Matière et Révolution

En sciences, il faut imaginer le monde...

Robert Paris, Tiekoura Levi Hamed — 2026-03-22T23:33:00Z

En sciences comme en philosophie et dans la vie quotidienne, il faudrait réhabiliter l'imagination, une fonction cérébrale fondamentale de l'intelligence humaine et des sentiments de notre espèce, très largement décriée, dévalorisée, niée et oubliée

L'imagination a souvent été assimilée à des constructions mentales fantasmagoriques, des dragons, des sorcières et autres maléfices, allant jusqu'aux constructions de mondes imaginaires et aux divagations religieuses. Du coup, la philosophie scientifique et dialectique s'en est écarté pour prôner une philosohie du réel. Mais l'imagination est seulement le contraire dialectique de la pensée raisonnant sur le monde réel et donc inséparable d'elle. Sans imagination, l'abstraction est impossible, la mémoire aussi. Les concepts scientifiques et philosophiques, l'écriture, les mathématiques, l'art, l'apprentissage, les rêves, la créativité, les inventions et bien d'autres choses encore sont des produits de l'imagination humaine.

Ceux qui nient le rôle de l'imagination pensent que la science permet la connaissance directe du réel. Ils se disent : « le monde réel, je le touche, je le vois, je le mesure, je le sens, je le teste avec des instruments. » La Physique contemporaine a montré depuis longtemps que ce n'est qu'une illusion. On ne voit rien directement, on ne touche rien directement, on ne sent rien directement, on n'observe rien directement. Même deux matières ne se touchent pas directement. Les fermions n'échangent que par l'intermédiaire de bosons. Ils ne peuvent pas se toucher, deux fermions étant incapables d'être au même moment dans la même position. Plus ils s'approchent, plus il leur est difficile de se rapprocher (inégalités d'Heisenberg et force de répulsion du principe de Pauli). Quand elles s'approchent, les particules peuvent devenir indiscernables mais elles ne peuvent pas être toutes deux au même endroit. La matière n'a connaissance d'une autre matière qu'à distance et pas directement par des intermédiaires. Les liaisons aussi se font par des intermédiaires. La matière que l'on dit compacte ne l'est pas réellement. Quant à l'homme, ses expériences et observations agissent sur la matière au point qu'elles la modifient. Les expériences quantiques démontrent que la matière mesurée n'est plus la matière que l'on voulait mesurer. Cela ne veut pas dire que l'on ne sait rien mais que les principes de Zénon agissent à l'échelle quantique. Il en résulte que nous devons imaginer une compréhension de la particule et que cette compréhension ne peut provenir directement de l'observation. D'ailleurs, elle a commencé à être imaginée, une particule étant finalement un nuage d'une multitude de couples particule-antiparticule éphémères. On conviendra qu'il fallait beaucoup d'imagination pour en arriver là puisque personne ne peut observer directement une particule ou une antiparticule virtuelle éphémère !

Bon ! Cela va au niveau quantique ! Mais à l'échelle du monde où nous vivons tous les jours, en est-il de même ?

Est-ce que les êtres humains entrent directement en contact avec leur petit monde ? Pas du tout ! Nous n'avons pas le contact avec les pensées des autres êtres humains ou des animaux domestiques qui nous entourent. Nous ne savons même pas tout ce qui se passe dans notre propre tête. Nous sommes contraints d'imaginer ce qui nous fait agir sans être sûrs d'avoir raison.

La science, pour se développer, a eu besoin de s'éloigner de la philosophie, de la croyance, des mythes, des imaginations invraisemblables qui lui barraient le chemin. Du coup, la pensée scientifique a eu besoin de se détâcher d'abord de l'imagination. Mais, ensuite, elle a eu besoin d'y retourner pour se proposer des hypothèses à vérifier, des expériences à faire, des concepts dont il fallait vérifier la validité, des quantités à mesurer, etc. La nature n'a pas proposé directement ces paramètres, ces expériences, ces mesures, ces vérifications, ces raisonnements de la science. C'est l'esprit humain qui l'a fait et il lui a fallu de l'imagination.

Cela ne veut pas dire que nous vivons dans un monde imaginaire ou complètement fabriqué par notre imagination. Pas plus que les particules éphémères soient virtuelles au sens où elles ne seraient pas une réalité.

C'est parce que l'univers est dialectiquement contradictoire de manière intrinsèque (et non par l'erreur de notre perception ou de notre compréhension, ni du fait de nos observations) que l'imagination est indispensable car il s'agit d'apprender ce qui est contradictoire, donc contraire à la logique formelle, sans tomber pour autant dans l'agnosticisme (affirmation selon laquelle le monde est définitivement incompréhensible à l'entendement humain). Il s'agit d'intégrer la philosophie dialectique à l'ensemble de la science, des sciences physiques, chimiques, biologiques, humaines, sociologiques, historiques et préhistoriques.

L'imagination n'est que le contraire dialectique de la conscience et du rationnel et il ne s'agit donc pas de choisir entre les deux mais de les associer.

L'imagination n'est nullement le contraire diamétral du matérialisme, de la science, de l'expérience, du raisonnement scientifique.

Pour construire une image scientifique du fonctionnement du monde, il ne suffit pas d'observer, d'expérimenter, de calculer, de raisonner. Il faut imaginer une théorie qui colle avec tout cela et c'est souvent par une construction mentale complètement intérieure, imaginée par le savant, que l'on y parvient. Mais la démarche scientifique n'en reste bien entendu pas à cette première image, elle la vérifie ensuite par la cohérence avec la théorie, avec l'expérience, avec le raisonnement. Seule la confrontation avec la réalité conclut sur la validité des théories imaginées.
La pensée sans imagination est simple routine, répétition de formules apprises, de connaissances reconnues mais sans se les assimiler personnellement, simple utilisation de méthodes toutes faites sans acquisition de leur compréhension personnelle, sans possibilité d'améliorer ou de transformer la théorie. Dans ce dernier but, il faut s'autoriser à ne pas penser comme avant, pas comme tout le monde, pas en suivant le consensus des savants précédents, pas en obéissant aux autorités. Il faut être prêt à heurter les apparences, à aller en sens inverse du courant de pensée dominant, des vérités reconnues jusque là, non pas pour se singulariser mais parce que des problèmes subsistent qui n'ont pas été résolus.

L'imagination, c'est quand le cerveau s'autorise à aller hors des sentiers battus, à faire des voyages a priori impossibles, à concevoir des mondes illogiques en apparence. Toute la science a progressé ainsi. Quand Einstein, pour ne prendre qu'un exemple, a affirmé que la lumière, ce sont des corpuscules (les photons), c'est un peu comme s'il avait dit qu'on va traverser la Terre en train en passant par le noyau. Cela ne paraissait pas plus vraisemblable. Tout le monde savait (toujours le consensus des savants) que la lumière c'est des ondes, alors que la matière ce sont des corpuscules ! C'était purement imaginaire ! Et quand la physique quantique a conclu que matière et lumière étaient à la fois des ondes et des corpuscules, c'est un peu comme si elle avait dit que l'homme est à la fois mort et vivant, à la fois ici et ailleurs, à la fois présent et absent, à la fois tel homme et tel autre, à la fois homme et femme, ce genre de choses assez inattendues, vous voyez… Il faut pas mal d'imagination pour accepter… les contradictions de la réalité afin de les concevoir par la pensée ! Et l'imagination n'est pas seulement art, poésie, peinture, rèveries, mais aussi théorie, pensée et philosophie scientifiques.

L'imagination est une fonction cérébrale fondamentale de l'intelligence humaine…

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4929

https://www.nationalgeographic.fr/sciences/cerveau-imagination-aphantasie-pourquoi-certaines-personnes-ne-peuvent-pas-generer-images-mentales-cerveau-memoire

https://institutducerveau.org/actualites/imaginer-sans-images-mentales-enquete-sur-caracteristiques-personnes-aphantasiques

La part de l'inconscient et de l'irrationnel dans la formation de la pensée

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?rubrique165

Rôle de l'inhibition et de l'inconscient, de la logique et de l'absurde, du rationnel et de la fable dans la formation de l'intelligence

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article1528

Réel et Rationnel, deux mondes ou un seul ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5085

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3035

L'homme ou l'espèce fabulatrice ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5225

L'énigme du réel

https://www.matierevolution.org/spip.php?article5323

La dialectique de la pensée humaine

https://www.matierevolution.org/spip.php?article9016

Sciences et imagination

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3072

Le fondateur de la pensée scientifique, Bacon, reconnaissait le rôle de l'imagination

« Bacon divise ainsi le savoir humain selon les facultés de mémoire, d'imagination et de raison… »

https://www-matierevolution-fr.translate.goog/spip.php?article6578&_x_tr_sl=en&_x_tr_tl=fr&_x_tr_hl=fr

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6414

https://www-matierevolution-fr.translate.goog/spip.php?article3770&_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr

Bacon :

« L'imagination a été donnée à l'homme pour compenser ce qu'il n'est pas ; le sens de l'humour pour le consoler de ce qu'il est. »

« Ce sont de mauvais explorateurs qui pensent qu'il n'y a pas de terre, alors qu'ils ne voient que la mer. »

« On peut en tirer un autre argument d'espoir : certaines inventions déjà connues sont telles qu'avant leur découverte, il aurait été difficilement concevable ; elles auraient été tout simplement jugées impossibles. Car, lorsqu'ils conjecturent sur le futur, les hommes se basent sur le passé et imaginent le nouveau avec une imagination influencée par le passé ; or, cette manière de se forger une opinion est très erronée, car les sources de la nature ne coulent pas toujours dans leur lit originel. »

« L'entendement humain est touché par les choses qui le frappent et pénètrent l'esprit simultanément et soudainement, et qui emplissent ainsi l'imagination ; et alors il feint et suppose que toutes les autres choses sont d'une manière ou d'une autre, bien qu'il ne puisse voir comment, semblables à ces quelques choses qui l'entourent. »

« La vérité peut sans doute valoir une perle, qui brille de mille feux le jour ; mais elle n'atteindra jamais le prix d'un diamant ou d'un escarboucle, qui resplendissent sous différentes lumières. Un soupçon de mensonge procure toujours du plaisir. Quelqu'un doute-t-il que, si l'on ôtait aux hommes leurs vaines opinions, leurs espoirs illusoires, leurs estimations erronées, leurs imaginations débridées et autres fantaisies, il ne resterait pas dans l'esprit de certains un esprit appauvri, empli de mélancolie et de malaise, et déplaisant à eux-mêmes ? »

Hegel et l'imagination

« La véritable conscience de soi comprend les moments de mémoire, d'imagination et de raison. »

https://www-matierevolution-fr.translate.goog/spip.php?article6566&_x_tr_sl=en&_x_tr_tl=fr&_x_tr_hl=fr

Hegel : « La pensée spéculative consiste seulement en ceci, que la pensée tient la Contradiction, et, dans la Contradiction, elle-même, et non en ce qu'elle se laisse dominer par elle - comme il arrive à l'imagination - ou laisse ses déterminations se résoudre en autre, ou en Rien. »

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7474

Comme c'est souvent le cas, Hegel n'emploie pas le mot « imagination » au sens que tout le monde emploie.

« La pensée spéculative consiste uniquement en ceci : la pensée s'accroche à la Contradiction, et, dans la Contradiction, elle-même, et non en ce qu'elle se laisse dominer par elle – comme cela arrive à l'imagination – ou qu'elle laisse ses déterminations se résoudre en autre, ou en Néant.

Hegel nous explique d'abord comment l'Imagination pense, et par Imagination (nous l'avons vue il y a quelques minutes), Hegel entend la pensée qui ne traite que de ce qui est familier. Remarquez le terme qu'il emploie : Imagination. À première vue, cela semble incongru. Mais je pense qu'il veut l'opposer à la méthode scientifique, à l'analyse.

En tout cas :
Ainsi, bien que l'imagination ait partout la contradiction pour contenu, elle n'en prend jamais conscience ; elle reste un reflet extérieur, qui passe de la ressemblance à la dissemblance… Elle maintient ces deux déterminations extérieures l'une à l'autre et n'a à l'esprit que celles-ci, et non leur transition, qui est la matière essentielle et contient la contradiction.

L'imagination perçoit une multitude de choses, les distinguant par leurs similitudes et leurs différences, une variété infinie. La réflexion, la compréhension, les relie et révèle leurs contradictions.

Ce n'est donc pas un défaut, une imperfection, une insuffisance qu'une chose recèle une contradiction. C'est là son essence même.

En revanche, la réflexion intelligente, si l'on peut dire, consiste à comprendre et à énoncer la contradiction. Elle n'exprime pas le concept des choses et de leurs relations et ne dispose que de déterminations de l'imagination quant à leur matière et leur contenu ; mais elle les met néanmoins en relation, et cette relation contient leur contradiction, permettant ainsi à leur concept de se manifester à travers elle.

Hegel maudit ceux pour qui l'idéal réside dans leur propre imagination et leurs propres caprices. Comme il les déteste ! Pour lui, l'idée est si intimement liée au réel qu'on ne peut les dissocier. L'idéal véritable d'aujourd'hui est le réel de demain. Et c'est ainsi que se meuvent la vie et la logique.

https://www-matierevolution-fr.translate.goog/spip.php?article1019&_x_tr_sl=en&_x_tr_tl=fr&_x_tr_hl=fr

André Breton

« L'imagination, c'est l'art de donner vie à ce qui n'existe pas, de persuader les autres d'accepter un monde qui n'est pas vraiment là. Il n'est de plaisir qu'en imagination. »

« Chère imagination, ce que j'aime surtout en toi, c'est que tu ne pardonnes pas. »

« L'imaginaire, c'est ce qui tend à devenir réel. »

« L'homme, ce rêveur définitif. »

« La seule imagination me rend compte de ce qui peut être, et c'est assez pour lever un peu le terrible interdit. »

« Je crois à la résolution future de ces deux états, en apparence si contradictoires, que sont le rêve et la réalité, en une sorte de réalité absolue, de surréalité, si l'on peut ainsi dire. »

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6589

La pensée humaine dépasse-t-elle la nature, est-elle seulement son reflet, ou bien dépend-elle d'un monde différent, celui de l'esprit ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5061

L'imagination et le rêve

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5669

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2700

L'humanité, ce peuple du rêve...

