THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20252, 11 May 1929, Page 14

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE.

Sir, —"Profanum Vulgus," like Dr. Johnson, has tripped over a stonei Br. Johnson was a very wise man, but ho merely advertised his own ignorance when he tried to refute Bishop Berkeley- by kicking a stone. And now. "Profanum Vulgus" nses a stone to refute Eddington. The physicists have stripped the stono of its materiality and converted it into a mathematical abstraction, but "Profanum Vulgus" maintains that its materialistic character is as real as ever. Referring to Dr. Johnson's "refutation" Professor Eddington states: "The stone we know is mostly emptiness, and Dr. Johnson's rebound from it is explained by laws of atomic physics which make no reference to the substantiality which lie found so comforting. What ; modern science has left of the huge stone would scarcely be worth kicking.'' Professor Eddington goes on to say: "I cannot form the remotest conception of how an atom or an electron would set about the process called 'really existing.'" "Profanum Vulgus" may contend that the mathematical physicists are quite wrong, but it is foolish to arguo that their conclusions do not flatly contradict the- old materialistic and mechanical interpretation- of nature. "Profanum Vulgus" tells us.-that science stands for. "the interpretation of phenomena along purely materialistic and deterministic lines." But determinism has also received a staggering blow from the new physics. The three revolutionary theories are the electron theory, relativity and the quantum theory. Referring to the quantum theory Professor Wolf states that it has helped to discredit the old classical mechanics and by .so doing has also helped to discredit fatalistic determinism. Professor Eddington declares that the latest theory, of the atom makes indeterminacy of behaviour an essential characteristic of the phenomena, and. if this idea is accepted, the old deterministic idea of nature must be given up. Norm an- Burton.