Then there was the quantum revolution, also a two-stage affair, with Max Planck’s introduction of quanta around 1900 and then the full quantum theory of 1926–27, complete with Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Combined, relativity and quantum physics overthrew not only old science but basic metaphysics. Kant had taught that absolute Newtonian space and the principle of uniform causality are a priori principles of thought, necessary conditions on how human beings comprehend the world in which they live. Physics proved him totally mistaken. Cause and effect were mere appearance, and
...more
