The idea that the world
consists of continuous substance against that of tiny material parts occurred
since the dawn of human history. By the end of the 19th century, the
proponents of the substance theory which then became energeticists confronted
openly and fiercely with those of atomic theory which also known as materialists.
The ancients believed
that the world consisted of the transformation of a single continuous substance
which they called water with its various phase transformations such as fire,
air and solid (earth). The energeticists held a similar idea that the real
underlying component of the universe was energy in its various forms a).
Energeticists led by
Ostwald turned to [chemical] thermodynamics which successfully described the
physical and chemical reactions without recourse to the atomic hypothesis 1).
Ostwald and his colleagues claimed that the molecules and atoms were just
illusions.
Dalton and the
proponents of the atomic idea held that all matter was made up of an extremely
small solid having no internal structure, indivisible, unchangeable and indestructible.
This theory has taken more than two millennia to evolve, from the time of the
Greek philosopher b) Democritus of Abdera in the 5th century BC but
has only been proved experimentally in the early 20th century.
Debates between the
proponents of the energetics and the atomic hypothesis were so fierce and rude
that was believed to become part of the tragic suicide's cause of Boltzmann,
one of the strong proponents of atomic hypothesis. However, following the work
of Einstein on Brownian motion which pointed out the existence of atoms,
Ostwald and his followers finally accepted that the atomic theory was
scientifically well-founded.
Today nobody doubts
about the existence of atoms. We do not have any problem with that, but
our main concern is on the question of the degree of existence of atoms or
subatomic particles we are talking. In our previous articles it was concluded
that at the quantum level there is no such matter which exists persistently. At
every brief instance of time matter is created and annihilated perpetually out
of and into energy at the pace equal to the speed of light c) as
implicitly expressed in the Einstein equation E = mc2 (Fig.1).
The theory of relativity
which holds the equivalence of energy and mass in some extend dethrones the
concept of matter as the building block of reality, bringing in a new notion of
rest mass as a residual concept. However, the quantum theory launches a coup
de grace sinking the materialism and classical mechanism for good as we
interpret it in Figure-1.
Matter exists only
ephemerally. The persistence of matter is just human illusion. The only
substance persisting in time is energy from which all matters are derived. The
final score of the debates was 1 to 1/2; the energeticists were right, and the
materialistic proponents were only half right. The materialism including
Marxism which holds matter as the sole subject of change is wrong both
physically and philosophically.
Notes:
a) The ancient “water” is
nothing but the immaterial substance which is called energy in modern time. The
ancient water and energy are two different names of the same thing. The
ancients acknowledged that energy existed in different phases which ancient
called earth (solid), water, air, and fire. In our modern time, we may comprehend
these different phases of energy as having higher dimensions in successive
order.
b) The word atom
comes from Greek which means indivisible.
c) It is the underlying
reality of the wave and particle duality and its related phenomenon observed in
the double-slit experiment.
References:
1. Herbert, N.: "Quantum
Reality," Anchor Books, New York, 1985, p. 10.
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