Fritjof Capra (1939) is a physicist and deep ecologist who was born
in Vienna, Austria, in 1939. He is the author of several books on the
relationship between physics and ecology, including The Tao of
Physics, Uncommon Wisdom, and The Web of
Life. He received his PhD in theoretical physics from the University of
Vienna in 1966.
The essay The New Physics deals
with a new way of looking at the universe. It says that the universe is not
made up of separate things but is a unified whole. This is similar to the idea
of the One in Eastern mysticism. The old physics, on the other hand, says that the universe
is made up of separate things that interact with each other. This view is based
on the idea of reductionism (A theory that all complex systems can be
completely understood in terms of their components), which says that you can
understand the whole by understanding the parts. The new physics challenges the
idea of reductionism. It says that the whole is more than the sum of its parts
and that you cannot understand the whole by just understanding the parts. The
new physics is still a developing field, but it has the potential to change our
understanding of the universe. It could lead to new ways of thinking about
everything from science to spirituality.
Physics is the branch of natural science that deals with things like motion energy, space, time, force, etc. In 1900, when several
revolutionary new concepts about the nature of matter were proposed,, there came
a division in the field of physics and it was divided into classical and modern
physics.At the beginning of modern physics, Albert Einstein's intellectuality. Einstein strongly believed in
nature's inherent (inborn) harmony. Throughout his scientific life, his keen
interest was to find a unified foundation (base) of physics. He set out toward
this goal by building a common framework for electrodynamics and mechanics.
These are two separate theories of classical physics. This framework is known
as the special theory of relativity, according to which time and distance are
not absolute. It brought a change in the traditional concepts of space and time
and thus weakened one of the foundations of the Newtonian worldview.
In 1905 he
published two articles one is the above-given special theory of relativity (ten
years later he included gravity in it and proposed this theory as a general
theory of relativity) and the other is the theory of atomic phenomena - it was
a new way of looking at electromagnetic radiation which was to become
characteristic of quantum theory. The theory was almost entirely
completed by Einstein. However, the complete quantum theory was worked out
twenty years later by a whole team of physicists. these articles revolutionized
scientific thoughts and changed the way people view space, time, mass, and
energy. Einstein's scientific papers are intellectual monuments that mark the
beginning of twentieth-century thought. The experimental investigation of atoms in
the 20th century brought other major developments; physicists discovered
several phenomena connected with the structure of atoms, such as X-rays and
radioactivity, which were unimaginable in terms of classical physics.
In the history of physics, Darwin and Copernicus gave the
revolutionary theory that introduced great changes in the general
understanding of the universe and shocked many people. In the 20th century, for
the first time, physicists faced a serious challenge to their ability to
understand the universe. They had struggled to understand the strange and
unexpected reality revealed to them in their exploration of atomic and
subatomic phenomena; their way of thinking, basic concepts, and language were
insufficient to describe atomic phenomena. Later, they realized that paradoxes
are encountered whenever one tries to describe atomic phenomena in terms of the
classical concept. Then, they began to learn to ask nature the right questions
in atomic experiments to avoid contradictions.
Finally, they found the mathematical formulation of quantum
theory, but its conceptual framework was not easy to accept. The foundation of
physics had begun moving. A consistent, organic, holistic, and ecological
worldview is now emerging. This view is being discussed by scientists who are
deeply interested in the philosophical implications of modern physics. The
universe is no longer seen as a Machine, made up of a multitude of objects
(mechanistic Cartesian view of the world) but has to be pictured as one
indivisible, dynamic whole whose parts are essentially interrelated. In the
end, Capra tries to bring together science and physics because both are
observations. However, Physicists derive their knowledge from experiments and
mystics from meditative insights. Mystical thoughts provide a consistent and
relevant philosophical background to the theories of contemporary science.
Quantum
theory is a way of understanding how
the universe works at the smallest level, the level of atoms and subatomic
particles. It is different from classical physics, which is the way we understand the world at the
level we can see and touch.Quantum
theory is a very strange and counterintuitive (contrary to what common sense
would suggest) theory. It often defies our everyday experience and common
sense. However, it has been extremely successful in explaining a wide range of
physical phenomena, from the behavior of atoms and molecules to the workings of
lasers and transistors. It is essential for understanding many aspects of
modern physics, such as nuclear physics, astrophysics, and cosmology.
Here
is a simple analogy to help understand quantum theory. Imagine we are trying to
measure the position of a car. We can use a radar gun to measure its speed, but
the act of measuring its speed will also change its position. This is because
the radar gun sends out a beam of light, and the car will move slightly in the
direction of the beam as it is being hit by the light. In the same way, it is
impossible to know both the position and momentum of a quantum particle with
perfect accuracy. The act of measuring one quantity will always affect the
other. Quantum theory is a very complex and challenging subject, but it is also
a very important one. It is the foundation of our understanding of the universe
at the smallest level, and it is essential for understanding many aspects of
modern physics and technology.
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