Feynman diagrams have fascinated physicists and philosophers since they were introduced to the world about 70 years ago. Clearly, they help in calculation; they have allowed nearly impossible problems to be solved with relative ease. This is agreed by all, but that is probably where the consensus ends. Are they pictures of physical processes? Are they just devices for keeping track of mathematical formulae, that do the real work? Are they some sort of mix of both?They are almost as famous as representations of the Bohr atom, even though most people could not give even a sketchy account of what they do. In spite of this they have taken on a role as a cultural icon. Feynman used them to decorate his own van (Fig. 1). The van was even used in an episode of the popular TV series The Big Bang Theory. They have been used as art work in everything from posters, to coffee mugs, to wallpaper. But none of this is particularly helpful in understanding how they work.If we ask working physicists who use Feynman diagrams what it is they are doing, we get a variety of responses. One is puzzlement; a shrug of indifference. Even those very skilled at using Feynman diagrams might be hard pressed to explain (to a philosopher’s satisfaction) what’s happening. After all, most of us can ride a bike but would be similarly hard pressed to explain in any detail what we’re doing. A more common response might go like this: The diagram, or series of diagrams, is a schematic picture of some physical process, say, two electrons interacting, which we then link to mathematical terms. After writing out the mathematical terms in the form of a series, we calculate and get the probability of an interaction happening. This sounds good initially, but runs into trouble when we ask what a “picture of a physical process” could mean? This is, after all, the quantum world where things do not move continuously through space and time. It seems doubtful the diagrams could be diagrams of things in the physical realm. They are connected to physical reality and they are connected to wonderfully accurate predictions. And yet, mystery remains.The following articles on Feynman diagrams address several timely issues, both historical and contemporary. These are metaphysical and epistemological questions related to models and how we represent the world. The papers are united by these themes, but otherwise are independent of one another. They are arranged alphabetically and can be read in any order.James Robert Brown, “How Do Feynman Diagrams Work?” takes the view that they are not representations or models of the world at all. Like others, he stresses that they cannot be pictures of reality, since, thanks to the Heisenberg relations, there can be no such thing as a trajectory. Rather than seek some other more abstract type of representation, he introduces a distinction between descriptive and prescriptive flow charts. The latter could be a representation of physical reality, but not the former. A prescriptive flow chart is more like a recipe to bake a cake. He takes Feynman diagrams to be this sort of thing.Mauro Dorato and Emanuele Rossanese, “The Nature of Representation in Feynman Diagrams,” also reject the idea that Feynman diagrams can be considered to be pictures or depictions of actual physical processes. But unlike Brown, they do not abandon the thought that they can be models in some sense. They appeal to a famous account by RIG Hughes, known as the Denotation, Deduction, and Interpretation theory of models, where “models” are to be interpreted as merely inferential, non-representational devices constructed in given social contexts by the community of physicists.Letitia Meynell, “Picturing Feynman Diagrams and the Epistemology of Understanding,” assumes that Feynman diagrams are pictorial representations but agrees with Brown and Dorato and Rossanese that they do not represent actual physical processes. She then takes up the following puzzle: If Feynman diagrams represent states of affairs, but do not do so truthfully, what can their epistemic value be? She argues that Feynman diagrams have been epistemically powerful (at least in part) because, as pictorial representations, they facilitate an understanding of QED, and particle physics more generally. Appealing to Feynman’s own remarks, she draws out what it might mean to have an understanding of something that is not factive. Although her approach allows for a thin sense of substantively non-factive epistemic success, it is continuous with a factive sense of understanding that is more familiar in the sciences.Michael Stöltzner, “Feynman Diagrams: Modeling between Physics and Mathematics,” analyzes Feynman diagrams within the context of recent debates about models in science and against the backdrop of other diagrammatic methods in mathematical physics when dealing with infinite or asymptotic series. This allows one to avoid the dichotomy of whether Feynman diagrams represent mathematical or physical objects, or a mere tool mediating between them. Along those lines one does not, however, obtain a universal answer to the question as to what Feynman