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5146

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3953

Diderot :

« Le poète a reçu de la nature la qualité qui distingue l'homme de génie : l'imagination. »

« Ai-je rencontré un beau trait, je me promets de leur (à mes amis) en faire part. Ai-je sous les yeux quelque spectacle enchanteur, sans m'en apercevoir je médite le récit pour eux. Je leur ai consacré l'usage de tous mes sens et de toutes mes facultés ; et c'est peut-être la raison pour laquelle tout s'exagère, tout s'enrichit un peu dans mon imagination et dans mon discours. Ils m'en font quelquefois un reproche ; les ingrats ! »

« Quand on écrit, faut-il tout écrire ? Quand on peint, faut-il tout peindre ? De grâce, laissez quelque chose à suppléer par mon imagination ! »

« La nuit met l'imagination en jeu. »

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6977

Freud :

« Après tout, nous n'avons pas inventé le symbolisme ; c'est une activité universelle et ancestrale de l'imagination humaine. »

« Car il existe un chemin de retour de l'imagination à la réalité, et ce chemin, c'est l'art. »

« Le rêve ne pense ni ne calcule ; d'une manière générale il ne juge pas : il se contente de transformer. »

« Je ne peux envisager sereinement une vie sans travail ; le travail et le libre jeu de l'imagination sont pour moi une seule et même chose, je ne trouve de plaisir dans rien d'autre. »

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6485

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6314

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article1489

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article1490

Spinoza :

« Les imaginations de l'esprit indiquent plus les affects de notre Corps que la nature des corps extérieurs. »

« L'esprit, autant qu'il le peut, s'efforce d'imaginer ce qui augmente ou aide la puissance d'agir du Corps. »

« Nous voyons donc que toutes les notions dont use ordinairement le vulgaire pour expliquer la nature ne sont que des manières d'imaginer, et n'indiquent la nature d'aucune chose, mais seulement l'état de l'imagination ; et puisqu'elles ont des noms qui se donnent pour ceux d'étants existant hors de l'imagination, je les appelle des étants non de raison, mais d'imagination. »
« Et ici, pour commencer à indiquer ce qu'est l'erreur, je voudrais que vous notiez que les imaginations de l'Esprit considérées en soi, ne contiennent pas d'erreur, autrement dit, que l'Esprit, s'il se trompe, ce n'est pas parce qu'il imagine, mais c'est seulement en tant qu'on le considère manquer d'une idée qui exclue l'existence des choses qu'il imagine avoir en sa présence. »

« L'esprit, autant qu'il le peut, s'efforce d'imaginer ce qui augmente ou aide la puissance d'agir du Corps »

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article1488

https://books.openedition.org/enseditions/8621?lang=fr

La science, ce sont seulement des faits ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3443

Notre espèce a besoin d'imagination

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article1524

Le physicien Max Planck dans « Initiations à la Physique » :
« Il serait ensensé au plus haut point de s'imaginer que les lois concernant l'origine et l'évolution des idées scientifiques pourront jamais se laisser réduire en formules exactes applicables à la prédiction de l'avenir de la science. En dernière analyse, toute idée nouvelle procède, en effet, de l'imagination créatrice de son auteur ; c'est pourquoi toute recherche, même en mathématiques, la plus exacte pourtant de toutes les sciences, contient toujours quelque part un élément irrationnel, cet élément étant essentiellement inhérent à la notion même de personnalité. »

Le physicien Einstein dans « L'évolution des ides en physique » :
« D'autre part, il ne faudrait pas s'imaginer que, même dans la plus exacte de toutes les sciences, on puisse faire des progrès en ses passant d'une conception générale de l'Univers, c'est-à-dire en définitive d'hypothèses indémontrables. (...) Ce que l'on ne voit pas, c'est à quel point la difficulté pour faire progresser la science, c'est que le savant ait la ténacité de maintenir son point de vue. (...) Bien plus, l'austère recherche de la science ne peut progresser que par le libre jeu de l'imagination. Qui ne peut, à l'occasion, ne serait-ce qu'une fois, concevoir des choses apparemment contraires à la loi causale, jamais n'enrichira la science d'une idée nouvelle. »

Einstein :

« L'imagination est plus importante que le savoir. »

« La logique vous mènera de A à B. L'imagination vous emmènera partout. »

« L'imagination est primordiale. Elle est un avant-goût des plaisirs à venir. »

« Le don de l'imaginaire a compté davantage pour moi que mon talent pour absorber les connaissances positives. »

En physique quantique, le problème a été d'imaginer…

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article1999

En sciences, il faut aussi qu'intervienne l'imagination humaine, l'inconscient même, le rêve. Les lois de Maxwell ne découlent pas directement des observations ni des idées de ses prédécesseurs mises bout à bout, pas plus que les idées de Darwin, d'Einstein, de Planck, de Broglie, de Prigogine ou de Feynman, pour ne citer que ceux-là. Ce ne sont pas les seules connaissances qui les ont guidés mais ils ont construit des voies et moyens totalement novateurs, des nouvelles démarches, des nouvelles manières de poser les problèmes, avant de demander aux observations si leurs thèses pouvaient se vérifier.
Or, l'imagination humaine, l'invention, le rêve, l'innovation, l'inconscient comme le conscient, la création, ce ne sont pas des qualités des robots, des Big Data, de l'informatique. Demandez à n'importe quelle machine : « Vous rêvez, que voyez-vous ? », il va répondre en cherchant tout ce que d'autres êtres humaines ont rêvé précédemment et… c'est tout ! Et c'est bien peu s'agissant de rêver de nouvelles idées scientifiques…
Le robot ne rêve pas, n'écoute pas son inconscient, ne développe pas son imagination, ne construit pas des scénarios virtuels de manière non pilotée par le système central, contrairement à l'homme.
Chez l'homme, la conscience ne pilote pas tout. Le cerveau peut explorer des « hypothèses absurdes », contraires à la logique, au bon sens et même à la raison, toutes les nuits dès qu'il rêve et même le jour chez les humains particulièrement « dans leur tête ». Pas le robot ! Aucune sorte de robot et jamais !

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4965

Le grand physicien Feynman : « L'expérience est le seul juge de la « vérité » scientifique. Mais quelle est la source de la connaissance ? D'où viennent les lois à tester ? L'expérience, elle-même, aide à produire ces lois, dans le sens où elle nous donne des indices. Mais il faut aussi de l'imagination pour créer à partir de ces indications les grandes généralisations : deviner les motifs merveilleux, simples, mais très étranges, puis expérimenter pour vérifier à nouveau si nous avons bien deviné. Ce processus d'imagination est si difficile qu'il existe une division du travail en physique : il existe des physiciens théoriciens qui imaginent, déduisent, et devinent de nouvelles lois, mais n'expérimentent pas ; et puis il y a des physiciens expérimentaux qui expérimentent, imaginent, déduisent et devinent. »

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5072

Le philosophe Feuerbach : « Certes, les produits de l'imagination sont aussi ceux de la nature, car la puissance de l'imagination, pareille aux autres forces humaines, est en dernière analyse (zuletzt) par son essence même et ses origines, une force de la nature ; l'homme est néanmoins un être différent du soleil, de la lune et des étoiles, des pierres, des animaux et des plantes, différent, en un mot, de tout ce qui est (Wesen) et à quoi il applique le terme général de nature. Les représentations (Bilder) que se fait l'homme du soleil, de la lune, des étoiles et de tout ce qui est la nature (Naturwesen), sont donc aussi des produits de la nature, mais d'autres produits qui diffèrent des objets qu'ils représentent. ».

« Est ce qu'un homme n'est pas pour un autre, même pour l'homme le plus proche, un objet d'imagination, un objet de représentation ? »

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2773

Le travail humain de l'abstraction nécessite l'imagination…

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2494

Personne ne voit sous yeux, même lors de l'expérience la plus ingénieuse et bien montée, agir l'énergie cinétique ou le potentiel, ni même la masse et la charge ! Ces paramètres ne sont pas des faits, ne sont pas des objets naturels, ne sont pas des résultats directs de l'observation mais des produits du raisonnement humain et d'abord des créations de l'imagination des hommes. S'ils sont aujourd'hui à la rationalité de notre époque, ils ont à un moment ou à autre dus être inventés, c'est-à-dire se heurter à la rationalité des hommes d'une époque précédente.

Il suffit de remarquer que la physique contemporaine donne comme fondement à l'ensemble de l'univers matériel l'espace vide qui pourtant n'est observé et connu que depuis un tout petit nombre d'années. Les théories sur le vide sont encore plus récentes et encore peu connues, y compris de l'ensemble des physiciens qui ne travaillent pas précisément dans ce domaine. C'est dire que le fondement des sciences lui-même n'est pas si largement diffusé que le ferait croire une image très rationaliste des sciences physiques.

La découverte a besoin elle aussi de cette dimension irrationnelle de la pensée humaine, aussi bien pour proposer des solutions aux grands problèmes de sciences (les réponses folles dont parlait Einstein) que pour fonder des concepts nouveaux dont on n'avait pas encore idée et qui ne peuvent naître qu'à l'aide de l'imagination humaine, l'observation et la mesure ne permettant de mesurer et d'observer que des choses que l'on a préalablement imaginé de mesurer et d'observer. Encore une fois, l'expérience scientifique doit être pensée avant d'être réalisée et parfois même le simple fait d'avoir été pensée donne une réponse sans même avoir réalisé l'expérience.

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2832

Le physicien Feynman : « Notre science demande des prodiges d'imagination. Le degré d'imagination nécessaire est bien plus élevé que celui exigé par certaines des idées anciennes. Les idées modernes sont bien plus difficiles à imaginer. Et cependant nous nous servons d'un grand nombre d'outils. Nous nous servons d'équations et de règles mathématiques, et nous faisons beaucoup de dessins. Je réalise maintenant, qu'en parlant du champ électromagnétique dans l'espace, je vois une sorte de superposition de tous les diagrammes que j'en ai toujours vus tracés. Je ne vois pas courir des faisceaux de lignes de champ, car cela m'inquiète de penser que si je courais à une vitesse différente, ces faisceaux disparaîtraient… »

« Tout le problème de l'imagination en sciences est souvent incompris de ceux qui pratiquent d'autres disciplines. Ils essayent de mettre à l'épreuve notre imagination de la façon suivante. Ils disent, « voici un dessin de certaines personnes dans une certaine situation. Comment imaginez-vous ce qui va se produire ensuite ? » Quand nous disons, « je ne peux pas imaginer », ils peuvent penser que nous avons une bien faible imagination. Ils négligent le fait que tout ce qui nous est permis d'imaginer en sciences doit être compatible avec tout le reste de nos connaissances, que les champs électriques et les ondes dont nous parlons ne sont pas simplement d'heureuses idées que nous sommes libres d'inventer, mais des idées qui doivent être compatibles avec toutes les lois connues de la physique. Nous ne pouvons nous laisser à imaginer sérieusement des choses qui sont de toute évidence en contradiction avec les lois connues de la nature. C'est ainsi que notre type d'imagination est un jeu bien difficile. On doit avoir de l'imagination pour penser à quelque chose qui n'a jamais été vu avant, jamais entendu avant. Mais en même temps, ces pensées sont restreintes dans un corset rigide, pour ainsi dire, et limitées par les conditions qui résultent de notre connaissance de la nature telle qu'elle est réellement.
Le problème de la création de quelque chose de neuf, mais compatible avec tout ce qui est déjà connu, est d'une extrême difficulté… »

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3573

Le physicien Lee Smolin : « La science a besoin de visionnaires. »

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3850

Le physicien Einstein : « L'importante invention du champ électromagnétique fait son apparition. Il fallait une imagination scientifique hardie pour réaliser pleinement que ce n'est pas le comportement des corps, mais le comportement de quelque chose qui se trouve entre eux, c'est-à-dire le champ, qui pourrait être essentiel pour ordonner et comprendre les événements...

L'image représentative physique doit, a priori, satisfaire à la condition, imposée par la logique, d'être exempte de contradiction interne entre ses diverses parties. Une fois cette condition remplie, toute liberté est laissée à l'artisan dans son travail descriptif. Il jouit d'une autonomie complète et il n'a besoin d'imposer aucune contrainte à son imagination. Ceci ne va pas, bien entendu, sans entraîner une forte dose d'arbitraire et d'incertitude ; c'est pourquoi la tâche du physicien est beaucoup plus difficile qu'il ne pourrait le paraître au premier abord à des esprits simplistes.
Le libre pouvoir spéculatif du savant s'introduit déjà, dès sa première démarche qui consiste à intégrer dans le domaine d'une loi uniquele résultat de mesures qui lui sont données séparément et sans coordination. Cette tâche est analogue à celle qui consiste à relier par une courbe un certain nombre de points isolés et l'on sait qu'il existe une infinité de courbes passant par chacun de ces points. »

