-=Dark_Angel=-, P.I.7 Jul 2004

P.S I said the world behaved in a "quantum-LIKE" manner. I know that Quantum Physics isn't a perfect model, I'm fairly sure it will be changed at some point in the future, but the fact remains that many observable properties are quantum-like in that quantum mechanics gives a reasonably accurate model of their behaviour, where newtonian mechanics fails utterly. That won't change, nor has it ever been the case in the past that the physical world didn't exhibit such quantum-like properties. There are also many properties that can be explained using Newtonian mechanics, and yes these have also always been there, even before scientists knew about Newtonian mechanics. It is no coincidence that for objects travelling at low speeds, the model based on relativity, and Newton's model, both give you very similar results. What Quarton seems to have been suggesting is that before Newtonian mechanics, reality wasn't Newtonian in nature; then when Newtonian physics came along, reality was Newtonian; and when Quantum Physics came along, reality wasn't Newtonian, it was Quantonian, etc.

One of the first things my Quantum physics lecturer said to me (and I only studied it in my first year at University) was "Light isn't a wave. Light isn't a particle. Light is light." His point was that the job of physics is to model the physical world, not to define it. Thanks for listening.