diagrams represent. A single Feynman diagram, in actual scientific practice, can stand for a single mathematical expression or for a physical phenomenon depending on whether the diagram stands for a single term in an infinite series or for a subseries that is given a physical interpretation. Stöltzner’s reading of the representation problem also derives support from the historical fact that Feynman was initially motivated by the Breit-Schrödinger model of a quivering electron and from interpreting this model within the context of stochastic processes.Adrian Wüthrich, “The Exigencies of War and the Stink of a Theoretical Problem,” approaches these topics from an historian’s point of view, shedding light on the issues by focussing on debates in this historical context. As he put it in his subtitle, Wüthrich’s aim is to understand the genesis of Feynman’s electrodynamics as mechanistic modelling at different levels. Feynman’s idiosyncratic method of dealing with quantum electrodynamic phenomena has been cast as an instance of a non-rigorous, modular and rule-based style of theorizing. Given such a characterization, it seems natural that significant changes in Feynman’s style were triggered by work he was assigned during World War II, where quick fixes may have counted more than derivations from first principles. Indeed, Feynman’s theoretical proposals of an improved electrodynamics do bear traces of Feynman’s war-related work, which immediately preceded it. However, Wüthrich explains, the attempt to apply the vocabulary of the “new mechanistic philosophy” to lesser known pieces of archival evidence brings to the fore a new kind of shift in Feynman’s style. Feynman’s disposition for such a shift may also have been fostered during the war, but it was forced upon him by a specific theoretical difficulty, which was largely unrelated to his war-time research.These articles contain some technicalities, but they should all be sufficiently accessible to general readers who would like to know more about Feynman diagrams and how they relate to theories, models, mathematics, and the world. The best philosophy of science is intimately linked to and draws upon current science and its history. It pays close attention to details: the details of theorizing, the details of models and how they function, the details of experimentation and measurement, and so on. We hope this collection of five articles on Feynman diagrams, by focussing closely on detail, will contribute to a better understanding of these strange but highly productive ciphers and symbols.
Feynman diagrams have fascinated physicists and philosophers since they were introduced to the world about 70 years ago. Clearly, they help in calculation; they have allowed nearly impossible problems to be solved with relative ease. This is agreed by all, but that is probably where the consensus ends. Are they pictures of physical processes? Are they just devices for keeping track of mathematical formulae, that do the real work? Are they some sort of mix of both?They are almost as famous as representations of the Bohr atom, even though most people could not give even a sketchy account of what they do. In spite of this they have taken on a role as a cultural icon. Feynman used them to decorate his own van (Fig. 1). The van was even used in an episode of the popular TV series The Big Bang Theory. They have been used as art work in everything from posters, to coffee mugs, to wallpaper. But none of this is particularly helpful in understanding how they work.If we ask working physicists who use Feynman diagrams what it is they are doing, we get a variety of responses. One is puzzlement; a shrug of indifference. Even those very skilled at using Feynman diagrams might be hard pressed to explain (to a philosopher’s satisfaction) what’s happening. After all, most of us can ride a bike but would be similarly hard pressed to explain in any detail what we’re doing. A more common response might go like this: The diagram, or series of diagrams, is a schematic picture of some physical process, say, two electrons interacting, which we then link to mathematical terms. After writing out the mathematical terms in the form of a series, we calculate and get the probability of an interaction happening. This sounds good initially, but runs into trouble when we ask what a “picture of a physical process” could mean? This is, after all, the quantum world where things do not move continuously through space and time. It seems doubtful the diagrams could be diagrams of things in the physical realm. They are connected to physical reality and they are connected to wonderfully accurate predictions. And yet, mystery remains.The following articles on Feynman diagrams address several timely issues, both historical and contemporary. These are metaphysical and epistemological questions related to models and how we represent the world. The papers are united by these themes, but otherwise are independent of one another. They are arranged alphabetically and can be read in any order.James Robert Brown, “How Do Feynman Diagrams Work?” takes the view that they are not