Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book:  Heisenberg , Werner and Eckart , Carl (1930-06-01), The physical principles of the quantum theory, Dover Pubns, Retrieved on 2012-06-04
  • Source Material [books.google.com]
  • Folksonomies: science

    Memes

    04 JUN 2012

     The World of the Atom is Alien

    We must satisfy ourselves with metaphors.
      1  expand

    It is not surprising that our language should be incapable of describing the processes occurring within the atoms, for, as has been remarked, it was invented to describe the experiences of daily life, and these consists only of processes involving exceedingly large numbers of atoms. Furthermore, it is very difficult to modify our language so that it will be able to describe these atomic processes, for words can only describe things of which we can form mental pictures, and this ability, too, is a result of daily experience. Fortunately, mathematics is not subject to this limitation, and it has been possible to invent a mathematical scheme—the quantum theory—which seems entirely adequate for the treatment of atomic processes; for visualization, however, we must content ourselves with two incomplete analogies—the wave picture and the corpuscular picture.