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| p. 32 | “Influence of physics on the general situation.” |
No: the influence of physics has simply been to modify the potency of the man with power to use the atomic bomb. It has no political aspect, but advances in physics have had political consequences. But Heisenberg shows that his meaning is not properly expressed by his first paragraph when he goes on in the second to show “that every tool carries with it the spirit by which it has been created”. And here I think of the theory I put forward that man's tool-making capacity is hypertrophying as the defensive armour of stegosaurus hypertrophied and led to its extinction.
| p. 32 | “What will be the outcome of this impact of a special branch of modern science on different powerful old traditions?” |
I prefer, ‘What will be the impact of powerful old traditions on this special branch of modern science?’ as alternative reading.
| p. 36 | “Light could either be interpreted as consisting of electromagnetic waves … or as consisting of light quanta, energy packets travelling through space with high velocity… . Einstein … was not able to dispute the complete contradiction between this wave picture and the idea of the light quanta.” |
Is it possible that the explanation fundamentally has to be in terms of primitive phantasies? – e.g. elementary particles (paranoid-schizoid), or wave theory (depressive) – because these are limitations in the human mind which cannot be transcended?
| p. 37 | “No planetary system following the laws of Newton's mechanics would ever go back to its original configuration after a collision with another such system.” |
The collision and return to normal fit in also with the primitive primal scene.