IS PHYSICS NO LONGER PHYSICAL
INTRODUCTION
Dont' get me wrong. This could be some kind of 'ignorance' in my part - but NO!
I think it is time to make things 'real'. What does it mean... allow me to 'speculate' more.
A Little 'Flashback'
In the classical Physics, we talk about how nature works in a mathematical 'beauty' that enable Science to explain "How the planets revolve around the Sun"... "How long it will takes a runner to reach the finish line" and "How the gears and cams can be assembled to make a machine run smoothly". That is, what we call the age of 'Industrial Revolution'.
Then came the 20th Century Science. The slow phase of studies done about electricity and magnetism since the time of Faraday significantly became like a 'lightning bolt' when great people like Nikolai Tesla, Thomas Edison and others revolutioned the age of 'electromagnetism' that changed the World.
However - deep into the atomic structure of matter, physicists tapped the unexpected power of atom to save the World from a dictator and created the first ever destructive bomb never known to man before - the Atomic bomb. E = mc2 made it possible that a very small amount of matter can be converted into an enormous energy. That is known as the 'Atomic Age'.
But Man's curiosity never stopped there. In the field of Science that study the nature of electrons, protons and neutrons - scientists even looked deeper into the 'sub-atomic' particles. While, looking up in the sky - it changed our thinking about space and time. Both Quantum Physics and Relativity revolutioned what I might coined 'toward the unrealities of the physical world'.
Science Become Weird
I am an avid fan of Science but I might admit, I didn't really understand 'Relativity' in some of its complicating concepts but somehow - I think I understand this thing... such as how far a certain Galaxy from us based on how many light-years it will took a light to reach us, then, for me, that is AMAZING. Imagine, instead of that astronomical value with a lot of zeroes at the end in terms of miles or kilometers - It sounds good to hear... "the light of the Sun took around 8 minutes to reach us and that is how far the Sun is". Maybe, it is a joke that you might admire that person so much, how smart that guy is, you might get shy to follow up your question and at the end, will never know what you're really asking.
But the real AMAZING things are happening in the Quantum Physics. Isn't it revolutionary to hear - "There are infinite number of universes, aside from ours? The particle can either be in that position, could be in another position or all-over the places due to its 'superposition' characteristic? It is possible to separate a single particle into two same particle with each particle, the opposite character of the other (entanglement)? How about...we can see the particle to look like a wave and when we try to measure it, the wave collapses into a particle (measurement problem in Quantum Physics)." I'm sorry for being amazed - that is how I understand Quantum Physics.
Scrambled Knowledge
I'm not sure how many people reading this article really studied Physics up to its Quantum level. But as a layperson who has limited Math and Physics knowledge I known from school, I find it very 'confusing' that present day scientists are simply defining things without giving weight to what we, ordinary people think, far from what we learned from school.
To tell us, there are particles with no mass at all seems in conflict with the very meaning of matter - it occupy space and has a weight (or mass)". Isn't more logical to think that how many times we slice matter to its tiniest version - it should and must atlest, has a slight mass and slight space to occupy? Isn't a particle, a tiny part of matter?
To tell us that light is a wave like a ripple in a body of water causing a 'wave of water' or sound as a 'wave disturbing the air' around it or a seismic wave caused by 'vibrations of the ground' on Earth causing earthquakes...
What so special about light, if as a wave, it is rushing in an empty space without air, water or what-so-ever that will cause a wave - then 'what is waving'? Others simply say, its just mathematical, that's all. Amazing!
The Quantum Field Theory even think that all that we perceive are vibration in a quantum field propagating as waves - all that we see, hear, possibly smell. feel and taste are not made of particles but quantum vibrations. Amazing!
Now, we're entering the era of "Information Age", there are even scientists that wanted to describe our World to be nothing more but 'zeroes' and 'ones'. Amazing!
Scientific or Philosophical?
I am reading articles about the difference between Science and Philosophy. Before, when great thinkers not yet completelely knew the 'wonders' of machines, fossil energy and electricity that created what we enjoy today - they only based their understanding of Nature and the Universe through 'pure Thought'. Science, since the time of Galileo suggested that it is not enough to speculate things without experiments and mathematical equations. Today, scientists based their findings and predictions based on this method of thinking.
However, if we based the idea of Plato about "The Theory of Forms" (check the Wikipedia), that - "...If universal and particulars – say man or greatness – all exist and are the same then the Form is not one but is multiple", isn't very similar to how the present scientists' ideas of what a 'particle' is? Are they... can no longer know how to differentiate something scientific from something philosophical.
Then...What is Physics Really Is?
To think of it..., Is it time that we should define Physics 'specifically'? If Physics is a study of what nature is, should we put a dividing line between something that we know 'physical' and stick on that or because we don't really know what particle is, just allow Physics to accept and assume it far from what 'physical' means to ordinary people? Please make up your mind.
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