Physics is that faculty of reason that helps us to comprehend the physical reality around us even as the demarcation between physics and philosophy becomes more blurred than ever before. John Galt, the protagonist of “Atlas Shrugged” majored in both the aforementioned disciplines and found solace in both. The subject is as changeable as the factuality it describes – vast, mercurial and intriguing. For instance, quantum mechanics assigns duality to the cosmos. It presents a world in which matter can simultaneously and of its own accord, possess particle as well as wave nature. The reality of the conservative laws of mass and energy was rendered implausible by Einstein's equation E=mc2. His theory of relativity was veritable joke at Newtonian classical physics. And yet, perturbed by the theory of quantum mechanics, he was forced to declare, “God did not play dice with the universe.” Niels Bohr’s famous rejoinder was, “Will you stop telling God what to do.” Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty further ascribed indeterminacy to the universe.
Physics is an elegant arabesque of arithmetical calibration, utilitarian calculus, creativity and plain common sense. It is a world apart from a world. It is an alternative universe that can stretch upto infinity and further. It is a subject that persistently forces one to introspect.
“If it was so, it might be,
And, if it were so, it would be,
But as it isn’t, it ain’t,
That’s logic.”
The above verse from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s adventures in the wonderland” describes this very nature of introspection. Physics is a subject of dreams. It forces us to conquer them. It forces us to reach out to the stars, and yes, we have. They have ceased to be astrological abstractions. They are no longer elusive. They are an immediate and tangible reality.
“How many miles to Babylon?
Three-score-mile-and-ten
Can I get there by candlelight?
Yes-and back again!”
Little did Mother Goose know that she was defining the indefinably equivocal discipline of physics!
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