Le physicien Max Planck : « Nous sommes donc en présence d'une démarche intellectuelle, pour laquelle aucune logique n'est suffisante. S'il veut l'accomplir avec succès, le physicien devra posséder deux qualités : une connaissance approfondie de son sujet et une imagination créatrice puissante. Il lui faut, en effet : premièrement, être familier avec toutes sortes de mesures et, secondement, avoir une acuité intellectuelle suffisante pour rapprocher deux mesures différentes sous un point de vue commun.
Toute hypothèse féconde surgit de la combinaison de deux représentations sensibles, de nature différente. L'histoire nous offre de nombreux exemples de ces rapprochements : c'est d'abord Archimède rapprochant la perte de poids de la couronne d'or du tyran de Syracuse quand elle était immergée. C'est Newton, rapprochant la chute d'une pomme du mouvement de la Lune autour de la Terre. Plus tard, c'est Einstein, rapprochant le mouvement d'un corps soumis à la gravitation, situé dans une enceinte en état de repos, d'un corps soumis à la gravitation, situé dans une enceinte en état de repos, d'un corps échappant à la gravitation et se trouvant dans une enceinte qui se déplace vers le haut avec un mouvement accéléré. Enfin Bohr rapprocha le mouvement d'un électron autour d'un noyau atomique du mouvement des planètes autour du soleil. Il serait intéressant de suivre, à propos de chaque hypothèse importante de la physique, le détail des rapprochements d'idées auxquels elles ont dû leur naissance…
Il y a un fait très remarquable qui n'est pas sans rapport avec cet état de choses : c'est que le progrès de la physique n'est pas une évolution continue au cours de laquelle nos connaissances s'approfondiraient et s'affineraient peu à peu ; il a au contraire un caractère discontinu et, en quelque sorte, explosif.
L'apparition de chaque hypothèse nouvelle provoque comme une éruption subite ; elle est un saut dans l'inconnu, inexplicable logiquement. Ensuite sonne l'heure d'une théorie nouvelle qui, une fois venue au monde, se développe d'une façon continue ; mais toujours, en subissant plus ou moins des contraintes extérieures, son sort étant, en fin de compte, réglé par les mesures. Tant que ces dernières lui demeurent favorables, l'hypothèse jouit d'une considération de plus en plus générale ; mais des difficultés viennent-elles à surgir quelque part à propos de l'interprétation du résultat de mesures, les doutes, les critiques et la méfiance ne tardent pas à s'élever de toutes parts…
Contrairement à ce que l'on soutient volontiers dans certains milieux de physiciens, il n'est pas exact que l'on ne puisse utiliser, pour l'élaboration d'une hypothèse que des notions dont le sens puisse, a priori, être défini par des mesures, c'est-à-dire, indépendamment de toute théorie. En effet, premièrement, toute hypothèse, en tant que partie constituante de l'image représentative de l'univers, est un produit de la spéculation libre de l'esprit humain et, secondairement, il n'y a absolument aucune grandeur qui puisse être mesurée directement. Une mesure ne reçoit, au contraire, son sens physique qu'en vertu d'une interprétation qui est le fait de la théorie…
Jamais des mesures ne pourront confirmer ni infirmer directement une hypothèse, elles pourront seulement en faire ressortir la convenance plus ou moins grande. »

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5085

Comment Voltaire se représente l'imagination…

https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/L%E2%80%99Encyclop%C3%A9die/1re_%C3%A9dition/IMAGINATION,_IMAGINER

Une tentative de définition

https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Cours_de_philosophie/Le%C3%A7on_XXVI._L%27imagination

Gaston Bachelard est le plus grand philosophe scientifique de l'imagination :

« La manière dont on imagine est souvent plus instructive que ce qu'on imagine. »

« L'imagination n'est pas, comme le suggère l'étymologie, la faculté de former des images de la réalité ; elle est la faculté de former des images qui dépassent la réalité, qui chantent la réalité. Elle est une faculté de surhumanité. »

« De notre point de vue très particulier, l'habitude est l'exacte antithèse de l'imagination créatrice. L'image habituelle arrête les forces imaginantes. L'image apprise dans les livres, surveillée et critiquée par les professeurs, bloque l'imagination. »

« L'imagination trouve plus de réalité à ce qui cache qu'à ce qui se montre. »

« Imaginer, c'est hausser le réel d'un ton. »

« N'imagine pas qui veut ! Il ne s'agit pas d'imaginer n'importe quoi. La révolution euphorique se trouve au contraire devant cette tâche difficile qu'est l'unité d'imagination. Pour gagner cette unité d'imagination, pour avoir le schème dynamique directeur du bonheur, il faut donc revenir à l'un des grands principes de l'imagination matérielle. Ce n'est pas là une condition suffisante du bonheur, mais c'est une condition nécessaire. L'on ne peut être heureux avec une imagination divisée. La sublimation — tâche positive de l'imagination — ne peut être occasionnelle, hétéroclite, scintillante. Un principe de calme doit venir auréoler toutes les passions, même les passions de la force. »

« L'imagination créatrice a de tout autres fonctions que celles de l'imagination reproductrice. À elle appartient cette fonction de ['irréel qui est psychiquement aussi utile que la fonction du réel si souvent évoquée par les psychologues pour caractériser l'adaptation d'un esprit à une réalité estampillée par les valeurs sociales. »

https://fr.wikiquote.org/wiki/Imagination

Lénine, cité par René Crevel :

« Si l'homme était privé de sa faculté de rêver, s'il ne pouvait parfois courir en avant et contempler par l'imagination l'œuvre complète qui commence à se former sous ses mains, comment pourrait-il entreprendre et mener à leur fin lointaine la vastitude épuisante de ses travaux ? Rêvons, mais à la condition de croire sérieusement en notre rêve, d'examiner attentivement la vie réelle, de confronter nos observations avec notre rêve, de réaliser scrupuleusement notre fantaisie. Il faut rêver. Et cette sorte de rêve est malheureusement trop rare dans notre mouvement par le fait de ceux-là mêmes qui s'enorgueillissent le plus de leur bon sens et de leur exacte approximation des choses concrètes. »

Karl Marx :

« Le résultat auquel le travail aboutit, préexiste idéalement dans l'imagination du travailleur. »

« Quand une idée s'empare des masses, elle devient force matérielle. »

« Une araignée fait des opérations qui ressemblent à celles du tisserand, et l'abeille confond par la structure de ses cellules de cire l'habileté de plus d'un architecte. Mais ce qui distingue dès l'abord le plus mauvais architecte de l'abeille la plus experte, c'est qu'il a construit la cellule dans sa tête avant de la construire dans la ruche. Le résultat auquel le travail aboutit, préexiste idéalement dans l'imagination du travailleur. »

« Les contes réels ont la même existence que les dieux imaginaires. Un conte réel existe-t-il autrement que dans l'imagination, ne serait-ce que dans l'imagination commune de l'homme ? Apportez du papier-monnaie dans un pays où cet usage est inconnu, et tous se moqueront de votre imagination subjective. »

« Les prémisses à partir desquelles nous partons ne sont ni arbitraires, ni dogmatiques, mais des prémisses réelles dont l'abstraction ne peut se faire que par l'imagination. »

« La résurrection des morts, dans ces révolutions, servit par conséquent à magnifier les nouvelles luttes, non à parodier les anciennes, à exagérer dans l'imagination la tâche à accomplir, non à se soustraire à leur solution en se réfugiant dans la réalité, à retrouver l'esprit de la révolution et non à évoquer de nouveau son spectre… La révolution sociale du XIX° siècle ne peut pas tirer sa poésie du passé, mais seulement de l'avenir. Elle ne peut pas commencer avec elle-même avant d'avoir liquidé complètement toute superstition à l'égard du passé. Les révolutions antérieures avaient besoin de réminiscences historiques pour se dissimuler à elles-mêmes leur propre contenu. La révolution du XIX° siècle doit laisser les morts enterrer leurs morts pour réaliser son propre objet. Autrefois, la phrase débordait le contenu, maintenant, c'est le contenu qui déborde la phrase. »

https://www.marxists.org/francais/marx/works/1851/12/brum3.htm

Imagination et rêve

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5669

Art et sciences

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3984

La Physique a-t-elle besoin de philosopher sur la matière ?

Robert Paris — 2026-03-16T23:03:00Z

La Physique a-t-elle besoin de philosopher sur la matière ?

La matière pose directement des problèmes philosophiques !

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2265

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3861

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7520

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3807

Y a-t-il une philosophie de la science ?

Oui, il y a des principes, des méthodes, des conceptions, des concepts, des raisonnements, certains qui sont scientifiques et d'autres pas.

Par exemple, rien n'est affirmé comme éternel en sciences. Tout est contestable et peut être effectivement contesté à condition de se fonder à la fois sur des raisonnements et des observations, des expériences, des manipulations. On ne dit pas que la science affirme mais seulement qu'à telle date, la science affirmait. On ne dit pas que la nature procède ainsi mais que c'est ce qui semble à un moment donné.

On ne parle pas de « consensus » des scientifiques car un tel consensus a existé dans le temps contre Galilée, contre Newton, contre Einstein, contre de Broglie, contre Schrödinger, contre Heisenberg, contre Bohr, contre tous les grands scientifiques auteurs d'avancées scientifiques révolutionnaires.

Une chose existe en sciences, ce sont les idées et elles se discutent. Elles ne sont pas un objet de respect, d'obéissance absolue, d'autorité indiscutable, de religion. La science, c'est le débat et eéventuellement la remise en cause.

Un autre point est crucial dans le raisonnement scientifique : c'est qu'une affirmation doit correspondre au reste de nos connaissances du monde. C'est l'idée qu'il y a un seul monde et que le tout doit être cohérent. Il ne faut donc pas une interprétation des faits qui marche pour une expérience mais qui contredit le reste. Le dualisme est contraire à la science.

On ne peut pas en sciences nier la capacité de l'être humain à comprendre. L'agnosticisme n'est pas philosophie de science, pas plus que le positivisme. On ne peut pas prétendre ne rester aux faits, aux observations. Il faut une théorie même pour observer. Il ne suffit pas de manipuler, d'examiner les résultats puis de calculer. Les calculs nécessitent des concepts. Les concepts emboités forment des théories. Les théories ont besoin de penseurs. Les penseurs scientifiques ont besoin de méthodes philosophiques.

Il y a des formes de logique qui sont scientifiques et d'autres pas. Là, on atteint le domaine philosophique. Faut-il penser en sciences comme Kant, comme Locke, comme Hume, comme Mach, comme Aristote, comme Berkeley, comme Platon, comme Engels, comme Thomas Huxley, comme Bachelard, comme Heisenberg, comme Descartes, comme Diderot, comme Rousseau, comme Bergson, comme Einstein ou comme Hegel ? (la liste n'est pas exhaustive, tant pis pour ceux qui trouvent harassant de lire et de réfléchir et tant pis pour ceux qui veulent en rester à leur petit domaine d'étude scientifique, la science a besoin de vision générale du monde).

Cela signifie faut-il une philosophie déterministe ou indéterministe, du continu ou du discontinu, de l'ordre ou du désordre, du positivisme ou non, du réalisme ou non, du matérialisme ou non, de la dialectique ou non ? Toute la philosophie est-elle contenue dans les mathématiques ou non ? Toute la philosophie est-elle dans une croyance religieuse ?

En tout cas, on ne peut pas dire : je m'en moque, je fais des sciences sans faire de philosophie. Ce n'est pas vrai. On peut ne pas avoir conscience qu'on a une philosophie mais en tout cas on en emploie nécessairement une.

Autre point essentiel : la science n'est pas la technologie. Les anciennes civilisations avaient peu de connaissances scientifiques et beaucoup de connaissances technologiques. Au point que nous n'avons pas encore certaines de leurs connaissances technologiques.

Bien sûr, actuellement, le capitalisme, ses possesseurs de capitaux et ses Etats valorisent surtout la technologie qui leur permet parfois des profits et des avances par rapport à la concurrence. Mais, le profit, ce n'est pas la science.

Le capitalisme a poussé à une certaine science mais pas avec des buts intellectuels scientifiques. Il se moque de comprendre le monde si cela ne lui profite pas directement.

Bien des grands scientifiques sont simplement des hauts fonctionnaires de ce monde capitaliste et de ses Etats. Ils ne raisonnent pas en scientifiques mais en membres de l'appareil d'Etat capitaliste.

Cela amène ces scientifiques à des déclarations qui n'ont rien de scientifiques.

On le voit bien en climatologie, en géologie, en épidémiologie, en vaccinologie, dans tous les domaines de la santé. Par exemple, la santé, pour le grand capital, ce n'est pas la science mais les intérêts des trusts pharmaceutiques ! Les résultats ne sont pas les mêmes, la philosophie n'est pas la même.

La science, c'est l'étude pensée par l'homme du fonctionnement du monde, au maximum des capacités de l'homme. Le profit capitaliste, c'est l'exploitation au maximum de toutes les possibilités de l'homme extraites du fonctionnement du monde. Il n'y a pas identité…

La science nécessite une pensée de la discontinuité, du saut, du changement qualitatif, de l'émergence, de l'autostructuration, de la contradiction interne dialectique, de l'abstraction fondée sur le concret, de la continuité fondée sur la discontinuité, de l'ordre fondé sur le chaos, de l'onde et du corpuscule inséparables, du lien boson/fermion, des contradictions dialectiques matière/vide, matière/énergie, matière/lumière, virtuel/réel, classique/quantique, physique/astrophysique, etc. La pensée scientifique doit être capable de créer des images du monde qui intègrent cette dialectique.

Si la science, ce sont à la fois des idées et des expériences, c'est que la dialectique des contraires y est fondamentale. On ne peut nier ni la place de la pensée humaine ni l'existence d'une réalité objective. Tout est dialectique en sciences, à tous les niveaux.

Et toutes les sciences s'interpénètrent.

Il y a un seul monde et une seule science ! Toute philosophie dualiste est antiscientifique…

Pas de philosophie scientifique pour celui qu'i n'admet pas l'intelligibilité du monde.

Pas non plus de philosophie scientifique qui n'admet pas le monde comme une matière de changement, une matière historique, une matière de transformations radicales. On ne peut jamais dire « ceci a toujours été et sera toujours ».

