Has Reductionism Run its Course?

For more than 2000 years, ever since Democritus’ first musings about atoms, reductionism has driven scientific inquiry. The idea is simple enough: Things are made of smaller things, and if you know what the small things do, you learn what the large things do. Simple – and stunningly successful.

After 2000 years of taking things apart into smaller things, we have learned that all matter is made