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What is real? What is the universe made of? How does it work?
Physics has always been an attempt to understand
these questions. In the twentieth century, physics has developed
two very powerful ways of looking at the world. The first was General
Relativity, developed by Albert Einstein, which describes how gravity
works. This theory is very successful at describing the actions of
stars, galaxies, and objects on the largest scales. The other
theory is called Quantum Mechanics and it is used to describe objects
on microscopic scales - such as atoms, electrons, protons, etc.
Our understanding of how the universe works, in general, takes one of two distinct forms: either one wishes to have a conceptual understanding of nature, usually via analogies with every day experiences, or one is searching for the ability to quantitatively predict the future. Unlike classical physics (ie, physics before the twentieth century), quantum mechanics has defied, for several decades, attempts to develop a conceptual picture of nature. It is hard to argue that quantum mechanics is not a good description of how nature works since physicists can use it to predict the outcomes of experiments with a high degree of precision. Despite this, quantum mechanics seems to be incompatible with both our everyday experiences and with the theory of General Relativity. These pages are an attempt to detail this conflict.
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