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Fundamentals III - The Unseen Universe (some philosophical considerations)

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"The most perfect philosophy of the natural kind only staves off our ignorance a little longer, as perhaps the most perfect philosophy of the moral or metaphysical kind serves only to discover larger portions of it. Thus the observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it. " David Hume ( An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding , 1772) Even though the scope of this page is not philosophical, it is interesting to realize that deep philosophical questions are behind the fact that most of our universe is invisible and that we are confined to a very limited sensorial realm. Such questions arise when one considers the existence of objects external to us, the objects of 'human enquiry' and how one can be certain about their existence. We know that science has developed its own procedures in order to explain natural phenomena. Today we known that there are many in...

The Great Book of Nature

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“ [The universe] cannot be read until we have learnt the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word." (Galileo Galilei, Opere Il Saggiatore p. 171.) The 'Book of Nature' is the last great book that we are still browsing. It was written since the beginning of time by a single Author. It is written in a peculiar language, grasped by no men but admitting a single interpretation. It is also a code of laws applicable to all objects of the world, governing the relation between causes and effects. It can not be copied, but it can be imitated, and men frequently gaze at hidden passages that reveal a remarkable structure, an enchanting if not scary regularity. The content of this Book is infinitely larger than anything that we had ever known, showing the existence of in...