representations or models of the world at all. Like others, he stresses that they cannot be pictures of reality, since, thanks to the Heisenberg relations, there can be no such thing as a trajectory. Rather than seek some other more abstract type of representation, he introduces a distinction between descriptive and prescriptive flow charts. The latter could be a representation of physical reality, but not the former. A prescriptive flow chart is more like a recipe to bake a cake. He takes Feynman diagrams to be this sort of thing.Mauro Dorato and Emanuele Rossanese, “The Nature of Representation in Feynman Diagrams,” also reject the idea that Feynman diagrams can be considered to be pictures or depictions of actual physical processes. But unlike Brown, they do not abandon the thought that they can be models in some sense. They appeal to a famous account by RIG Hughes, known as the Denotation, Deduction, and Interpretation theory of models, where “models” are to be interpreted as merely inferential, non-representational devices constructed in given social contexts by the community of physicists.Letitia Meynell, “Picturing Feynman Diagrams and the Epistemology of Understanding,” assumes that Feynman diagrams are pictorial representations but agrees with Brown and Dorato and Rossanese that they do not represent actual physical processes. She then takes up the following puzzle: If Feynman diagrams represent states of affairs, but do not do so truthfully, what can their epistemic value be? She argues that Feynman diagrams have been epistemically powerful (at least in part) because, as pictorial representations, they facilitate an understanding of QED, and particle physics more generally. Appealing to Feynman’s own remarks, she draws out what it might mean to have an understanding of something that is not factive. Although her approach allows for a thin sense of substantively non-factive epistemic success, it is continuous with a factive sense of understanding that is more familiar in the sciences.Michael Stöltzner, “Feynman Diagrams: Modeling between Physics and Mathematics,” analyzes Feynman diagrams within the context of recent debates about models in science and against the backdrop of other diagrammatic methods in mathematical physics when dealing with infinite or asymptotic series. This allows one to avoid the dichotomy of whether Feynman diagrams represent mathematical or physical objects, or a mere tool mediating between them. Along those lines one does not, however, obtain a universal answer to the question as to what Feynman diagrams represent. A single Feynman diagram, in actual scientific practice, can stand for a single mathematical expression or for a physical phenomenon depending on whether the diagram stands for a single term in an infinite series or for a subseries that is given a physical interpretation. Stöltzner’s reading of the representation problem also derives support from the historical fact that Feynman was initially motivated by the Breit-Schrödinger model of a quivering electron and from interpreting this model within the context of stochastic processes.Adrian Wüthrich, “The Exigencies of War and the Stink of a Theoretical Problem,” approaches these topics from an historian’s point of view, shedding light on the issues by focussing on debates in this historical context. As he put it in his subtitle, Wüthrich’s aim is to understand the genesis of Feynman’s electrodynamics as mechanistic modelling at different levels. Feynman’s idiosyncratic method of dealing with quantum electrodynamic phenomena has been cast as an instance of a non-rigorous, modular and rule-based style of theorizing. Given such a characterization, it seems natural that significant changes in Feynman’s style were triggered by work he was assigned during World War II, where quick fixes may have counted more than derivations from first principles. Indeed, Feynman’s theoretical proposals of an improved electrodynamics do bear traces of Feynman’s war-related work, which immediately preceded it. However, Wüthrich explains, the attempt to apply the vocabulary of the “new mechanistic philosophy” to lesser known pieces of archival evidence brings to the fore a new kind of shift in Feynman’s style. Feynman’s disposition for such a shift may also have been fostered during the war, but it was forced upon him by a specific theoretical difficulty, which was largely unrelated to his war-time research.These articles contain some technicalities, but they should all be sufficiently accessible to general readers who would like to know more about Feynman diagrams and how they relate to theories, models, mathematics, and the world. The best philosophy of science is intimately linked to and draws upon current science and its history. It pays close attention to details: the details of theorizing, the details of models and how they function, the details of experimentation and measurement, and so on. We hope this collection of five articles on Feynman diagrams, by focussing closely on detail, will contribute to a better understanding of these strange but highly productive ciphers and symbols.
