"The reader.. may argue that a very strange idea has been introduced — the possibility of a photon being partly in each of two states of polarization, or partly in each of two separate beams — but even with the help of this strange idea no satisfying picture of the fundamental single-photon processes has been given... it may be remarked that the main object of physical science is not the provision of pictures, but is the formulation of laws governing phenomena and the application of these laws to the discovery of new phenomena. If a picture exists, so much the better; but whether a picture exists or not is a matter of only secondary importance. In the case of atomic phenomena no picture can be expected to exist in the usual sense of the word 'picture', by which is meant a model functioning essentially on classical lines. One may, however, extend the meaning of the word 'picture' to include any way of looking at the fundamental laws which makes their self-consistency obvious. With this extension, one may gradually acquire a picture of atomic phenomena by becoming familiar with the laws of the quantum theory."
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University of Cambridge facultyAgnosticsEngineers from EnglandMathematicians from EnglandPhysicists from England
Original Language: English
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p. 10
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Dirac
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