and common sense, an assault that continues to this day. This is nothing new, of course. Everyone knows how weird quantum theory is, how it toppled the Newtonian clockwork and so on. The purpose of this essay is to explain in ordinary language, if such a thing can be done, why physicists are saying some of the outrageous things we read about in the popular media. Because new particles, along with new theories to account for them, are being created at such a prodigious rate today, it has become extraordinarily difficult for non-scientists to keep up with the latest breakthroughs. The deluge of popular books on black holes and particle physics, outmoded before they go to press, reflects this information gap. I can hardly expect to beat the popularizers at their own game, but my intention is nevertheless to present a non-technical overview of the great chain of quantum being according to current theory. It can be suggested by way of preliminary assessment that the Theater of the Absurd did not die at some point in the early 1970s; its greatest production is and may always have been our meditations on the cosmos itself. We begin, however, with some thoughts on common sense rather than absurdity. Physicists have traditionally linked common sense with the twin doctrines of causality and determinism. Given thorough enough information about prior conditions, causality guarantees the predictability of all events and states ofbeing. French mathematician Pierre Laplace actually believed that such knowledge could be used to chart the entire history of the universe. Causality, then, is a way of thinking about individual events; determinism, a way of thinking about events 264 · The Missouri Review cumulatively. Both doctrines presume the existence of an objective, quantifiable external world populated by observers (ourselves). One cannot overemphasize the importance of the term "objective." It haunts modern physics at every turn. Indeed, the crucial difference between classical and quantum physics lies in their respective acceptance or rejection of objective reality. The early giants of quantum physics had a hard time accepting the implications of their own mathematics. Max Planck and Einstein—who is not, strictly speaking, a quantum physicist but who contributed much to the theory—refused to accept them. Yet the fate of objectivity may be traced by moving from Planck's position on the subject to that of Erwin Schrödinger, whose work culminated in the late 1920s. This chronology roughly reflects the order in which quantum theory emerged. Here is what Planck had to say in his book The New Science: "A science that starts off by predicating the denial of objectivity has already passed sentence on itself"; and "the quantum hypothesis will eventually find its exact expression in certain equations which will be a more exact formulation of the law of causality." Einstein spent most of his life searching for that "exact expression" and failed. Werner Heisenberg offered a similar but highly qualified version of Planck's statement. In Across the Frontiers Heisenberg says that quantum measurements do in fact measure objective states but also intrude upon those states. "It is," he writes, "no longer the objective states but rather the probabilities for the occurrence of certain events that can be stated in mathematical formulae." Schrödinger, in Mind and Matter, comes right out with it: "Mind has erected the objective outside world of the natural philosophers out of its own stuff." He means this literally, and the equations he contributed to quantum theory imply as much. Bohr...