Fear of Physics by Lawrence M. Krauss

Author:Lawrence M. Krauss
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2012-02-20T16:00:00+00:00

FOUR

HIDDEN REALITIES

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

—T. S. Eliot,

“Little Gidding,” Four Quartets

You wake up one icy morning and look out the window. But you don’t see anything familiar. The world is full of odd patterns. It takes a second for you to realize that you are seeing icicles on the window, which suddenly focus into place. The intricate patterns reflecting the sun’s light then begin to captivate you.

Science museums call it the “aha” experience. Mystics probably have another name for it. This sudden rearrangement of the world, this new gestalt, when disparate data merge together to form a new pattern, causing you to see the same old things again in a totally new light, almost defines progress in physics. Each time we have peeled back another layer, we have discovered that what was hidden often masked an underlying simplicity. The usual signal? Things with no apparent connection can be recognized as one and the same.

The major developments in twentieth-century physics conform to this tradition, ranging from the fascinating discoveries of Einstein about space, time, and the universe, to the importance of describing how oatmeal boils. In discussing these “hidden realities,” I don’t want to get caught up in philosophical arguments about the ultimate nature of reality. This is the kind of discussion that tends to confirm my general view of philosophy, best expressed by the twentieth-century philosopher and logician Ludwig Wittgenstein: “Most propositions and questions that have been written about philosophical matters are not false, but senseless.”1

Wondering, for instance, as Plato did, whether there is an external reality, with an existence independent of our ability to measure it, can make for long discussions and not much else. Having said this, I do want to use an idea that Plato developed in his famous cave allegory—in part because it helps me appear literate, but more important, because building upon it allows me to provide an allegory of my own.

Plato likened our place in the grand scheme of things to a person living in a cave, whose entire picture of reality comes from images—shadows cast on the wall—of the “real objects” that exist forever in the light of day, beyond the person’s gaze. He argued that we, too, like the person in the cave, are condemned only to scratch the surface of reality through the confines of our senses.

One can imagine the difficulties inherent in the life of the prisoner of the cave. Shadows give at best a poor reflection of the world. Nevertheless, one can also imagine moments of inspiration. Say that every Sunday evening before the sun set, the following shadow was reflected on the wall:

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