I'm not a Physicist. However the wondrous nature of the universe entices me rather than the complexity and uncertainty of the mathematics that is used to describe the rules that govern the universe we live in. Apologies to my mathematician friends but I don't "feel" the equations yet.
Christian Huygens attributed certain characteristics of light, like change of speed in different medium and refraction, to the wave-like behaviour of light. Sir Issac Newton firmly believed in the particle-like nature of light based on his observations on the phenomenon of reflection & refraction.
Maxwell, Planck and Einstein later provided sufficient mathematical, empirical and theoretical evidence to convince the scientific to sing the song of wave-particle duality. It's a strange behaviour to say the least, something that behaves in two different ways simultaneously; kinda like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde of R. L. Stevenson.
It's a cumbersome process to come up with a theory that can describe a natural phenomenon; I can only imagine the least of it. The process begins with a lot of questions, weird explanations and lots of thought experiments. At least that's what some of the most famous minds of our times did (and do) - Gedankenexperiment.
Ain't that so eerily similar to meditation (or roop dhyan)! Hindu saints have described this trans-like state where they imagine themselves with their deity and involved in Their pastimes. Scriptures describe the nature of existence of human life and the philosophy of life. I don't have the capacity to describe but to a curious mind the doors are open.
I am saddened by the fact that a lot of scientists describe themselves as agnostic or atheist. However I wonder if they did their own thought experiments and immersed themselves in the philosophy of spiritualism rather than the mythology of religion. It's like any other field of study - wherein you study and experiment continuously.
It takes a lot of grit and firmness to pursue a theory. In a way it needs giving up the preconceived notions and existing beliefs to chip at a problem from a different angle. There may or may not be an answer at the horizon; there may not be a horizon itself! However in the true sense of exploration you continue chipping.
It was only the other day I read about Bose-Einstein Condensate. It's said the individual Bosons lose the identity and become one! Bose & Einstein did their thought experiment that resulted in this theory. In same way the scientific mind has to chip away in the realm of spiritualism. Why? Because the curiosity is insatiable, exciting and highly rewarding.
Food for thought
Oppenheimer's close confidant and colleague, Nobel Prize winner Isidor Rabi, on J. Robert Oppenheimer:
Oppenheimer was over-educated in those fields, which lie outside the scientific tradition, such as his interest in religion, in the Hindu religion in particular, which resulted in a feeling of mystery of the universe that surrounded him like a fog. He saw physics clearly, looking toward what had already been done, but at the border he tended to feel there was much more of the mysterious and novel than there actually was ... [he turned] away from the hard, crude methods of theoretical physics into a mystical realm of broad intuition.
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