Today at tea we were arguing whether Newton deserves a higher place among the metric of genius then Einstein. I am a sucker for the personal side of science, but to me, the larger problem is the question of which revolution shook our view of the universe the most. There have been three revolutions in physics: Newton, Einstein, and Quantum. Newton said “there is order and math governs our universe” Einstein said “time and space are not what you think they are and further these so basic concepts are maleable.” Quantum said “here an operating system for all our physical laws.” Now which of these revolutions had the greatest shock towards our view of the universe?
Certainly, before Newton, the very idea of physical law was at best a blur. So the revolution of seeing the world before and after Newton is very much a nothing out of something experience. With Einstein, we have a revolution where we had previous concepts, concepts that seem deeply ingrained in our everyday experience, but these concepts are wrong. And with Quantum, we find that our very concepts of what is real, especially when combined with the insights of Einstein, are vastly in contrast to the way the universe works. Which revolution was greater?
O brave new quantum world!