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Watson, Lyall - Atoms as mathematical constructs
Identifier
014184
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Lyall Watson – The Nature of things
Despite quantum leaps in our technology, it is still true that nobody has ever actually ‘seen’ an atom..
It was Ernest Rutherford’s suggestion … that an atom consisted of a dense nucleus of positively charged protons surrounded by a variable number of negatively charged electrons. All that was needed in the 1930s was the discovery of a third particle without any charge at all to settle some minor discrepancies [the neutron]
….
It is important to realise that these particles do not exist in any ordinary sense. They are not like specks of dust. They are purely mathematical entities, defined not so much by what they are as by what they are believed to do