Le monde existe affirme la philosophie scientifique.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monde_(philosophie)

https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/philosophie-la-nature-et-le-monde-3366658

Une science philosophique doublée d'une philosophie scientifique

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4033

L'histoire des sciences est pleine de controverses entre points de vue diamétralement opposés qui n'ont été validés ni l'un ni l'autre et qui ont fini par se résoudre dans une dialectique mariant les contraires.

https://www.matierevolution.org/spip.php?article8838

La dialectique de la nature

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4546

Philosophie dialectique et science moderne

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4659

Physique quantique et Dialectique

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7629

La quantité se transforme en qualité

https://www.matierevolution.org/spip.php?article4957

Physique et Philosophie

La physique de la matière et la philosophie dialectique

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2879

La matière est elle-même intrinsèquement dialectique

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5017

Physique et Philosophie de Leibniz

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article771

Physique et Philosophie de
Descartes

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4527

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4108

Physique et Philosophie de Kant

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2773

Physique et Philosophie de Dirac

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6844

Physique et Philosophie de Bohr-Heisenberg

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3807

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2546

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3819

Physique et Philosophie de Einstein

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4285

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4050

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3689

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3352

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article1999

Physique et Philosophie de Zénon

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7412

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article8001

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4371

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2695

Physique et Philosophie de Bacon

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6413

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4819

Physique et Philosophie de Lénine

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4703

Physique et Philosophie de Hegel

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5097

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4184

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article650

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4371

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5558

Physique et Philosophie d'Occam

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2154

Physique et Philosophie de Diderot

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article653

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6045

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5155

Physique et Philosophie de Socrate

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article8017

Physique et Philosophie de Platon

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6177

Physique et Philosophie de Schrödinger

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2056

Physique et Philosophie dualiste

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7520

Physique et Philosophie de Mach

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6639

Physique et Philosophie de Cohen-Tannoudji

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6427

Physique et Philosophie de Marx/Engels

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6000

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4683

Physique et Philosophie de Popper

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article1708

Physique et Philosophie positiviste

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5119

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4930

Physique et Philosophie agnostique

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3861

Physique et Philosophie de D'Espagnat

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3849

Science et Philosophie

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6150

La science, ce sont seulement des faits ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3443

Le monde matériel existe-t-il objectivement, en dehors de nos pensées ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3352

La physique quantique nous condamne-t-elle à ne pas décrire du tout la réalité sous-jacente aux lois de la physique ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3835

Contre l'empirisme : La science se passe-t-elle de théoriser et se limite-t-elle à constater les faits ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2869

Pourquoi avons-nous besoin de philosopher et ne pouvons-nous simplement nous contenter d'observer le monde et d'agir ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5024

Prouvez-moi que la science n'est pas qu'expérience, mesure et calcul et qu'elle est d'abord philosophie

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2282

La physique n'est pas seulement un calcul mais une pensée, et même une pensée matérialiste dialectique

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4174

La physique, un domaine du consensus ou de l'affrontement des idées ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4054

Un seul monde, deux mondes ou plusieurs mondes ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4107

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5

La science véritable est un débat permanent et ne craint pas la contestation ni les remises en question des vérités admises, la science d'Etat est tout le contraire, elle a besoin d'autorité et de consensus inattaquable et inébranlable…

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7793

Les nombres décrivent-ils toute la réalité ? Le monde matériel est-il totalement mathématique ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7710

Donnez moi une équation et je soulèverai le monde. Les limites des capacités des mathématiques à comprendre le monde.

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7557

Pourquoi la réalité physique n'est jamais purement numérique

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7006

La Science peut-elle se tromper lourdement du fait de préjugés sociaux, d'intérêts économiques ou de pressions du pouvoir ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4102

La démarche scientifique n'est pas celle de l'obéissance à l'autorité

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7553

Pourquoi la classe dirigeante a choisi de détruire toute pensée scientifique dans le grand public

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5348

La classe possédante peut-elle manipuler la science contre… la population ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5919

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7690

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6367

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?breve998

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4203

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7981

La réponse d'Einstein

La réponse d'Heisenberg

Lire encore

La réponse de Schrödinger

La réponse de Louis de Broglie

La réponse de Feynman

La réponse de Simon Diner

Lire encore

[Lire encore -> http://matierevolution.org/spip.php?article8585" class="spip_out" rel="external">Lire encore

La réponse de Cohen-Tannoudji

Lire encore

Lire toujours

La réponse de Comte-Sponville

En Physique, l'unification n'est pas un choix...

Robert Paris — 2026-03-14T23:43:00Z

En Physique, l'unification n'est pas un choix possible mais une obligation…

Astrophysique et Physique, Physique quantique et Relativité, le tout petit et le très grand de la matière, sont absolument contraints de s'unifier que cela leur plaise ou pas. En fait, la physique quantique intervient à tous les niveaux, de la physique des particules à l'astrophysique et la physique quantique elle-même est relativiste depuis Dirac. Pourtant, les deux démarches ne convergent pas encore sur le plan théorique.

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5300

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3850

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3814

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5176

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article447

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7635

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LC-Bml5BV8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_35ubXbYJNs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_AqamFSXpY

Ce qu'est la Physique quantique

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5361

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article568

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3835

Ce qu'est la Relativité générale

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article630

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6216

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4580

Voici quelques propositions diverses pour les unifier mais dont aucune n'a encore triomphé :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W26FXENA6wE

Quand Louis de Broglie défendait une conception de la physique quantique relativiste fondée sur la singularité, la discontinuité et la non-linéarité

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article780

Quand Dirac défendait une mécanique quantique relativiste

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=562aY2i8--c

Une équation inédite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErYfpb8uIcc

La relativité intriquée

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativit%C3%A9_intriqu%C3%A9e

https://www.futura-sciences.com/sciences/actualites/physique-mecanique-quantique-peut-elle-etre-deduite-modification-theorie-relativite-generale-130533/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz68Ad73XMg

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativit%C3%A9_intriqu%C3%A9e

La gravitation quantique

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravit%C3%A9_quantique

Un univers holographique

https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/la-science-cqfd/sabrina-pasterski-reunifier-la-physique-avec-l-holographie-5945122

https://inference-review.com/article/lunivers-holographique

https://www.pourlascience.fr/sd/astrophysique/l-univers-holographique-5308.php

La théorie de l'UCL

https://trustmyscience.com/theorie-unificatrice-relativite-generale-physique-quantique-ucl/

Un univers discret

https://www.nucleodoconhecimento.com.br/fisica-fr/dunification-de-la-physique

La gravité quantique à boucles

https://sciencetonnante.wordpress.com/2016/09/02/la-gravite-quantique-a-boucles/

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitation_quantique_%C3%A0_boucles

La théorie M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrPpqJpI6sE

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9orie_M

Une unification fondée sur le vide quantique

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3698

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2632

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4372

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6728

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article923

Les dimensions supplémentaires

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqAZjsAQXoU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59FXwvlEQVg

La discontinuité de l'espace-temps

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article8182

La gravitation quantique

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7alVIvRZEJ4

La théorie de Verlinde

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkauwd-p3-E

La gravitation quantique à boucles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_raBQnqBD1g

Le point de vue de Lee Smolin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ldggo0nZaw

La théorie des cordes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0UHFU2srEY

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9orie_des_cordes

Espace-temps et intrication

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igCSIg1Y9I4

L'équation relativiste de Schrödinger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXWcT428v9E

La mécanique quantique relativiste

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBQLI5JCa08

Les axions

https://www.pourlascience.fr/sd/physique-particules/la-physique-passe-a-l-axion-23163.php

Le graviton

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton

Mécanique relativiste

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9canique_relativiste

Mécanique quantique relativiste

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9canique_quantique_relativiste

La théorie du Tout

https://fondationlouisdebroglie.org/MEMOS/ToE_fran.pdf

Théorie quantique des champs

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9orie_quantique_des_champs

La Théorie Quantique des Champs

http://www-cosmosaf.iap.fr/Maulion%20D%C3%A9passer%20la%20RG%20et%20la%20TQC.htm

Les neutrinos

https://trustmyscience.com/nouvelles-donnees-neutrinos-nous-rapprochent-modele-gravite-quantique/

La masse holographique

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLeMigTTbKU

Le point de vue de Carlo Rovelli

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEb1KjtRiDw

Chacun peut encore faire ses propositions…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSD5oYWr9-s

Encore des questions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7vrA-GexfE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDiDaMFjf_0

Les idées les plus renversantes de la Physique...

Robert Paris — 2025-11-04T23:01:00Z

Les idées les plus renversantes de la Physique contemporaine

Eh oui ! Les particules ne sont pas des petites boules ni des corpuscules mais des petits nuages de présence possible d'un corpuscule qui saute de l'une de ces poisitions à une autre...

https://www.larecherche.fr/un-nuage-d%C3%A9lectrons-%C2%AB-flash%C3%A9-%C2%BB-pour-la-premi%C3%A8re-fois

Ne nous contentons pas de nous en étonner, expliquons les causes profondes de ces situations paradoxales.

1°) La matière provient du vide et l'énergie aussi…

La matière durable dite « réelle » (comme électrons, protons, neutrons, etc.) s'oppose apparemment à la matière dite « virtuelle » (celle du vide et ses électrons, protons et neutrons éphémères). Mais il suffit de doubler l'énergie d'une particule virtuelle pour qu'elle devienne réelle. L'énergie, ce sont des bosons qui sont émis dans le vide quantique quand le durable devient éphémère…

2°) Quand une particule se dirige vers deux fentes proches, elle passe… à la fois par les deux… Mais si on cherche à capter la particule, on ne la trouve que dans une des deux fentes ! C'est l'expérience renversante dite des « fentes de Young ».

3°) Quand une particule passe en un endroit, elle ne va pas ensuite tout à côté mais saute un peu plus loin… Elle ne suit pas une trajectoire continue.

4°) Une particule de matière (durable) n'est distincte d'une particule du vide (éphémère) que par la quantité d'énergie.

5°) Le temps s'écoule dans les deux sens au sein du vide et c'est la présence de matière durable qui choisit un sens temps.

6°) Dans un cable coaxial, l'énergie vient du… vide !

7°) Le vide peut fournir autant d'énerie qu'on veut, à condition… de la rendre ensuite.

8°) La matière du vide est toujours double : une particule couplée à une anti-particule. Dès que le couple se sépare, les deux disparaissent.

9°) Une particule de spin ½ doit tourner deux fois pour revenir à son état initial.

10°) Le vide quantique ne connait pas l'irréversibilité, la prédictibilité, la continuité, la flèche du temps et pourtant c'est lui qui produit le monde matériel et lumineux qui existe à notre échelle et qui, lui, obéit à l'irréversibilité, la prédictibilité, la continuité et la flèche du temps.

11°) La matière, dite « inerte » par opposition à la matière dite vivante, est sujette à une agitation interne permanente qui l'amène à être un domaine de la dialectique « du hasard et de la nécessité », tout autant que le Vivant.

12°) La matière (durable comme éphémère) est à la fois déterministe et indéterministe, le vide quantique (fondement de l'ensemble) faisant partie du domaine du « chaos déterministe » tout autant que la lumière.

13°) La matière et la lumière s'opposent et se composent, au point qu'on ne peut nullement les séparer ni les opposer diamétralement. Ils se produisent mutuellement. L'univers matière-lumière-vide comprend l'espace-temps.

14°) Le caractère renversant de la Physique contemporaine (pour le bon sens et pour l'ancienne physique) ne provient pas d'insuffisances de la théorie ou de l'expérience, ni de l'influence du cerveau humain sur les expériences, mais du mode de fonctionnement de la nature.

A lire pour répondre à ces questions :

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4047

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article597

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article8013

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4271

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4287

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4339

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5361

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3835

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4613

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6027

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4372

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article38

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7239

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article7580

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article923

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article1469

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3492

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?breve95

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3294

Feynman's Lectures in Physics

Robert Paris — 2025-10-06T13:50:00Z

This two-year course in physics is presented from the point of view that you, the reader, are going to be a physicist. This is not necessarily the case of course, but that is what every professor in every subject assumes ! If you are going to be a physicist, you will have a lot to study : two hundred years of the most rapidly developing field of knowledge that there is. So much knowledge, in fact, that you might think that you cannot learn all of it in four years, and truly you cannot ; you will have to go to graduate school too !
Surprisingly enough, in spite of the tremendous amount of work that has been done for all this time it is possible to condense the enormous mass of results to a large extent—that is, to find laws which summarize all our knowledge. Even so, the laws are so hard to grasp that it is unfair to you to start exploring this tremendous subject without some kind of map or outline of the relationship of one part of the subject of science to another. Following these preliminary remarks, the first three chapters will therefore outline the relation of physics to the rest of the sciences, the relations of the sciences to each other, and the meaning of science, to help us develop a “feel” for the subject.
You might ask why we cannot teach physics by just giving the basic laws on page one and then showing how they work in all possible circumstances, as we do in Euclidean geometry, where we state the axioms and then make all sorts of deductions. (So, not satisfied to learn physics in four years, you want to learn it in four minutes ?) We cannot do it in this way for two reasons. First, we do not yet know all the basic laws : there is an expanding frontier of ignorance. Second, the correct statement of the laws of physics involves some very unfamiliar ideas which require advanced mathematics for their description. Therefore, one needs a considerable amount of preparatory training even to learn what the words mean. No, it is not possible to do it that way. We can only do it piece by piece.
Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is always merely an approximation to the complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it. In fact, everything we know is only some kind of approximation, because we know that we do not know all the laws as yet. Therefore, things must be learned only to be unlearned again or, more likely, to be corrected.
The principle of science, the definition, almost, is the following : The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific “truth.” But what is the source of knowledge ? Where do the laws that are to be tested come from ? Experiment, itself, helps to produce these laws, in the sense that it gives us hints. But also needed is imagination to create from these hints the great generalizations—to guess at the wonderful, simple, but very strange patterns beneath them all, and then to experiment to check again whether we have made the right guess. This imagining process is so difficult that there is a division of labor in physics : there are theoretical physicists who imagine, deduce, and guess at new laws, but do not experiment ; and then there are experimental physicists who experiment, imagine, deduce, and guess.
We said that the laws of nature are approximate : that we first find the “wrong” ones, and then we find the “right” ones. Now, how can an experiment be “wrong” ? First, in a trivial way : if something is wrong with the apparatus that you did not notice. But these things are easily fixed, and checked back and forth. So without snatching at such minor things, how can the results of an experiment be wrong ? Only by being inaccurate. For example, the mass of an object never seems to change : a spinning top has the same weight as a still one. So a “law” was invented : mass is constant, independent of speed. That “law” is now found to be incorrect. Mass is found to increase with velocity, but appreciable increases require velocities near that of light. A true law is : if an object moves with a speed of less than one hundred miles a second the mass is constant to within one part in a million. In some such approximate form this is a correct law. So in practice one might think that the new law makes no significant difference. Well, yes and no. For ordinary speeds we can certainly forget it and use the simple constant-mass law as a good approximation. But for high speeds we are wrong, and the higher the speed, the more wrong we are.
Finally, and most interesting, philosophically we are completely wrong with the approximate law. Our entire picture of the world has to be altered even though the mass changes only by a little bit. This is a very peculiar thing about the philosophy, or the ideas, behind the laws. Even a very small effect sometimes requires profound changes in our ideas.
Now, what should we teach first ? Should we teach the correct but unfamiliar law with its strange and difficult conceptual ideas, for example the theory of relativity, four-dimensional space-time, and so on ? Or should we first teach the simple “constant-mass” law, which is only approximate, but does not involve such difficult ideas ? The first is more exciting, more wonderful, and more fun, but the second is easier to get at first, and is a first step to a real understanding of the first idea. This point arises again and again in teaching physics. At different times we shall have to resolve it in different ways, but at each stage it is worth learning what is now known, how accurate it is, how it fits into everything else, and how it may be changed when we learn more.
Let us now proceed with our outline, or general map, of our understanding of science today (in particular, physics, but also of other sciences on the periphery), so that when we later concentrate on some particular point we will have some idea of the background, why that particular point is interesting, and how it fits into the big structure. So, what is our overall picture of the world ?
1–2Matter is made of atoms
If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generations of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words ? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or the atomic fact, or whatever you wish to call it) that all things are made of atoms—little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.

