[Posted to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Heisenberg’s death.]
Form and Potentiality in Nature
Modern physics takes a definite stand against the materialism of Democritus and Epicurus, and for Plato and the Pythagoreans. The elementary particles are certainly not eternal and indestructible units of matter. They can actually be transformed into each other. All particles are of the same substance: energy.
The resemblance of the modern views to those of Plato and the Pythagoreans extend somewhat further. The elementary particles in Plato’s Timaeus are finally not substance but mathematical forms. “All things are numbers” is a dictum of Pythagoras. In modern quantum theory, the elementary particles are ultimately mathematical forms, but of a much more complicated nature.
The matter of Aristotle is not a specific matter like water or air, nor is it simply empty space; it is a kind of indefinite corporeal substratum, embodying the possibility of passing over into actuality by means of the form. The matter of Aristotle, which is mere ‘potentia’, is similar to our concept of energy. The latter gets into ‘actuality’ by means of the form, creating the elementary particle.
Modern physics is not content with only qualitative description. It must try on the basis of careful experimental investigations to get a mathematical formulation of those natural laws that determine the ‘forms’ of matter, the elementary particles and their forces. Each elementary particle not only produces and is acted upon by forces, but also represents a certain field of force.
The Strange Duality of Nature
Of the inexplicable wave-particle duality of elementary particles, Heisenberg writes:
The two pictures are of course mutually exclusive, because a certain thing cannot at the same time be a particle (i.e., substance confined to a very small volume) and a wave (i.e., a field spread out over a large space), but the two complement each other. By playing with both pictures, by going from the one picture to the other and back again, we finally get the right impression of the strange kind of reality behind our atomic experiments.
Strangely enough, this reminds me of John Calvin’s argument against Transubstantiation in “Institutes of the Christian Religion“. As God, Jesus is omnipresent, but as man, He cannot be physically present both in Heaven and in the Eucharist. Because His resurrected body must occupy a definite space, if it be a true body and not a spirit.
It may be foolish of me to draw a parallel between the wave-particle duality of light and the God-man duality of Jesus, the Light of the world, for I don’t have the least understanding of either. But, as Paul the Apostle writes, the invisible attributes of God are clearly seen in His creation. Perhaps one sees the mystery of the dual nature of Christ in the wave-particle duality of light, just as the mystery of His resurrection is in a grain of wheat.
In conclusion, I’ll quote Heisenberg, a Christian himself:
The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.
References:
- Heisenberg, Werner. Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science. London: George Allen & Unwin. 1958. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/PhysicsPhilosophy
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