The difficulties of the old quantum theory were largely dispelled by the development of quantum mechanics in the 1920s. First Heisenberg (1925) developed the rather abstract matrix mechanics and soon after Schro¨dinger (1926; see also Eckart, 1926) developed the physically more appealing wave mechanics. Subsequently he showed them to be mathematically equivalent. The physicists were greatly relieved; now they had once again a mathematical formalism that enabled the results of experiments to be calculated. It was possible to move forward. It is certainly a very elegant and indeed beautiful formalism, and does enable the results of many physical measurements to be calculated with great accuracy. It is used daily by atomic and nuclear physicists; there is no other way to make calculations. From the earliest days there has been intense debate about the interpretation of quantum mechanics, and it shows no signs of being settled; if anything it is becoming more intense over the years. As Penrose has remarked, no one understands quantum mechanics. Feynman (1967; see also Sykes, 1994) also admitted that ‘nobody understands quantum mechanics’, and Einstein once remarked: ‘I have thought a hundred times as much about the quantum problems as I have about general relativity theory’ (Pais, 1994, p. 57). It should therefore be evident that the most that can be done here is to try to show where the real difficulties lie, and how the failure to recognize that quantum mechanics is an essentially statistical theory has led to a series of confusing quantum paradoxes. It is just these paradoxes that have often been used to support theological speculations. It is useful to ask what ‘understanding quantum mechanics’ actually means. Certainly it means being able to calculate the results of many measurements. The same applies to Newton’s theory of gravitation, which we understand in the sense that we can use it as a basis of calculation, although we do not really understand the gravitational force itself. Very often, especially in modern physics, the mathematical formalism does not give us the sort of intuitive physical feeling for what is going on that we often obtain from classical mechanics. Perhaps we can never achieve more than this for quantum mechanics. In classical mechanics we can assume that a property that is measured objectively exists prior to the interaction of the measuring apparatus with the observed system. Quantum mechanics, however, ‘is incompatible with the proposition that measurement discovers some unknown but pre-existing property’ (Peres, 1997, p. 14). There is an important distinction between mysteries and absurdities. We may be forced to live with mysteries, but there is no reason why we should put up with absurdities such as the wave-particle duality, tunnelling through potential barriers, acausal events and the collapse of the wave function. These are the quantum paradoxes that will be discussed later on. They arise within the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and are solved by other interpretations. These alternative interpretations enable us to make conjectures about what is going on, even though we cannot understand it in detail. This is acceptable and a stimulus to further research. It is certainly difficult enough to understand quantum mechanics, but there is no need to try to visualize logical absurdities in the effort to do so. Quantum mechanics is a mathematical formalism that makes it possible to calculate the results of some experiments. Anything more than this, such as questions about the interpretation of what is measured and whether it tells us what is actually going on in the system being studied, belongs to philosophy. Thus we are concerned here with what is essentially a philosophical debate; if it were just a matter of physics the debate would have been settled long ago. One of the difficulties is that it invokes the results of experiments and uses the language of quantum mechanics. Inevitably this language uses philosophical terms and then it is easy to give the impression that the philosophical propositions are in some way entailed by the physical results. These in turn can influence theological thinking. In order to be quite clear which arguments are justified and which are not, it is essential to separate the three levels of discourse: physical, philosophical and theological. Our task is to relate these together, and this immediately raises the traditional problems of the philosophy of science, including the relation of experiment to theory, and of theory to explanation. We begin by discussing experiments, distinguishing between those that are real and those that are imaginary.
Cet article s’efforce de présenter une conception du statut des diagrammes de Feynman appropriée à l’usage courant qui en est fait en théorie quantique des champs. Son objectif est de montrer que l’usage de ces diagrammes n’est pas susceptible de remettre en cause l’interprétation orthodoxe anti-réaliste de la mécanique quantique. Dans un premier temps est indiqué pourquoi les diagrammes de Feynman ne peuvent être considérés comme des représentations figuratives d’événements physiques. Dans un second temps, l’auteur explique pourquoi il semble préférable de concevoir ces diagrammes comme une notation graphique de termes algébriques. Le propos fournit l’occasion de réfléchir sur la capacité de la cognition humaine à intégrer des combinaisons hybrides de signes et d’images.
