We ought not to forget that when physicists say a photon scattered from an electron, they are discussing that which cannot be discussed. We can see the tracks in a cloud chamber, but we cannot see an electron. Metaphors in science—although a critical part of our reasoning and discovery—should be handled with caution, and with a clear knowledge of the limits of our sensory experience of the world. We are blind people, imagining what we don’t see.
- - A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit by Alan Lightman, January 18, 2005.
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