![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Quantum theory explains the interactions of the universe’s fundamental particles. Hawking and Mlodinow don’t deliver anything new on this front, but there are a few baffling elements of quantum physics worth knowing. “It is not necessary,” Hawking and Mlodinow write, “to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.” We come up with mathematical models to explain observations with a set of narrowly defined rules. Hawking and Mlodinow’s conclusion is, “There is no picture- or theory-independent concept of reality.” All we can use is model-dependent realism. But physicists have come to terms with this problem. The way the problem is often summed up in popular culture is, “What if we were just the playthings of some all-powerful being?” or “Could we all be the stars of an alien reality show?” The answer is: Maybe. And all of them purport to explain reality when in fact we have no idea what is objectively real. Others are more ugly and unwieldy, like the Standard Model. Some are neat and elegant, like Einstein’s theories of relativity (which come in special and general flavors). Physicists have all sorts of tools for describing the universe around us. ![]()
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