Physics

Teachers were so convincing, though.

Physicist and Nobel laureate Niels Bohr (7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) developed our understanding of the atom. The following quote has been attributed to him (perhaps falsely). Nonetheless, it is a compelling passage.

'There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we say about nature.'

Bohr thought that the fundamental world—particularly, the quantum one—doesn’t really exist in the way we describe it. Through language, we merely suspend our elementary concepts above it.

But then again, argue many scientific realists, it would be miraculous if our scientific theories were not at least approximately true descriptions of the physical world.

Who’s right?

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