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The laws and theories of physics are maps of a reality that we will probably never fully understand. These laws and theories are very useful for getting around in that reality, but we must never confuse them with the reality itself. For one thing, the laws and theories are constantly changing, whereas the reality presumably is not. In addition, there are theories for large-scale reality and theories for reality on the microscopic scale, whereas reality itself is presumably unified. For example, physicists have developed a complex and picturesque hierarchy of elementary particles, ranging down to a small group of what are called "quarks" and "leptons," which they consider more fundamental than all the others. |
Dr.
Tavel |
My teacher, David Finkelstein, used to say of those fascinating objects called quarks that they were small particles emitted by physicists. This remark never failed to make me laugh, but I also realized the deep truth that was enclosed in the humor. It could very well turn out that elementary particles have no reality at all other than the fact that they were created by physicists to help them explain reality at some deep inner level.
-- Morton Tavel, professor of physics at Vassar College, in Contemporary Physics and the Limits of Knowledge, published by Rutgers University Press