Time and Space

Remember the quote by Thomas Huxley in our discussion of the successes of celestial mechanics, “science is nothing but trained and organized common sense.” During the 1700s and 1800s, common sense was applied to atoms. Following Newton, we may imagine atoms as small billiard ball-like spheres, interacting by bouncing off each other. In many ways, this application was successful, but, early in the last century it became obvious that to describe nature at the atomic level, it appears that some microlevel phenomena and those involving high speeds do not “make sense.” As a sign at the gate of an English physics department warned: “Beware. Physics may expand your mind!”