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Mercury, July/August 2004 Table of Contents

by Alfred K. Mann

A deep-seated belief in the existence of a primordial atomistic structure of matter has not always been present in human thinking. The religions of ancient eastern civilizations—essentially spiritual in nature—did not concern themselves with such a speculation, and Christianity of the Middle Ages—essentially rational and deistic in nature—repudiated it. Not even at the beginning of the scientific revolution of the last four centuries did scientists commonly seek explanations of physical and chemical phenomena in terms of a corpuscular model.

When physicists and chemists endeavored to demonstrate by experiment the existence of atoms as late as the turn of the 20th century, they encountered deep skepticism of their results on the part of other scientists as well as laymen. Jean Perrin, a Nobel Laureate in physics, was motivated to address the skeptics in this way in his 1912 book, Atoms:

There are cases when hypotheses are actually intuitive and fertile. When we study a machine, we obviously examine as best we can its visible parts, but we also try to guess the hidden mechanisms that explain its workings. To guess the existence or properties of objects beyond the reach of our knowledge, to explain a complex visible with a simple invisible, that is the kind of intuitive intelligence atomism has afforded us, thanks to individuals like Dalton and Boltzmann… A time will perhaps come in the future when atoms can be seen directly and will become as easy to observe as microbes are today. The spirit of present day atomists will then soar again with those who inherit the power to hypothesize, beyond an expanding experimental reality, about some other hidden structure of the Universe.

Of course, Perrin knew, or would soon know, that atoms were composite and that the statement attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus, "Nothing exists except atoms and space; all else is opinion," was not completely correct. But probably that would just have strengthened his belief in the existence of "some other hidden structure of the Universe."

Whatever its history prior to Galileo and Newton, the last four centuries have seen a persistent, growing belief in and emphasis on "objects beyond the reach of our knowledge, to explain a complex visible with a simple invisible." This belief is not seriously questioned by modern scientists. It is a cornerstone of modern scientific thinking, but by itself it is too general an idea and often too difficult and too slow to achieve as the reason to support research in a particular area of science, especially one as remote from everyday experience as particle physics research. Better, more specific reasons are necessary to help us evaluate elementary particle physics and justify the belief that deep truths may lie within its study.

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