Editorial

Physics at the Crossroads

Prof. K.V.K. Nehru

Great technological advances of the 20^th century have pushed the limits of observation into the domains of the very small, the very large and the very fast in an unprecedented manner. The resulting observational and experimental discoveries have been exerting a steadily increasing pressure on the physical theory. To say that the state of the physical theory has reached a critical stage might surprise the uninformed but is a closely guarded secret.

Old theories often fail as new empirical knowledge accrues. The growing inability of the existing theory to explain new facts leads to a sort of crisis, a cul-de-sac. New theories will take over only to be supplanted by others as the horizon of empirical facts expands. Once in a time the crisis would be of such a proportion that no new theory would be adequate to resolve it—nothing short of a new theory based on an entirely new paradigm. Planck’s introduction of the quantum of action is an example of such a paradigm revolution.

In this context we might say that a paradigm is a way of looking at nature. What is required to resolve long-standing puzzles is to be able to look at them from a new angle. Since it is hard to come out of inveterate patterns of thinking, the new paradigm invariably looks unnatural, weird or impossible. Even if it is true—that is, it completely resolves all the previous paradoxes, explains the phenomena and produces the correct quantitative results—the scientific establishment of the time does not accept it readily. Planck laments in his autobiography that a new generation would have to come to appreciate his findings. But luckily truth prevails: sooner or later the new paradigm will gradually get established and understood. In the meantime we will have to do all that is in our power to disseminate the knowledge of the new paradigm—the Reciprocal System—to humanity.