Quantum theory is a phenomenally successful cornerstone of physics. But a recent poll among quantum physicists shows that there is still little agreement on what the theory tells us about physical reality. Yet precious bits of consensus are emerging. As always, Albert Einstein was ahead of his time. Quantum theory was still in its infancy, its formalism a mere sketch, and its implications only beginning to be realized. Yet Einstein, in 1917, already spotted what would trouble him throughout his lifetime. He concluded that the nascent theory, which he had helped initiate, seemed to leave “time and direction of elementary processes,” such as the spontaneous emission of radiation from a molecule, “to chance” 1. Einstein's conclusion was visionary. It was also incredibly bold, for it suggested a radical departure from the powerful, centuries-old deterministic and causal worldview of classical physics. But Einstein also immediately expressed his discomfort with the idea of fundamental chance. In fact, his worries were just the seed of what would turn into one of the longest and most heated debates in the history of physics. What does quantum theory mean, and what does it tell us about the nature of reality? Some of the brightest minds in physics locked horns over these issues. Besides Einstein, there were Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Pascual Jordan, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, Wolfgang Pauli, and Richard Feynman, just to name a few. Ask anyone today working on foundational questions in quantum theory and you are likely to hear that there is still no consensus on many of these questions—all the while, of course, everybody seems to be in perfect agreement on how to apply the quantum formalism when it comes to making experimental predictions. Remarkably, there has never been any serious attempt to find out what the current opinions of the community really are and how they may be correlated. We jumped on the opportunity and polled 33 participants at a 2011 conference on “Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality” (Fig. 1) 2. (We hasten to add that our poll is to be understood as merely a snapshot and certainly cannot claim to be representative.) As soon as we had collected the questionnaires, the respondents eagerly asked to hear the results. Evidently, we had not been the only curious party. What did we find? The fundamental questions, it seems, still elicit radically different responses. Take the quantum state—represented by the wavefunction—as an illustration. The wavefunction is the central mathematical symbol of quantum mechanics. It allows us to make incredibly accurate predictions, be it in atomic, molecular, or solid-state physics. But how are we to interpret it? Is it itself a physical property, or does it merely represent our knowledge? Our poll revealed a tie between these two positions. And not only that: a third of respondents preferred a mix of both viewpoints—perhaps a sign that a more nuanced view, or even a synthesis of views, may be on the horizon. Only 3% of those polled thought that quantum states never refer to a single system but only to ensembles of systems. Perhaps this departure from the ensemble view—a view that, we suspect, remains more popular in the physics community at large—has to do with the fact that experiments with single quantum systems have become routine in today's quantum-information laboratories. Sharp disagreement was in evidence on another deep question. Abraham Pais, Einstein's biographer, recalled that “during one walk Einstein suddenly stopped, turned to me and asked whether I really believed that the moon exists only when I look at it” 3. Putting the issue differently, are the physical properties of objects well defined before we actually measure them? Half of the respondents in our poll believed that they sometimes were, while the other half said that they never were. These two positions correspond to radically different ways of understanding the function of measurement: either as simply ascertaining—at least sometimes—of what is already there, or as an act of genuine creation. The role of measurement is also at the heart of another perennial favorite of foundational discussions, the measurement problem. The measurement problem highlights a curious fact about quantum theory: while the act of measurement assumes a fundamental role, it is not described—not without interpretive contortions, anyway—by the dynamical law of quantum theory, the Schrödinger equation. For decades, the measurement problem was seen by many as the main stumbling block for quantum theory, sparking a storm of rivaling attempts to deal with this perceived issue. Today, the waters seem to have calmed and attention shifted elsewhere, as only less than a fourth of respondents consider the measurement problem “a severe difficulty threatening quantum mechanics.” Changing attitudes are also evident when it comes to the issue of chance Einstein had brought to light in 1917. Today, the question of the randomness of quantum events no longer seems to be all that contentious. Most of our respondents accepted randomness as irreducible or a fundamental concept in nature (or both). Less than one-tenth of respondents thought that quantum randomness was merely apparent rather than fundamental, and no one believed in a hidden determinism governing quantum events. We wish we could hear Einstein's opinion today. Why have attitudes and priorities changed? It's hard to say, but we think there may be several driving forces. The rapid ascent of quantum information science has not only led to applications such as secure cryptography and the promise of lightning-fast quantum computers, but has also shed new light on foundational problems and handed us new tools for addressing them. Our poll shows that these tools are considered a welcome addition, with three-fourths seeing quantum information as a breath of fresh air for foundational investigations. There is also optimism about the future technological development of quantum information, with more than 75% of respondents expecting a working and useful quantum computer to be realized within the next fifty years. Such optimism might be rooted in the astonishing experimental progress we have witnessed over the past decades, another driving force