(referred to Robert Heinlein’s book Job: A Comedy of Justice here)
There seems to be a natural progression in the sciences, from supposition and myth to hard, sustainable truth. For example, there is a branch of physics dealing with very small, subatomic particles, which is known as quantum mechanics. This particular branch of physics was ultimately an evolution in thinking from chemistry. We knew there was complex stuff in the world around us, compounds that could be broken down. For example, we knew that water could be broken down into two gases -- hydrogen and oxygen (hence, the familiar chemical symbol for water, H2O). We also knew that hydrogen (the H) and oxygen (the O) were as simple as it could get in terms of observable, physical stuff.
Chemistry was the science of mixing together and breaking apart elements and compounds. It was the science of examining the reactions that occurred between these elements and compounds. It wasn't until much later that scientists figured out that atoms of an element could themselves be broken down. Atoms could be broken into electrons, protons and neutrons. That's about as far as we can get in conventional chemistry. Chemistry understands that compounds like water (H2O) are combinations of elements that are held together, glued together, by sharing electrons. From its chemical formula, we understand that water is composed of two atoms of hydrogen as noted by the H2 and one atom of oxygen denoted by the O, glued together by their electrons forming a single water molecule. that molecule of three atoms is the smallest component to water you can possibly get before it breaks down. It's from there that chemistry evolves into physics.
How did these atomic components stick together? What mysterious properties bound atoms together? And, if we discovered that an atom could be broken in parts, could those parts be further subdivided? That was the birth of the area of physics known as quantum mechanics. The world becomes a very strange place as we entered the world of quantum mechanics. It is a little bit like being Alice and traveling to Wonderland through the looking glass. As we enter the world of quantum mechanics, the rules of reality as we know them twist and turn in strange ways.
We have long known about atoms, protons, neutrons and electrons. What, until recently, we had a very dim understanding of was the nature of those objects, once thought to be elementary and indivisible. We now know that those components of an atom are made up of even smaller components called quarks. We have now conclusively proven that there are six types of quarks called, somewhat whimsically, by their scientist discoverers as: up, down, strange, charmed, top, and bottom. These six types of quarks also have anti-quarks, which have the same properties but the opposite electrical charge.
Shining a Light on Stuff.
Before we move on, and talk more about matter, let's take a look at light. Now be prepared to have the world get even stranger. Scientists have long known that under certain conditions photons , the smallest units of light, behave as a particle. You can smash a photon into and object, breaking that object. On the other hand, if you look at a photon through a different lens, it appears to be a wave, not a particle. there is even an experiment you can do at home with nothing more than scissors, cardboard and a light bulb, which we will describe later, which allows you to view a photons of light as particles and as waves! This dual existence was certainly very strange, and thought to be a property of only light. We thought like was unique.
Foold again! Very recently, scientists have discovered that quarks also seem to exhibit the same duality. Quarks, in fact, are very much like photons. Generally, they look like particles -- little tiny specks of matter. However, when viewed another way quarks, like photons, exhibit behaviors that only could be the behavioral of a wave.
Further through the looking glass!
Now, try to wrap your brain around this. It gets really strange when you think of your coffee cup, your pen, your automobile, even you, is made up of a series of waves instead of a series of particles! We see each other, and the world around us, as particles. However, this weird duality also means that we are made up of waves and extend in all directions. Seeing me as me just happens to be the way the human mind works. What I see with my eyes bears only a passing, partial and incomplete relationship to reality! What we see is apparently an illusion. This is enough to make your head hurt.
