“The Principle of Indeterminacy turned science inside out. Suddenly determinism goes, causality goes, and we are left with a universe composed of what Eddington calls, ‘mind-stuff.’ Listen to these physicists: Sir James Jeans, Eddington's successor, invokes ‘fate,’ saying that the future "may rest on the knees of whatever gods there be." Three world-famous physicians to demonstrate the dramatic effect the Principle of Indeterminacy had on those people who were intelligent enough to follow its logic. Eddington said the world was composed of "'mind stuff '" and that we now have “'no clear distinction between the Natural and the Supernatural'”; Sir James Jeans "invokes 'fate, I saying that the future 'may rest on the knees of whatever gods there
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Dillard's grasp of this point is particularly keen, for whereas the previous work of Einstein and his colleagues had told us that we had probably been wrong about most of our previous assumptions concerning the basic nature of the universe, Heisenberg gave us the startling news that, in a sense, we could never again be "right." Heisenberg's finding is also called the "uncertainty principle". Dillard explains, “Says in effect that you cannot know both a particle's position and its velocity. You can guess statistically what any batch of electrons might do, but you cannot predict the career of anyone particle. They seem to be as free as dragonflies. You can perfect your instruments and your methods till the cows come home, and you will never ever be able to measure this one basic thing. It cannot be done. The electron is a muskrat; it cannot be perfectly …show more content…
These joyous explainations are somewhat misleading, because despite what Dillard has said, the truth is that most physicists, including the ones she quotes, are not mystics. The demolition of classical physics may have sent scientists out searching for another answer, but to simply hypothesize some powerful force beyond our ken is not mystical perception. Except for Eddington's notion that the world is made of "mind stuff," the sentiments expressed in the physicists' quotes are not more mystical than are Billy Graham's, which is to say not at all. Other than a vein of humility, what the sentiments have in common is a sense of trepidation, as if we have been in serious error against the inferred powerful
Dillard's grasp of this point is particularly keen, for whereas the previous work of Einstein and his colleagues had told us that we had probably been wrong about most of our previous assumptions concerning the basic nature of the universe, Heisenberg gave us the startling news that, in a sense, we could never again be "right." Heisenberg's finding is also called the "uncertainty principle". Dillard explains, “Says in effect that you cannot know both a particle's position and its velocity. You can guess statistically what any batch of electrons might do, but you cannot predict the career of anyone particle. They seem to be as free as dragonflies. You can perfect your instruments and your methods till the cows come home, and you will never ever be able to measure this one basic thing. It cannot be done. The electron is a muskrat; it cannot be perfectly …show more content…
These joyous explainations are somewhat misleading, because despite what Dillard has said, the truth is that most physicists, including the ones she quotes, are not mystics. The demolition of classical physics may have sent scientists out searching for another answer, but to simply hypothesize some powerful force beyond our ken is not mystical perception. Except for Eddington's notion that the world is made of "mind stuff," the sentiments expressed in the physicists' quotes are not more mystical than are Billy Graham's, which is to say not at all. Other than a vein of humility, what the sentiments have in common is a sense of trepidation, as if we have been in serious error against the inferred powerful