To illustrate the power of the atomic idea, suppose that we have a drop of water a quarter of an inch on the side. If we look at it very closely we see nothing but water—smooth, continuous water. Even if we magnify it with the best optical microscope available—roughly two thousand times—then the water drop will be roughly forty feet across, about as big as a large room, and if we looked rather closely, we would still see relatively smooth water—but here and there small football-shaped things swimming back and forth. Very interesting. These are paramecia. You may stop at this point and get so curious about the paramecia with their wiggling cilia and twisting bodies that you go no further, except perhaps to magnify the paramecia still more and see inside. This, of course, is a subject for biology, but for the present we pass on and look still more closely at the water material itself, magnifying it two thousand times again. Now the drop of water extends about fifteen miles across, and if we look very closely at it we see a kind of teeming, something which no longer has a smooth appearance—it looks something like a crowd at a football game as seen from a very great distance. In order to see what this teeming is about, we will magnify it another two hundred and fifty times and we will see something similar to what is shown in Fig. 1–1. This is a picture of water magnified a billion times, but idealized in several ways. In the first place, the particles are drawn in a simple manner with sharp edges, which is inaccurate. Secondly, for simplicity, they are sketched almost schematically in a two-dimensional arrangement, but of course they are moving around in three dimensions. Notice that there are two kinds of “blobs” or circles to represent the atoms of oxygen (black) and hydrogen (white), and that each oxygen has two hydrogens tied to it. (Each little group of an oxygen with its two hydrogens is called a molecule.) The picture is idealized further in that the real particles in nature are continually jiggling and bouncing, turning and twisting around one another. You will have to imagine this as a dynamic rather than a static picture. Another thing that cannot be illustrated in a drawing is the fact that the particles are “stuck together”—that they attract each other, this one pulled by that one, etc. The whole group is “glued together,” so to speak. On the other hand, the particles do not squeeze through each other. If you try to squeeze two of them too close together, they repel.
The atoms are 1
or 2×10−8 cm in radius. Now 10−8
cm is called an angstrom (just as another name), so we say they are 1 or 2 angstroms (Å) in radius. Another way to remember their size is this : if an apple is magnified to the size of the earth, then the atoms in the apple are approximately the size of the original apple.
Now imagine this great drop of water with all of these jiggling particles stuck together and tagging along with each other. The water keeps its volume ; it does not fall apart, because of the attraction of the molecules for each other. If the drop is on a slope, where it can move from one place to another, the water will flow, but it does not just disappear—things do not just fly apart—because of the molecular attraction. Now the jiggling motion is what we represent as heat : when we increase the temperature, we increase the motion. If we heat the water, the jiggling increases and the volume between the atoms increases, and if the heating continues there comes a time when the pull between the molecules is not enough to hold them together and they do fly apart and become separated from one another. Of course, this is how we manufacture steam out of water—by increasing the temperature ; the particles fly apart because of the increased motion.

Here we have a picture of steam. This picture of steam fails in one respect : at ordinary atmospheric pressure there certainly would not be as many as three water molecules in this figure. Most squares this size would contain none—but we accidentally have two and a half or three in the picture (just so it would not be completely blank). Now in the case of steam we see the characteristic molecules more clearly than in the case of water. For simplicity, the molecules are drawn so that there is a 120∘ angle between the hydrogen atoms. In actual fact the angle is 105∘3′
, and the distance between the center of a hydrogen and the center of the oxygen is 0.957 Å, so we know this molecule very well.
Let us see what some of the properties of steam vapor or any other gas are. The molecules, being separated from one another, will bounce against the walls. Imagine a room with a number of tennis balls (a hundred or so) bouncing around in perpetual motion. When they bombard the wall, this pushes the wall away. (Of course we would have to push the wall back.) This means that the gas exerts a jittery force which our coarse senses (not being ourselves magnified a billion times) feel only as an average push. In order to confine a gas we must apply a pressure. Figure 1–3 shows a standard vessel for holding gases (used in all textbooks), a cylinder with a piston in it. Now, it makes no difference what the shapes of water molecules are, so for simplicity we shall draw them as tennis balls or little dots. These things are in perpetual motion in all directions. So many of them are hitting the top piston all the time that to keep it from being patiently knocked out of the tank by this continuous banging, we shall have to hold the piston down by a certain force, which we call the pressure (really, the pressure times the area is the force). Clearly, the force is proportional to the area, for if we increase the area but keep the number of molecules per cubic centimeter the same, we increase the number of collisions with the piston in the same proportion as the area was increased.

Now let us put twice as many molecules in this tank, so as to double the density, and let them have the same speed, i.e., the same temperature. Then, to a close approximation, the number of collisions will be doubled, and since each will be just as “energetic” as before, the pressure is proportional to the density. If we consider the true nature of the forces between the atoms, we would expect a slight decrease in pressure because of the attraction between the atoms, and a slight increase because of the finite volume they occupy. Nevertheless, to an excellent approximation, if the density is low enough that there are not many atoms, the pressure is proportional to the density.
We can also see something else : If we increase the temperature without changing the density of the gas, i.e., if we increase the speed of the atoms, what is going to happen to the pressure ? Well, the atoms hit harder because they are moving faster, and in addition they hit more often, so the pressure increases. You see how simple the ideas of atomic theory are.
Let us consider another situation. Suppose that the piston moves inward, so that the atoms are slowly compressed into a smaller space. What happens when an atom hits the moving piston ? Evidently it picks up speed from the collision. You can try it by bouncing a ping-pong ball from a forward-moving paddle, for example, and you will find that it comes off with more speed than that with which it struck. (Special example : if an atom happens to be standing still and the piston hits it, it will certainly move.) So the atoms are “hotter” when they come away from the piston than they were before they struck it. Therefore all the atoms which are in the vessel will have picked up speed. This means that when we compress a gas slowly, the temperature of the gas increases. So, under slow compression, a gas will increase in temperature, and under slow expansion it will decrease in temperature.

We now return to our drop of water and look in another direction. Suppose that we decrease the temperature of our drop of water. Suppose that the jiggling of the molecules of the atoms in the water is steadily decreasing. We know that there are forces of attraction between the atoms, so that after a while they will not be able to jiggle so well. What will happen at very low temperatures is indicated in Fig. 1–4 : the molecules lock into a new pattern which is ice. This particular schematic diagram of ice is wrong because it is in two dimensions, but it is right qualitatively. The interesting point is that the material has a definite place for every atom, and you can easily appreciate that if somehow or other we were to hold all the atoms at one end of the drop in a certain arrangement, each atom in a certain place, then because of the structure of interconnections, which is rigid, the other end miles away (at our magnified scale) will have a definite location. So if we hold a needle of ice at one end, the other end resists our pushing it aside, unlike the case of water, in which the structure is broken down because of the increased jiggling so that the atoms all move around in different ways. The difference between solids and liquids is, then, that in a solid the atoms are arranged in some kind of an array, called a crystalline array, and they do not have a random position at long distances ; the position of the atoms on one side of the crystal is determined by that of other atoms millions of atoms away on the other side of the crystal. Figure 1–4 is an invented arrangement for ice, and although it contains many of the correct features of ice, it is not the true arrangement. One of the correct features is that there is a part of the symmetry that is hexagonal. You can see that if we turn the picture around an axis by 60∘
, the picture returns to itself. So there is a symmetry in the ice which accounts for the six-sided appearance of snowflakes. Another thing we can see from Fig. 1–4 is why ice shrinks when it melts. The particular crystal pattern of ice shown here has many “holes” in it, as does the true ice structure. When the organization breaks down, these holes can be occupied by molecules. Most simple substances, with the exception of water and type metal, expand upon melting, because the atoms are closely packed in the solid crystal and upon melting need more room to jiggle around, but an open structure collapses, as in the case of water.
Now although ice has a “rigid” crystalline form, its temperature can change—ice has heat. If we wish, we can change the amount of heat. What is the heat in the case of ice ? The atoms are not standing still. They are jiggling and vibrating. So even though there is a definite order to the crystal—a definite structure—all of the atoms are vibrating “in place.” As we increase the temperature, they vibrate with greater and greater amplitude, until they shake themselves out of place. We call this melting. As we decrease the temperature, the vibration decreases and decreases until, at absolute zero, there is a minimum amount of vibration that the atoms can have, but not zero. This minimum amount of motion that atoms can have is not enough to melt a substance, with one exception : helium. Helium merely decreases the atomic motions as much as it can, but even at absolute zero there is still enough motion to keep it from freezing. Helium, even at absolute zero, does not freeze, unless the pressure is made so great as to make the atoms squash together. If we increase the pressure, we can make it solidify.
1–3Atomic processes

So much for the description of solids, liquids, and gases from the atomic point of view. However, the atomic hypothesis also describes processes, and so we shall now look at a number of processes from an atomic standpoint. The first process that we shall look at is associated with the surface of the water. What happens at the surface of the water ? We shall now make the picture more complicated—and more realistic—by imagining that the surface is in air. Figure 1–5 shows the surface of water in air. We see the water molecules as before, forming a body of liquid water, but now we also see the surface of the water. Above the surface we find a number of things : First of all there are water molecules, as in steam. This is water vapor, which is always found above liquid water. (There is an equilibrium between the steam vapor and the water which will be described later.) In addition we find some other molecules—here two oxygen atoms stuck together by themselves, forming an oxygen molecule, there two nitrogen atoms also stuck together to make a nitrogen molecule. Air consists almost entirely of nitrogen, oxygen, some water vapor, and lesser amounts of carbon dioxide, argon, and other things. So above the water surface is the air, a gas, containing some water vapor. Now what is happening in this picture ? The molecules in the water are always jiggling around. From time to time, one on the surface happens to be hit a little harder than usual, and gets knocked away. It is hard to see that happening in the picture because it is a still picture. But we can imagine that one molecule near the surface has just been hit and is flying out, or perhaps another one has been hit and is flying out. Thus, molecule by molecule, the water disappears—it evaporates. But if we close the vessel above, after a while we shall find a large number of molecules of water amongst the air molecules. From time to time, one of these vapor molecules comes flying down to the water and gets stuck again. So we see that what looks like a dead, uninteresting thing—a glass of water with a cover, that has been sitting there for perhaps twenty years—really contains a dynamic and interesting phenomenon which is going on all the time. To our eyes, our crude eyes, nothing is changing, but if we could see it a billion times magnified, we would see that from its own point of view it is always changing : molecules are leaving the surface, molecules are coming back.
Why do we see no change ? Because just as many molecules are leaving as are coming back ! In the long run “nothing happens.” If we then take the top of the vessel off and blow the moist air away, replacing it with dry air, then the number of molecules leaving is just the same as it was before, because this depends on the jiggling of the water, but the number coming back is greatly reduced because there are so many fewer water molecules above the water. Therefore there are more going out than coming in, and the water evaporates. Hence, if you wish to evaporate water turn on the fan !
Here is something else : Which molecules leave ? When a molecule leaves it is due to an accidental, extra accumulation of a little bit more than ordinary energy, which it needs if it is to break away from the attractions of its neighbors. Therefore, since those that leave have more energy than the average, the ones that are left have less average motion than they had before. So the liquid gradually cools if it evaporates. Of course, when a molecule of vapor comes from the air to the water below there is a sudden great attraction as the molecule approaches the surface. This speeds up the incoming molecule and results in generation of heat. So when they leave they take away heat ; when they come back they generate heat. Of course when there is no net evaporation the result is nothing—the water is not changing temperature. If we blow on the water so as to maintain a continuous preponderance in the number evaporating, then the water is cooled. Hence, blow on soup to cool it !
Of course you should realize that the processes just described are more complicated than we have indicated. Not only does the water go into the air, but also, from time to time, one of the oxygen or nitrogen molecules will come in and “get lost” in the mass of water molecules, and work its way into the water. Thus the air dissolves in the water ; oxygen and nitrogen molecules will work their way into the water and the water will contain air. If we suddenly take the air away from the vessel, then the air molecules will leave more rapidly than they come in, and in doing so will make bubbles. This is very bad for divers, as you may know.

Now we go on to another process. In Fig. 1–6 we see, from an atomic point of view, a solid dissolving in water. If we put a crystal of salt in the water, what will happen ? Salt is a solid, a crystal, an organized arrangement of “salt atoms.” Figure 1–7 is an illustration of the three-dimensional structure of common salt, sodium chloride. Strictly speaking, the crystal is not made of atoms, but of what we call ions. An ion is an atom which either has a few extra electrons or has lost a few electrons. In a salt crystal we find chlorine ions (chlorine atoms with an extra electron) and sodium ions (sodium atoms with one electron missing). The ions all stick together by electrical attraction in the solid salt, but when we put them in the water we find, because of the attractions of the negative oxygen and positive hydrogen for the ions, that some of the ions jiggle loose. In Fig. 1–6 we see a chlorine ion getting loose, and other atoms floating in the water in the form of ions. This picture was made with some care. Notice, for example, that the hydrogen ends of the water molecules are more likely to be near the chlorine ion, while near the sodium ion we are more likely to find the oxygen end, because the sodium is positive and the oxygen end of the water is negative, and they attract electrically. Can we tell from this picture whether the salt is dissolving in water or crystallizing out of water ? Of course we cannot tell, because while some of the atoms are leaving the crystal other atoms are rejoining it. The process is a dynamic one, just as in the case of evaporation, and it depends on whether there is more or less salt in the water than the amount needed for equilibrium. By equilibrium we mean that situation in which the rate at which atoms are leaving just matches the rate at which they are coming back. If there is almost no salt in the water, more atoms leave than return, and the salt dissolves. If, on the other hand, there are too many “salt atoms,” more return than leave, and the salt is crystallizing.
In passing, we mention that the concept of a molecule of a substance is only approximate and exists only for a certain class of substances. It is clear in the case of water that the three atoms are actually stuck together. It is not so clear in the case of sodium chloride in the solid. There is just an arrangement of sodium and chlorine ions in a cubic pattern. There is no natural way to group them as “molecules of salt.”
Returning to our discussion of solution and precipitation, if we increase the temperature of the salt solution, then the rate at which atoms are taken away is increased, and so is the rate at which atoms are brought back. It turns out to be very difficult, in general, to predict which way it is going to go, whether more or less of the solid will dissolve. Most substances dissolve more, but some substances dissolve less, as the temperature increases.
1–4Chemical reactions
In all of the processes which have been described so far, the atoms and the ions have not changed partners, but of course there are circumstances in which the atoms do change combinations, forming new molecules. This is illustrated in Fig. 1–8. A process in which the rearrangement of the atomic partners occurs is what we call a chemical reaction. The other processes so far described are called physical processes, but there is no sharp distinction between the two. (Nature does not care what we call it, she just keeps on doing it.) This figure is supposed to represent carbon burning in oxygen. In the case of oxygen, two oxygen atoms stick together very strongly. (Why do not three or even four stick together ? That is one of the very peculiar characteristics of such atomic processes. Atoms are very special : they like certain particular partners, certain particular directions, and so on. It is the job of physics to analyze why each one wants what it wants. At any rate, two oxygen atoms form, saturated and happy, a molecule.)

