Principles of Classical Physics

Per Dean Radin's analysis, classical physics rests upon five principles, or beliefs about the nature of the 'real' world.  These principles held up quite well for several centuries, backed up by observations and mathematical predictions.  However, in the light of discoveries about the nature of reality in relativity theory and quantum mechanics, every one of these principles has been proven to be false.  I will go into more detail in later posts about these principles, but to name them now, they are: reality, locality, causality, continuity, and determinism.  Before relativity theory and quantum mechanics came along, imminent scientists were making arrogant statements about how scientists had wrapped up pretty much everything there was to know about the world, and from then on it would be just working out a few details.

Albert Michelson, the first American to win a Nobel Prize, delivered this message in 1894 in a dedication speech at University of Chicago's Ryerson Physics Laboratory: "The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote."

William Thompson, later given the title of Lord Kelvin, president of the Royal Society (the premier scientific organization of Britain), said in 1900:
"There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement."

Little did these and other imminent scientists know about what was just around the corner.  All that certainty was washed away in a few short years.