Explain the nature and limitations of science through the development of quantum mechanics. Emphasize that science is about explaining natural phenomena, not fully understanding them.
Humans have long sought to explain the phenomena around us. Before the modern era, we relied primarily on the gods, but after the Scientific Revolution, we began to base our explanations on the natural laws we had discovered. In the modern era, science has become deified. When we don’t know something, when we don’t understand a phenomenon, it has become common to ask a scientist. This is similar to the pre-modern practice of asking God for everything, or a priest or priestess who could communicate with God. So some people call scientists the priests of the 21st century, the priests of the 21st century. But that’s not really the case. In this article, we’ll take a look at the development of quantum mechanics to dispel some of the myths about science and show you what it is.
Quantum mechanics began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At the time, electromagnetism had been perfected by Maxwell, and scientists were so satisfied with their achievements that they said there was nothing left to study in physics. They were able to explain electrical and magnetic phenomena in a unified way. Soon, however, phenomena were observed that could not be explained by the existing theories, and scientists tried to solve them. One such phenomenon is blackbody radiation. Black bodies are objects that do not reflect light at all, but all objects emit light depending on their temperature. Higher temperatures emit light with more energy, while lower temperatures emit light with less energy. At the time, scientists were unable to properly describe this phenomenon mathematically.
It was Max Planck who solved this problem. He realized that there was nothing wrong with electromagnetism, but there was something wrong with conventional wisdom. Planck postulated that energy doesn’t flow continuously, but is broken up into specific units. In physics, this is called quantization. This was an assumption that went against common sense, but is now accepted as orthodoxy. The reason we don’t see this in our daily lives is because the quantized units are so small. With Planck’s quantum hypothesis, quantum mechanics began to develop in earnest.
Quantization is the beginning of quantum mechanics, but it’s not the most important concept of quantum mechanics. What makes quantum mechanics quantum is the principle of indeterminacy. The principle of indeterminacy is the inability to accurately measure the position and velocity of an object at the same time. This is undetectable in the macroscopic world, but in the microscopic world, both absolute position and velocity cannot be known accurately due to indeterminacy. Quantum mechanics describes an object’s position as a probability, and explains that multiple states coexist before we observe it. This concept, made famous by Schrödinger’s cat story, is hard to accept as common sense.
Although many scientists did not accept the probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics, it is now accepted as orthodoxy. This is understandable when you consider the essential purpose of science. While many people think of the purpose of science as being to fully understand the laws of nature, the essential purpose of science is to explain natural phenomena. Scientists focus on explaining natural phenomena, but they don’t explain why those laws exist. Newton’s laws of motion are just conclusions drawn from numerous experiments, but no one knows why they work. The same goes for quantum mechanics.
Science is a discipline that creates a framework to explain nature, and when it discovers phenomena that deviate from that framework, it creates a new framework. Scientists are not like priests. While a theist tries to explain every phenomenon, a scientist may not be able to do so. There are phenomena that scientists don’t know about, and their explanations may include personal speculation. Therefore, it’s not right to take a scientist’s word for it. It’s important to synthesize what different scientists have said. Read interviews and columns by scientists with an awareness of the purpose and limitations of science.