The carbon atoms are supposed to be in a solid crystal (which could be graphite or diamond2). Now, for example, one of the oxygen molecules can come over to the carbon, and each atom can pick up a carbon atom and go flying off in a new combination—“carbon-oxygen”—which is a molecule of the gas called carbon monoxide. It is given the chemical name CO. It is very simple : the letters “CO” are practically a picture of that molecule. But carbon attracts oxygen much more than oxygen attracts oxygen or carbon attracts carbon. Therefore in this process the oxygen may arrive with only a little energy, but the oxygen and carbon will snap together with a tremendous vengeance and commotion, and everything near them will pick up the energy. A large amount of motion energy, kinetic energy, is thus generated. This of course is burning ; we are getting heat from the combination of oxygen and carbon. The heat is ordinarily in the form of the molecular motion of the hot gas, but in certain circumstances it can be so enormous that it generates light. That is how one gets flames.
In addition, the carbon monoxide is not quite satisfied. It is possible for it to attach another oxygen, so that we might have a much more complicated reaction in which the oxygen is combining with the carbon, while at the same time there happens to be a collision with a carbon monoxide molecule. One oxygen atom could attach itself to the CO and ultimately form a molecule, composed of one carbon and two oxygens, which is designated CO2
and called carbon dioxide. If we burn the carbon with very little oxygen in a very rapid reaction (for example, in an automobile engine, where the explosion is so fast that there is not time for it to make carbon dioxide) a considerable amount of carbon monoxide is formed. In many such rearrangements, a very large amount of energy is released, forming explosions, flames, etc., depending on the reactions. Chemists have studied these arrangements of the atoms, and found that every substance is some type of arrangement of atoms.
To illustrate this idea, let us consider another example. If we go into a field of small violets, we know what “that smell” is. It is some kind of molecule, or arrangement of atoms, that has worked its way into our noses. First of all, how did it work its way in ? That is rather easy. If the smell is some kind of molecule in the air, jiggling around and being knocked every which way, it might have accidentally worked its way into the nose. Certainly it has no particular desire to get into our nose. It is merely one helpless part of a jostling crowd of molecules, and in its aimless wanderings this particular chunk of matter happens to find itself in the nose.

Now chemists can take special molecules like the odor of violets, and analyze them and tell us the exact arrangement of the atoms in space. We know that the carbon dioxide molecule is straight and symmetrical : O—C—O. (That can be determined easily, too, by physical methods.) However, even for the vastly more complicated arrangements of atoms that there are in chemistry, one can, by a long, remarkable process of detective work, find the arrangements of the atoms. Figure 1–9 is a picture of the air in the neighborhood of a violet ; again we find nitrogen and oxygen in the air, and water vapor. (Why is there water vapor ? Because the violet is wet. All plants transpire.) However, we also see a “monster” composed of carbon atoms, hydrogen atoms, and oxygen atoms, which have picked a certain particular pattern in which to be arranged. It is a much more complicated arrangement than that of carbon dioxide ; in fact, it is an enormously complicated arrangement. Unfortunately, we cannot picture all that is really known about it chemically, because the precise arrangement of all the atoms is actually known in three dimensions, while our picture is in only two dimensions. The six carbons which form a ring do not form a flat ring, but a kind of “puckered” ring. All of the angles and distances are known. So a chemical formula is merely a picture of such a molecule. When the chemist writes such a thing on the blackboard, he is trying to “draw,” roughly speaking, in two dimensions. For example, we see a “ring” of six carbons, and a “chain” of carbons hanging on the end, with an oxygen second from the end, three hydrogens tied to that carbon, two carbons and three hydrogens sticking up here, etc.

How does the chemist find what the arrangement is ? He mixes bottles full of stuff together, and if it turns red, it tells him that it consists of one hydrogen and two carbons tied on here ; if it turns blue, on the other hand, that is not the way it is at all. This is one of the most fantastic pieces of detective work that has ever been done—organic chemistry. To discover the arrangement of the atoms in these enormously complicated arrays the chemist looks at what happens when he mixes two different substances together. The physicist could never quite believe that the chemist knew what he was talking about when he described the arrangement of the atoms. For about twenty years it has been possible, in some cases, to look at such molecules (not quite as complicated as this one, but some which contain parts of it) by a physical method, and it has been possible to locate every atom, not by looking at colors, but by measuring where they are. And lo and behold !, the chemists are almost always correct.
It turns out, in fact, that in the odor of violets there are three slightly different molecules, which differ only in the arrangement of the hydrogen atoms.
One problem of chemistry is to name a substance, so that we will know what it is. Find a name for this shape ! Not only must the name tell the shape, but it must also tell that here is an oxygen atom, there a hydrogen—exactly what and where each atom is. So we can appreciate that the chemical names must be complex in order to be complete. You see that the name of this thing in the more complete form that will tell you the structure of it is 4-(2, 2, 3, 6 tetramethyl-5-cyclohexenyl)-3-buten-2-one, and that tells you that this is the arrangement. We can appreciate the difficulties that the chemists have, and also appreciate the reason for such long names. It is not that they wish to be obscure, but they have an extremely difficult problem in trying to describe the molecules in words !
How do we know that there are atoms ? By one of the tricks mentioned earlier : we make the hypothesis that there are atoms, and one after the other results come out the way we predict, as they ought to if things are made of atoms. There is also somewhat more direct evidence, a good example of which is the following : The atoms are so small that you cannot see them with a light microscope—in fact, not even with an electron microscope. (With a light microscope you can only see things which are much bigger.) Now if the atoms are always in motion, say in water, and we put a big ball of something in the water, a ball much bigger than the atoms, the ball will jiggle around—much as in a push ball game, where a great big ball is pushed around by a lot of people. The people are pushing in various directions, and the ball moves around the field in an irregular fashion. So, in the same way, the “large ball” will move because of the inequalities of the collisions on one side to the other, from one moment to the next. Therefore, if we look at very tiny particles (colloids) in water through an excellent microscope, we see a perpetual jiggling of the particles, which is the result of the bombardment of the atoms. This is called the Brownian motion.
We can see further evidence for atoms in the structure of crystals. In many cases the structures deduced by x-ray analysis agree in their spatial “shapes” with the forms actually exhibited by crystals as they occur in nature. The angles between the various “faces” of a crystal agree, within seconds of arc, with angles deduced on the assumption that a crystal is made of many “layers” of atoms.
Everything is made of atoms. That is the key hypothesis. The most important hypothesis in all of biology, for example, is that everything that animals do, atoms do. In other words, there is nothing that living things do that cannot be understood from the point of view that they are made of atoms acting according to the laws of physics. This was not known from the beginning : it took some experimenting and theorizing to suggest this hypothesis, but now it is accepted, and it is the most useful theory for producing new ideas in the field of biology.
If a piece of steel or a piece of salt, consisting of atoms one next to the other, can have such interesting properties ; if water—which is nothing but these little blobs, mile upon mile of the same thing over the earth—can form waves and foam, and make rushing noises and strange patterns as it runs over cement ; if all of this, all the life of a stream of water, can be nothing but a pile of atoms, how much more is possible ? If instead of arranging the atoms in some definite pattern, again and again repeated, on and on, or even forming little lumps of complexity like the odor of violets, we make an arrangement which is always different from place to place, with different kinds of atoms arranged in many ways, continually changing, not repeating, how much more marvelously is it possible that this thing might behave ? Is it possible that that “thing” walking back and forth in front of you, talking to you, is a great glob of these atoms in a very complex arrangement, such that the sheer complexity of it staggers the imagination as to what it can do ? When we say we are a pile of atoms, we do not mean we are merely a pile of atoms, because a pile of atoms which is not repeated from one to the other might well have the possibilities which you see before you in the mirror.
1. The original tape recording of this lecture suffered some damage in the making, so it sounds 'clipped' in many places, particularly when Feynman speaks loudly. (This is the only recording in the collection that is damaged.) We have provided a reconstructed version of the recording, as well as the original.

2. One can burn a diamond in air.

https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/

What is the relationship between matter and energy ?

Robert Paris — 2025-10-01T10:50:00Z

What is the relationship between matter and energy ?

Matter and Energy are two inseparable opposites, capable of transforming into one another and yet opposites of one another. This contradiction is expressed in the fact that matter is linked to order and energy to disorder, in the fact that matter is linked to the laws of fermions and energy to the laws of bosons, two systems with opposing laws, in the fact that matter is linked to discontinuity and energy to apparent continuity, in the fact that energy is linked to the void and matter to the apparent non-void. We find these oppositions in wave/corpuscle or continuous/discontinuous… In fact, these opposites are not diametrical and the matter-energy link is unthinkable without dialectics !!! It is enough for matter to emit or absorb light for matter and energy to apparently exchange. I say apparently because it is the construction of the expressions "matter" and "light" as separate objects that is false. Matter does not exist without light and light does not exist without the ephemeral matter of the void...

For a long time, theories have tried to unify the two by excluding one of the two terms ! For some, everything was matter, for others everything was energy or form ! But this method did not succeed in describing the laws of Physics and it was necessary to give up on removing one of the opposites !

Certainly, matter has inert mass and radiation does not, but light does have mass and its path is curved ^by the presence of mass, which means that energy has relativistic mass.

In fact, the dialectical duo energy-matter corresponds to another duo of the same type which is matter-antimatter.

If the two collide, the matter disappears and is transformed entirely into energy. This is the only known situation where the entire mass of matter is transformed into energy.

Matter-antimatter annihilation produces gamma radiation, i.e., very high-energy radiation. But this energy does not remain in this form and instead produces a matter/antimatter pair, i.e., lepton/antilepton (muon/antimuon, for example) or quark/antiquark (k meson, for example), which then produce many other things. This is what physicists routinely achieve in their high-energy electron/positron colliders.

In fact, energy is nothing other than the matter-antimatter couple. It is still a dialectical couple. Even if many physicists are unaware of it, what they write is dialectics ! We can read here "This reaction gives an unexpected meaning to the prefix "anti", which did not mean "destructive" as many people might have imagined but was more equivalent to "opposite".

The basis of the relationship between matter and energy is based on quantum principles through the exchange of a virtual fermion : since energy is based on virtual fermion/antifermion pairs, the real fermion that comes into contact is exchanged with the virtual fermion, the Higgs boson causing the property of "real matter with inert mass" to jump from one fermion to the other. This is how the energy fermion was transformed into a real matter fermion. The pairs of opposites are exchanged, and the contradiction is maintained along the way.

Matter can even less be considered separately from energy since these virtual fermion/antifermion couples constantly surround the real particle with a cloud of polarization which is permanently located around the corpuscle and determines its wave-like character at the same time. Here again the contradiction is dialectical ! And no other philosophy is an interpretation of what we observe : oppositions which do not destroy each other but constantly change participants and sometimes form.

It is therefore the basic mechanism of matter which makes it a whole with energy, even if the latter sometimes has appearances completely opposed to those of matter.

The fact that matter can be transformed into energy and vice versa definitively shows that the contradiction is indeed dialectical...

Note that the interdependence of matter and energy is manifested in the fact that every matter-matter relationship involves energy exchanges, particularly via photons. Without energy, there is therefore no matter-matter relationship possible.

On the other hand, it is the polarization cloud that surrounds the matter particle, composed as we have said of virtual particle-antiparticle couples and therefore of quantum vacuum energy, which prevents two matters from approaching each other to the point of merging, which therefore prevents matter from colliding into a point. An essential property of matter, the matter-matter repulsion at short distances, is therefore produced by energy !

The closer two matters get, the more energy there is between them to repel them. This fundamental property is manifested in a thousand ways in quantum physics, notably by the Heisenberg inequalities which express nothing else. And also by the Pauli principle which expresses this matter-matter repulsion at short distance. It is a property par excellence quantum and inexplicable by classical physics but many physicists are unaware that it is also a dialectical property : it is the opposite of matter which directs matter and the closer matters get, the more they repel each other by means of energy !

The entire probabilistic character of quantum physics is included and interpreted in these fundamental properties and it is essential to emphasize that these properties are indeed both quantum and dialectical.

Yes, Hegel was right : nature leaps forward, nature is based on interpenetrating and exchanging opposites, it passes from one contradiction to another and opposites are interdependent and constructive at the same time as destructive !

Dialectical leaps are the key to the material dynamics that produce not only physical laws but also the change of these, the formation of new structures... Hegel would not have been surprised !

One form of this matter-energy dialectic is the opposition between virtual matter and real matter, based on the opposition between matter and antimatter, and also on the opposition between positive and negative electric charges. And there are still others, such as the dialectical opposition between the virtual of the quantum vacuum and the underlying state called the virtual of virtual !

If quantum physics has seemed so astounding, not only for classical physics but also for ordinary thought and classical philosophy, it is because physicists, like many authors, scientists or not, most often do not know the first word of Hegel's dialectical philosophy... And, even today, no one thinks of teaching it to apprentice physicists, quite wrongly as we see ! So much so that, like Molière's bourgeois gentleman "writes prose without knowing it", scientists write dialectics without knowing it. And, of course, it bothers them extraordinarily to ignore it in order to understand it !!!

The fundamental contradiction for matter-energy is that of the quantum vacuum itself, notably between virtual and virtual of virtual, and it has allowed it to found the other physical dynamics, that is to say at the same time the dialectical contradictions void-matter, void-light and matter-light. As we see the dialectical remark is in no way incidental to understanding modern physics !