behind changing attitudes. We are now at stage where almost perfect experimental control of single quantum systems has been achieved. The 2012 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded for just such experiments. This has put at our fingertips the ability to actually carry out the thought experiments—or approximations thereof, at any rate—that the founders of quantum theory had dreamed up. Take Schrödinger's cat. In 1935, Schrödinger wanted to illustrate what seemed to him an absurd prediction of the new theory: that the strange quantum superpositions of the atomic world can be amplified to everyday objects. Schrödinger's object of choice was a cat in a specifically prepared box. Quantum theory then suggested that the state of the cat should become transformed into a bizarre quantum superposition of being simultaneously alive and dead. But what Schrödinger had intended as a “burlesque” 4 thought experiment is now approaching experimental reality. Over the last decades, researchers have become increasingly skilled in breeding small versions of Schrödinger's cat. While they don't involve actual cats, they do already involve large biological molecules. Our respondents, it seems, were inspired by such developments. A solid two-thirds majority declared that they don't expect any fundamental limit in this enterprise of observing larger and larger objects in superpositions of macroscopically distinct states. No limit, then, for quantum theory—something that Bohr had already suggested when he, in some of his early thought experiments, considered apparatuses that included macroscopic parts behaving in quantum-mechanical ways. There are other new trends. Why do people seem to be much more at ease with relativity theory than with quantum theory? For one, both special and general relativity theory are grounded in a few simple physical principles. By contrast, quantum theory is lacking such a foundation and is instead based on a rather abstract mathematical body. Today, several researchers are out to change this situation, trying to derive quantum theory from a small set of physical or information-theoretic principles. They hope that in this way, we will understand why we have this peculiar theory to begin with. A majority in our poll regarded such “reconstructions” of quantum theory as giving useful insights, indicating once more that any new tool that promises fresh insights is embraced with an open mind. To be sure, many (albeit not all) of the questions we asked in the poll are interpretive questions. This means that unless we should find out some day that quantum theory is in fact not always valid—in which case we would have to rethink the whole game—experiments arguably can't play the role of the arbiter. Some physicists will conclude from this that we need not bother with such questions, and relegate them to philosophy. We think this is too quick. Many ideas in physics didn't come out of thin air, but came about when someone started looking at a problem with a certain philosophical disposition. In this sense, we may think of the plurality of views in quantum mechanics as productive. Every interpretation highlights some aspect of quantum theory, is particularly suited for explaining particular phenomena, and may inspire new technologies—such as the quantum computer—or even new physics. What, then, does the future hold? Half of the respondents in our poll believe that in fifty years from now, we will probably still be coming together for conferences on the fundamental questions of quantum theory. But what kinds of questions will be on the agenda? Will we still be worrying about the same problems as today? Or will these problems have been solved—or found to be less relevant—and our focus shifted to new questions once again? Who knows. But the location of the conference where we conducted the poll may tell a story. It was the place of a monastery, and a central position in the battle between Catholics and Protestants during the seventeenth century. Many of the questions that were hotly debated back then are no longer of interest to many people today, and other, new questions have since taken center stage in our society. Maybe some of the battles over the interpretation of quantum theory will meet a similar fate.
Those defile the purity of mathematical and philosophical truthy who confound real quantities with their relations and sensible measures. —ISAAC NEWTON, Principia Before we say anything about quantum mechanics, let us take a quick look at the Newtonian (or ‘classical’) view of the physical universe. According to that view, nature consists of an enormous number of particles. When Newtonian physics is combined with the theory of the electromagnetic field, it becomes convenient to think of these particles as dimensionless (even if there is a kind of conceptual strain involved in trying to think of something as having a mass but not any size ), and as possessing electrical properties – negative charge, or positive charge, or neutrality. This leads to the well-known ‘solar system’ view of the atom – with the electrons whirling around the nucleons (neutrons and protons) just as the planets whirl around the sun. Out of atoms are built molecules; out of molecules, macroscopic objects, scaling from dust motes to whole planets and stars. These latter also fall into larger groupings – solar systems and galaxies – but these larger structures differ from the ones previously mentioned in being held together exclusively by gravitational forces. At every level, however, one has trajectories (ultimately that means the possibility of continuously tracing the movements of the elementary particles) and one has causality (ultimately that means the possibility of extrapolating from the history of the universe up to a given time to its whole sequence of future states).
Abstract As the end of the nineteenth century, the search for Nature’s basic laws seemed close to its goal. There was a sense of a task accomplished. Physics presented an orderly scene that fit the proper Victorian mood of the day. Objects both on Earth and in the heavens behaved in accord with Newton’s laws. So, presumably, did atoms. The nature of atoms was unclear. But to most scientists the rest of the job of describing the universe seemed a filling in of the details of the Great Machine.