Quantum mechanics is the study of both matter and energy at a microscopic level. It observes how the physical laws which apply to macroscopic objects do not apply to those at a subatomic level, as shown by their unusual behaviour. This behaviour has opened a gateway for the questioning of all such laws that previously had been confirmed and acted as a stabiliser for understanding the concept of reality, the universe as a whole and our place within it. Such development therefore has completely distorted this preconceived view of reality and the following explores in what ways and how quantum mechanics has done this.
The physical laws which remain the foundations of our very existence were first discovered by Isaac Newton whom, as a Christian, was determined to find order and purpose in the universe to fulfill the arguments design qua purpose and design qua regularity which are the classical argument for God’s existence as creator. Newton used gravity and the idea of motion to propose laws, which all bodies obeyed in every circumstance – making it possible to predict behaviour. Whilst Newton maintained that these proved the existence of God, other scientists felt that he had unlocked the key to understanding the entirety of the universe, providing science with the tools to fill in the gaps religion relied upon. However upon the development of quantum mechanics in the following century such ideas were lost and science went from being understood and predictable to being filled with uncertainty.
Such uncertainty occurred over the ideas of waves and particles. Every object at every level - be it micro or macroscopic, was thought to behave in one of two ways. For example, Newton believed that light was made up of a continuous stream of particles called photons. Whilst this is partly true Thomas Young expressed that it seemed to behave in a wave-like motion and so light proved under experimentation to function as both a wave and a particle; wave-particle duality. Furthermore in 1922 Louis de Broglie extended this duality to matter in an experiment whereby he confirmed that a beam of electrons, matter made of particles, diffracted as a wave under particular conditions. However, whilst it has been shown that both energy and matter can act as both wave and particle they can never be both at the same time. An alternative experiment which portrays this is the double-split experiment which in essence forces the electron to behave as either wave or particle as it can not pass the slit as both. When left unobserved the electrons diffracted as a wave, however upon observation they returned to behaving as a particle. Why then does the introduction of an observer determine the results? Scientists remain perplexed even today as they enter from knowledge and understanding into faith, being forced to acknowledge quantum mechanics whilst it transcends all human understanding.
Erwin Schrödinger embraced such scientific and logical contradiction and embodied it within his paradoxical mind experiment commonly known as “Schrödinger’s Cat”. The experiment defines a cat, which has been placed in a potentially lethal box, both dead and alive simultaneously where we, the observer, cannot know its fate. Whilst highlighting the semi-farcical nature of quantum mechanics this paradox of superposition emphasises science’s lack of understanding of the universe as a whole and provides a platform for even the most mind-blowing interpretations to become viable theories. The principle of Ockham’s Razor, whereby the simplest explanation is the most probable, seems now redundant and no longer in keeping with modern day science as physicists and theologians look to the unimaginable in search of comprehension.
An example of such extraordinary interpretations is that of Hugh Everett’s “many-worlds”. The idea uses the concept of superposition, the absence of an observer means an object remains in all possible states, to propose that at every point in life where there is a viable choice to be made an alternative or parallel universe is born out of all the possibilities of that choice. For example if someone were stood at a crossroad and decided to turn left, whilst they are only conscious of the universe in which they turned left, Everett suggests that there are universes in which the same person turned right or went straight on and which develop independently. Such a proposition allures thoughts of infinite universes and infinite “versions” of every human being and though this remains completely unthinkable the fact that celebrated scientists and the greatest minds on the planet give time, and even preference in the case of Stephen Hawking, to thinking of its possibility shows the distance science has come from the rigidity of Newton’s laws and the simplistic ideology of Ockham’s razor.
It seems that quantum mechanics has completely overturned science and led it to an uncomfortable state of uncertainty. Though defined by its need for evidence and conclusions, in the absence of both, science throws its hand out desperately to the complex and the unimaginable – relying on faith and belief to answer a question knowledge alone can not. In doing so quantum mechanics has changed the way many view reality – no longer are things clear and structured but rather undefined and whilst the distance between religion and science was thought to be greater than ever, quantum mechanics seems almost to intertwine them with the key principle of faith.
Bethany Stuart 12DH
Bibliography:
- AQA Religious Studies: Philosophy of Religion pg 122 - 127
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