Thus, for many physicists, either a particle is electrically charged in a positive way or it is in a negative way. This is to ignore that, thanks to the polarization cloud made up of particle-antiparticle couples which surrounds the charged particle by orienting itself according to this charge, forms successively negative and positive layers which "screen" the charge of the so-called real inert mass particle. This means that, for a charged matter particle which approaches more and more, the other charged particle is successively positive and negative, and is constantly transforming from negative particle to positive particle !!! Yes, all opposites are constantly exchanged : attraction into repulsion, charge into its opposite, corpuscle into wave, etc.

Where does energy come from ?

Yes, but what energy ? For example, the one we consume ? Well, some will say, but we produce it in our factories, in our nuclear and thermal power plants, in our electrical installations, in our battery manufacturing plants, right ?

But human society could not produce energy if natural mechanisms did not produce it ! Humans have not invented any energy that is not natural and they are far from being able to exploit most of the energy produced by nature. The fraction of natural energy that is used by humans is less than 1% !!!

Before our eyes, the Sun produces a crazy amount of energy every day, some of which reaches Earth or the atmosphere, and the radioactive center of the Earth also produces a considerable amount that humans are unable to exploit at the moment. The clouds, the seas, the oceans are also full of crazy energy, none of which is of use to humans.

Light is energy, you might say, and matter is the source of energy, right ?

Well, that is precisely what we want to discuss in this text.

We thus remember the “E = mc²” of Einstein's Relativity which indicates the equivalence between mass and energy.

We also notice how immense this energy is since we have to multiply the mass by the speed of light and then a second time by the speed of light which is enormous...

A very small part of this enormous energy contained in matter dissipates through radioactivity, when a very small piece of matter disappears, transforming entirely into radiation, into energy.

Because energy is radiation !

Light, radioactivity, electromagnetism in general, but also the carriers of the strong and weak nuclear force, are energy.

The photon, the gluon, the W and Z particles, the interaction particles, the bosons in general, these are quantum carriers of energy.

What is the relationship between quanta and energy ?

Well, there is only one quanta. It always has the same value, but it is not energy ! It is a product of energy and time. The shorter the time, the greater the energy, which allows the quanta to always have the same value of a quantity called "action."

However, the question asked was 'where does the energy come from' and not just where it resides...

“Where does it come from” is a question about the origin…

We can therefore think that the energy of the Universe would come from a Big Bang...

But the suns, the physical phenomena show that energy did not only occur billions of years ago but also before our eyes.

Here, for example, is how energy is produced in stars, these suns

This is also how energy is produced in the center of the Earth, in its core

Radioactive energy is primarily natural and not produced by humans in power plants : see here

But natural phenomena as simple as waves or clouds also produce an incredible amount of energy !

In fact, is energy really "produced" before our eyes or is it only "transformed" according to the laws of thermodynamics ? Is it not only passages between quantities of mechanical, calorific, chemical, electrical, magnetic, luminous, nuclear energy, with conservation and not production of energy ?

As far as matter and light are concerned, it is true that energy is not lost and new energy is not produced, it is only conserved and changes form.

Let us recall that Thermodynamics further states that energy, by changing form, changes quality and that these changes can be irreversible.

This means that any quality of energy can be transformed into heat, but the reverse is not true.

Heat is apparently the most disordered energy, and therefore, we cannot completely transform heat into mechanical or electromagnetic energy, for example. Of course, the example of thermal power plants shows that some heat can still be transformed into mechanical or electromagnetic energy.

What does "quality" have to do with this matter of the origin of energy which really seemed to be purely quantitative ?

Energy is always, at some level, a question of agitation. Now, what can be agitated, shocked, and shocked by the rest of the world are material objects, molecules, atoms, particles, all sorts of corpuscles and groups of material corpuscles that exist at various scales of the material universe. Because this universe of matter is organized hierarchically with various levels.

It is known that the level we are at, called macroscopic, is not identical to the level of molecules and living cells, the microscopic level, nor to the level of particles like the electron, the quantum level (the atom is already at the level of one hundred millionth of a centimeter, the nucleus, the proton and the electron go down even further !). It is less known that there are, even below, two hierarchical levels of matter that contain the same material particles but in an increasingly ephemeral and agitated way, these are levels of the quantum vacuum called "the virtual" and "the virtual of virtual", levels that disappear too quickly for any of our devices (which are at the macroscopic scale) to be able to measure directly.

However, it is still matter that we find in the quantum vacuum. And this matter produces shocks, interactions, and for this it needs interaction corpuscles, therefore energy.

Vacuum energy is also carried by corpuscles at the so-called "virtual" level (a term that does not mean that they do not actually exist). These are the same as at the so-called "real" quantum level, but they are not durable.

Virtual bosons all exist, like the virtual photon or the virtual gluon.

And the most remarkable thing is what we are going to say now : all the energy, including that of lasting matter and lasting light, of the "real" universe, all this energy of the Universe comes from the quantum vacuum !!!!

Where does energy come from ? It always and everywhere comes from the void !

Matter and light, durable corpuscles, called real, are all based on structures of the void which require the energy of the void to develop all their properties.

Let's take an extremely common and simple phenomenon to demonstrate this…

An electric current flows through a conductor—there's no more basic experience than this. Well, the energy that allows the current to flow… comes from the quantum vacuum ! Yes, indeed !

How to prove it ?

As everyone knows, the laws that govern this phenomenon are those of Maxwell. From these laws, a mathematical tool has been deduced that allows us to know where the energy comes from, how it enters, how it leaves, in which direction and in which sense : this is what we call the "Poynting vector" from the name of the person who carried out this calculation taken from Maxwell. A vector is precisely a mathematical tool, at the same time numerical, directed and oriented. It allows us to know at any point, how the energy moves, by how much, in which direction and in which sense.

Now the calculation of the Poynting vector S, carried out with regard to the electric current passing in an electric conductor, is very telling : the vector is perpendicular to the conductor and directed towards the conductor.

Towards the conductor, this means that the energy goes to the conductor and comes from where ?

Well, it comes from the… void !!!!!

This means that the passage of current through the conductor modifies the quantum vacuum, structures it and makes it capable of continuously supplying energy to the conductor !!!

In short, the entire conductor and the space around it do not change energy but there is a transfer from the vacuum to the conductor...

Feynman puts the question in his "Course in Physics" (electromagnetism 2) :

“It is clear that the energy of matter is not conserved. When an object radiates light, it loses energy. However, the lost energy can be described in another form, for example, as light. Therefore, the theory of conservation of energy is incomplete without considering the energy associated with light, or more generally, with the electromagnetic field. We will now deal with the law of conservation of energy and also with the momentum of fields. Of course, we cannot deal with one without the other, since in the theory of relativity they are two aspects of the same four-vector (four-dimensional vector).

At the very beginning of Volume I we talked about the conservation of energy, we said there, only, that the total energy of the universe was constant. We now want to extend the idea of the law of conservation of energy in an important way – in a way that tells us in detail “how” energy is conserved. This new law will tell us that if energy escapes from a region, it is because it “flows” across the boundaries of that region. This is a somewhat stronger law than the conservation of energy without such a restriction…

The idea is to assume that there is an energy density u and a flux S which depend only on the fields E and B (electric and magnetic)…

The calculation gives :

u = epsilon zero over 2 times E times E + epsilon zero times c² over 2 times B times B

S = epsilon zero times c² times E times B

c = speed of light

epsilon zero = permittivity of vacuum

This new vector S is the "Poynting vector," named after its discoverer. It tells us the speed at which the field's energy moves through space...

Let's take an example. Consider the flow of energy in a capacitor that we are slowly charging... When the capacitor charges, the volume between the plates receives the energy... There must be a flow of energy entering this volume from somewhere. Obviously, you think, it must come in through the charging wires.

Well, not at all !

It cannot cross the space between the armatures in this direction, because the electric field vector E is perpendicular to the armatures ; E x B (product of two vectors) must be parallel to the armatures.

You remember, of course, that during the charging of the capacitor there is a magnetic field whose field lines are circles centered on the axis… There is therefore an energy flux proportional to E x B which penetrates all around through the edges of the capacitor…

The energy is not actually supplied by the wires but comes from the space surrounding the capacitor...

How is this possible ? It's not an easy question, but here's one way to think about it. Suppose there are charges above and below the capacitor, very far away. When the charges are very far away, there is a weak but very extensive field all around the capacitor. Then, as the charges get closer, the field becomes stronger near the capacitor. So the field energy that's outside moves into the capacitor, and eventually stops between the plates.

As another example, let's look at what happens in a piece of resistance carrying a current. Since the wire has resistance, there is an electric field along the wire, which produces the current. Since there is a potential drop along the wire, there is also an electric field outside and very close to the wire, parallel to its surface. There is also a magnetic field that rotates around the wire, due to the current. The vectors E and B (electric and magnetic) are perpendicular ; therefore the Poynting vector (derived from the vector product E x B) is radial and directed inwards. There is a flow of energy entering the wire all around. This is equal to the energy dissipated in the wire in the form of heat.

So our "crazy" theory says that the electrons get their energy to produce heat because there is a flow of energy into the wire from the external field.

Our intuition suggested instead that the electrons receive their energy from their movement along the wire, and therefore, energy should flow along the wire.

But the theory says that electrons are actually pushed by an electric field due to very distant charges, and that they acquire their energy to generate heat from these fields.

Energy flows in a certain way, from distant charges across a vast region of space, then into the interior of the wire…

You are probably beginning to feel that Poynting's theory at least partially violates your intuition about the location of energy in an electromagnetic field… It is clear that our current intuitions are quite wrong.

When Feynman explains that the energy comes from the field or from space and goes to the conducting wire or to the capacitor that is being charged, it is clear that this means that it is produced by... the quantum vacuum !!!!

Let us remember that the quantum vacuum is made up of particles and antiparticles of ephemeral matter that form the entire world, both the vacuum and also lasting matter and light.

Particles and antiparticles are ephemeral in the void but, when they do not disappear, are coupled.

All kinds of particles, and there are a great many of them, hundreds, not limited to the most well-known ones like electrons, protons and neutrons, exist in ephemeral, virtual form.

So these ephemeral particles exist and move in pairs within the quantum vacuum, then disappear to transform into energy and this transformation creates a permanent energetic agitation in the vacuum.

The vacuum constantly produces energy which it supplies to matter and light, and without which these could not exist.

The mere existence of the durability property of "real" matter particles comes from the fact that they have received a boson (= energy-carrying particle) called Higgs !!!

Light itself is based on the particles and antiparticles of the vacuum that it couples, a photon being equivalent for example to an electron-antielectron couple.

All interactions between atoms or material particles take place through the particles and antiparticles of the quantum vacuum and through photons which are particle-antiparticle pairs.

It therefore takes at least 1 MeV of energy to create an electron-positron pair in a vacuum (the positron being the antiparticle of the electron).

The astrophysicist Cassé writes in "On the Void and Creation" : "At the center of the cloud of the virtual is still a virtual, of a higher order. And these doubly virtual electrons and positrons surround themselves with their own cloud of virtual corpuscles, and this ad infinitum. (…) The resulting quantum image is an electron (…) protected by successive ranks of virtual photons (…) The electron is no longer the simple being it was. (…) It is clothed in fluctuating void. Similarly, each proton is depicted as a concentric microcosm where the different levels of virtuality are arranged. At the center is the real particle, its close guard is made up of the most massive (energetic) and therefore the most ephemeral particles and antiparticles, W and Z bosons, proton-antiproton pairs and gamma photons. The second circle contains the positron-electron pairs and the photons of about 1 MeV. At the periphery float the photons of declining energy. Each virtual particle, as before, surrounds itself with its virtual cosmos and each in turn does the same indefinitely. The vacuum consists of a virtual cloud floating randomly. The frenetic activity around the smallest electron, the smallest proton, takes us forever away from the peaceful image that most philosophers attribute to the word "vacuum."

“At the Heart of Matter” by Maurice Jacob :

“The shorter the observation time, the higher the possible energy fluctuations. Since Planck's constant has a practically zero value when expressed using units of time and energy specific to the human scale, these quantum fluctuations are invisible on our scale, but this is no longer the case for units of time and energy on the scale of particle physics. Quantum fluctuations become omnipresent… If the observation time is of the order of ten to the power of minus twenty-one seconds, a fluctuation of 1 MeV is very likely. We can therefore find an electron-positron pair appearing from nothing and then vanishing because its mass energy is indeed of the order of 1 MeV. If the observation time allowed is now only of the order of ten to the power of minus twenty-four seconds, the vacuum seems to be bubbling with a large number of electron-positron pairs constantly forming and annihilating each other, absorbing or giving off photons, but pions, as if the strong interactions had also awakened. It only takes 300 MeV to create a globally neutral pion pair, one pi plus and one pi minus, and with a time scale of ten to the power of minus twenty-four seconds, an energy fluctuation of the order of 1 GeV is highly probable. Let us go down by a factor of two in the permitted time interval. We see the appearance of proton-antiproton pairs. Let us go up to ten to the power of minus twenty-six seconds and W and Z pairs appear. The weak interactions are now in full swing. We see that, even if everything seems strangely calm on a human scale, all of physics is present in the vacuum. It keeps in memory all the laws of physics so that we can say figuratively that this nothingness contains being in a potential way…
So we arrive at this conclusion : energy is carried by ephemeral particle-antiparticle pairs of the void…”

Why only emptiness ?

Well, it is only in a vacuum that we find antiparticles and ephemeral particles.

Who are these particle-antiparticle pairs ? Well, they are the photon, the W and Z particles for example, or the gluon or any interacting particle...

The energy of the Universe therefore comes exclusively from the quantum vacuum which is also the foundation of matter and light and their energy as well as their properties.

The fact that energy is carried by ephemeral particle-antiparticle couples explains its quantum character. Indeed, the shorter the lifetime of the couple, the more energy it will carry, so that the energy-time product is always equal to one Planck quanta h.

The nature of energy is therefore directly linked to the quantum nature of the Universe !

Quanta or the programmed death of the continuum in physics

Robert Paris — 2025-09-18T07:11:00Z

Quanta or the programmed death of the continuum in physics

The notion of molecule has already represented the end of the continuity of matter, as the chemist August Kékulé noted : "In chemical reactions there is a quantity which enters and leaves in a smaller proportion and never in a fraction of this proportion. These quantities are the molecules defined chemically."

