Physics or Stories?
God said, “Let there be light!” Then scientists like Newton, Faraday and Young started studying light. And finally came Maxwell, who proved that light is not limited to what we can see...it extends far beyond in the electromagnetic spectrum. And that is the starting point for Philip Ball's article titled provocatively, Why Physicists Make Up Stories in the Dark . He starts by saying Maxwell's discovery shifted “the whole focus of physics...from the visible to the invisible”! Physics today has “not only unseen force fields and insensible rays but particles too small to see even with the most advanced microscopes”. While that may sound like a belief or something based on faith, it is supported by the facts: telescopes today use “radio waves, infrared radiation, and X-rays”. And it was kind of funny that X-rays “not only were invisible but revealed the invisible (bones under the flesh)”! Then came quantum mechanics. While the maths behind it was unquestionable, it le...