The notion of quanta put forward by Planck and Einstein gave a completely different meaning to the discontinuity of matter. It is not mass (or energy) that contains an integer number of elementary quantities. It is a product of energy and time that is in an integer number of grains. This quantity is called action. That action is quantified means that it is not only the mass of matter that is discontinuous but also the interactions. At that time, it was not far from being considered that light (the grains called photons) but also space, time and the void (virtual photons) were also quantified, a new qualitative leap that quantum physics would have to make, completely abandoning the old ideal of continuity...
"Contrary to what we often hear, the discontinuity that Planck discovers here (with quanta) affects not matter, but interactions. (...) Planck's calculations show that the exchanges of electromagnetic energy are carried by grains, whereas they were believed to be continuous. (...) What Planck discovered was that in every interaction there is an exchange and, moreover, that there is a minimum exchange below which there is no more interaction. (...) It is to Planck that the credit goes for having carried out the first "one-two" against continuity. In 1905, Einstein concluded Planck's "one-two" with a decisive uppercut : he attributes to radiation itself, and not only to energy exchanges, a corpuscular structure. Radiation, essentially discontinuous, is, according to him, formed of a set of corpuscles each carrying a quantum of energy. (...) Radiation is not emitted in a continuous manner." writes Etienne Klein in "Regards sur la matière"

Etienne Klein and Bernard D'Espagnat added in "Regards sur la matière" : "The quantum, as we will see, has a minuscule value, but the idea of the quantum has become as unavoidable as a mastodon. It is indeed proof that one can be both ghostly and essential. Truth of paradoxes, Zeno of Elea already argued."

Gilles Cohen-Tannoudji explains in "Time and its Arrow" (collective work directed by Etienne Klein and Michel Spiro) :

"Heisenberg's inequality marks the irruption of the discontinuous where it was not expected, in interactions. While the discontinuous was accepted in matter, since it is essentially the foundation of the atomic hypothesis, it was thought that interactions were completely continuous. It is indeed the thought of the continuous which constitutes the foundation of Newton's theory of universal gravitation, and Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism is a wave theory, and what is more continuous than a wave or a field ? Neither special relativity nor general relativity changes anything : in classical physics, interactions are entirely continuous. Now the quantum of action is fundamentally a quantum of interaction : there is no interaction unless an action at least equal to the quantum of action is brought into play. We must therefore admit the idea that, just as there are elementary particles of matter, the fermions, there must be elementary particles of interaction. And, In fact, it is proven that the fundamental interactions are indeed carried, conveyed, transmitted, by authentic elementary particles, the bosons. The photon is the boson of the electromagnetic interaction, the W+, W- and Z° bosons are the bosons of the weak interaction and the gluons are the bosons of quantum chromodynamics (the strong interaction at the quark level)."

Henri Poincaré in “Last Thoughts” :

"We are no longer only asking ourselves whether the differential equations
of Dynamics should be modified, but whether the laws of motion can still be expressed by differential equations. And this would be the most profound revolution that Natural Philosophy has undergone since
Newton. The clear genius of Newton had clearly seen (or thought he saw, we are beginning to wonder) that the state of a moving system, or more generally that of the universe, could only depend on its immediately preceding state, that all variations in nature must occur in a continuous manner.
Certainly, it was not he who had invented this idea : it was found in the
thought of the ancients and the scholastics, who proclaimed the adage : Natura non
facit saltus ; but it was stifled there by a host of weeds which
prevented it from developing and which the great philosophers of the 17th century ended up pruning.
Well, it is this fundamental idea which is in question today ; we
wonder if we should not introduce into natural laws discontinuities, not apparent, but essential (…)

CONCLUSIONS

We see what the state of the question is ; the old theories, which
until now seemed to account for all known phenomena, have come up against an
unexpected obstacle. It seemed that a modification was necessary. A hypothesis
first presented itself to Mr. Planck's mind, but so strange that one was
tempted to seek all means of freeing oneself from it ; these means, one has
sought them in vain until now. And this does not prevent the new theory
from raising a host of difficulties, many of which are real and are not
simple illusions due to the laziness of our mind which is reluctant to change its
habits.
It is impossible for the moment to predict what the final outcome will be ;
will another, entirely different explanation be found ? Or, on the
contrary, will the partisans of the new theory succeed in removing the obstacles preventing its unreserved adoption ? Will discontinuity reign over the physical universe and is its triumph definitive ?

Louis de Broglie , in “New Physics and Quanta” :

"Without quanta, there would be neither light nor matter, and, if we may paraphrase a Gospel text, we can say that nothing that has been made has been made in them."

Physicist Leon Lederman :

"If the electron is a point, where is the mass, where is the charge ? How do we know the electron is a point ? Can I get my money back ?"

The electron does not have a fixed position : its charge quivers, its mass jumps from one point to another, its polarization cloud interacts with its neighbors... This defines various "dimensions" of the electron. If it is captured, it is point-like. Its mass is point-like. Its charge is point-like. If it interacts, it is considered by the other object as a non-zero dimension zone. The various dimensions have a ratio between them equal to the fine structure constant alpha. These are the results of quantum physics on the "elementary particle".

What is the atom, the elementary, the "unbreakable" ? A cloud of points at many scales ! These points are the electrified particles, called virtual, which make up the void. The mass property of the electron jumps from one virtual particle in the cloud to another.

Light is made up of two (or an even number) opposing virtual particles of electricity.

The void, with its various hierarchical levels, is therefore the basic constituent of the matter/light universe.

The probabilistic nature of the electron comes from the fact that it is not a single object but a set of nested levels based on the agitation of the vacuum.

The duality property of the elementary particle (behaving both as a corpuscle and as a wave) has been one of the most difficult questions in quantum physics. The wave and the corpuscle are two very opposite descriptions of reality, and yet matter, like light, have been shown to be both corpuscular and wave-like. Both does not mean that one can carry out an experiment that gives both results at the same time. On the other hand, as soon as one carries out an experiment giving a wave-like result, one obtains a wave. And, each time one carries out a corpuscle-like experiment, one obtains a corpuscle. From this arose an interpretation according to which it was human observation that decided the nature of reality…
In fact, duality comes from the fractal nature of the particle. It exists at several scales. If one measures at one scale, one obtains a result at that scale. One therefore loses the result found at another scale.
If the experiment performs a measurement on the polarization cloud, we obtain a wave-like result. If we interact with the material point, we obtain a corpuscular result which proves that the electron is indeed a point and is indeed a single being. But this being exists simultaneously at different levels. On the other hand, as soon as the corpuscle is captured, in an extremely short time, the cloud disappears. Indeed, at the level where the virtual particles are located, the speed limit of light no longer applies. It is the "reduction of the wave packet" which has so complicated the lives of quantum physicists.
We can interpret in this way all the properties, often apparently strange, of the so-called elementary particle, the electron.
Physicists had long noticed that there was a problem in understanding its nature. As Abraham Pais points out in "Subtle is the Lord," probably the best biography of Einstein, "All that remains of this (the work of Abraham, Lorentz, Poincaré, Einstein, ... on the self-energy of the electron) is that we still do not understand this problem." Some physicists even theorize the impossibility of representing it Margenau (1961) : "Electrons are neither particles nor waves (...) An electron is an abstraction, which can no longer be described by an intuitive image corresponding to our everyday expectation but determined through mathematical formulas." But, as Einstein said to Wheeler : "If I cannot imagine it, I cannot understand it." And Einstein affirmed : "You know, it would be enough to really understand the electron. "In 1991, the International Electron Conference in Antigonish wrote : "We are gathered here to discuss our current knowledge of the electron. (…) It is strange to see what an enormous amount of technology is based on the electron without us being able to understand this particle."

These remarks stemmed from numerous theoretical difficulties in interpreting the observed phenomena. The interpretation given here is that of the fractal character of the electron. It explains in particular the quantum jumps of the particle and the atom. There is a jump at each interaction between levels of reality of the particle. The jump in scale explains the jump of the phenomenon. For example, the electron does not follow a trajectory, but jumps from one position to another. This discontinuity comes from the fact that the electron does not move in a continuous space, but interacts with the virtual particles of the vacuum. The "simple" displacement is already the product of this fractal character. The same is true for the interactions between particles of matter, between matter and light, and, more generally, between matter and vacuum.
As for the probabilistic character of the particle, so strange that its discoverer Einstein could not accept it, it would not exist if we were able to study reality simultaneously at all scales.
Much has been said about the "uncertainty" inherent in quantum physics, the supposed limit of human capacity to understand the world or even, some say, proof that materialist realism should be abandoned. In fact, it is the fractal nature of reality that causes this indeterminacy when measuring at a scale.
What physicists have noticed is that when measuring or reasoning at a scale, we must not seek to exceed a certain precision. Otherwise, we do not improve our image, we deteriorate it, but they wondered why. It has often been said that this is contrary to our daily experience and common sense. I do not believe so. When we read a text, we get a little closer to read correctly, but if we get too close, we see less well. There is a favorable scale for reading and we cannot read at all scales at the same time. Similarly, you can't have a map at a scale that can simultaneously show several distant cities and the streets within those cities. You have to choose. Does this mean the map chooses what reality will be ? No, it just means that reality exists at several scales that are different enough that they can't be examined simultaneously.
The polarization cloud surrounding the electron is made up of elements from a lower world, the world of virtual particles characterized by two interrelated properties : no mass and no space-time as we know it at our macroscopic scale nor as it exists (locally) in the environment of a mass. These particles are electrified positively or negatively and dynamically arrange themselves around the electron in alternating positive and negative layers, thus screening the field of the electric charge near the electron. This explains why no electric charge can approach to the point of touching the electron. There are always layers of virtual particles between two "real" particles. Let us recall once again that the so-called virtual particles are just as real as those called real but are located at another level of reality. They are not the only ones since they exist at an even lower level, the "virtual of virtual". Thus, two virtual particles are themselves surrounded, at a lower hierarchical level, by electrified particles. These worlds are not only nested. The levels are interactive. And even more so, since each level emerges from the lower level. The "real" particles are structures carried by virtual particles that receive a Higgs boson. When the virtual particle becomes a mass carrier, it builds a space-time field around itself ; it structures the disordered space-time of the virtual level.
The polarization cloud rotates due to magnetism through the action of the electron's movement. This is called the electron's spin. But the positive and negative layers do not rotate in the same way because the electron is negatively charged. This explains why it takes a turn to return to the initial situation, which is called spin ½.
The electron's charge is point-like. Its mass is point-like. Yet experiments also show that they are never exactly in the same place, hence the internal rotational properties of the electron structure. This difference arises from the fact that the electron's jump does not produce the same reaction at the various space-time scales. Mass moves more slowly than bosons. It takes longer to move. It therefore travels less far. This produces several different motions. The cloud of charge positions is much larger than that of mass : the ratio called the "fine structure constant" is the scaling ratio of the different nested hierarchical worlds and is therefore also the ratio between times or distances. It is therefore also the ratio between the different "electron radii". While mass wobbles around its position (a property called "zitterbezegung"), charge spreads over an entire area.

Henri Poincaré writes in "Lectures on Thermal Radiation" :
"The hypothesis of quanta of action consists of assuming that these domains, all equal to each other, are no longer infinitely small, but finite and equal to h, h being a constant."

Joseph Liouville's theorem, reported by Jean-Paul Auffray in "L'atome" :
"The density of points in the neighborhood of a given point in the phase extension is constant over time."

Poincaré's statement in "The Quantum Hypothesis" :

“Energy is equal to the product of frequency and the element of action. (...) The quantum of action is a universal constant, a true atom. (...) A physical system is capable of only a finite number of distinct states ; and it jumps from one of these states to another without passing through a continuous series of intermediate states. (...) the set of points representative of the state of the system is a region (...) in which the points are so tightly packed that they give us the illusion of continuity. (...) these isolated representative points must not be distributed in space in any way (...) but in such a way that the volume of any portion of matter remains constant. (...) The state of ponderable matter could vary in a discontinuous manner, with only a finite number of possible states. (...) The universe would therefore jump abruptly from one state to another ; but in the meantime it would remain motionless, the various instants during which it remained in the same state could no longer be distinguished from one another : we would thus arrive at the discontinuous variation of time, at the atom of time. (...) If several representative points constitute an indivisible elementary domain in the phase extension, then the states of the system that these points represent necessarily also constitute one and the same state.

Jean-Paul Auffray in "The Atom" :
"Richard Feynman asked his son : 'When an atom makes a transition from one state to another, it emits a photon. Where does the photon come from ?' (...) In Feynman's terminology, the quantum is a virtual photon."

Lochak, Diner and Fargue in “The Quantum Object” :

"Quantum theory developed simultaneously in two different ways. The first consists of highlighting the existence of discontinuous states in the microphysical world and of transitions between these states. The second consists rather in highlighting the fact that corpuscular and wave properties (…) are mixed with each other in all domains. The two ways are therefore closely intertwined. (…) Planck introduced into physics an element of discontinuity, where continuity seemed to reign. According to him, an atom could not absorb light energy little by little, continuously : it could only do so in packets, in quanta, whose extremely small, but still finite, value was determined by a constant that he designated h : Planck's famous constant. (…) The quantum hypothesis meant the strange thing that the motion of atoms does not evolve continuously but by discontinuous leaps : as if a rocket could not rise gradually above the earth to any orbit and could only reach certain particular orbits by jumping abruptly from one to another.

Louis de Broglie , in “New Physics and Quanta” :

"Without quanta, there would be neither light nor matter, and, if we may paraphrase a Gospel text, we can say that nothing that has been done has been done in them. We can therefore understand what an essential inflection the course of the development of our human science underwent the day when quanta surreptitiously entered it. On that day, the vast and grandiose edifice of classical physics was shaken to its very foundations, without anyone really realizing it at first. (…) Faithful to the Cartesian ideal, classical physics showed us the universe as analogous to an immense mechanism capable of being described with complete precision by the location of its parts in space and their modification over time, a mechanism whose evolution could in principle be predicted with rigorous exactitude when we possessed a certain amount of data on its initial state. But such a conception rested on certain implicit assumptions that were accepted almost without realizing it. One of these assumptions was that the framework of space and time in which we almost instinctively seek to localize all our sensations is a perfectly rigid and determinate framework in which every physical event can, in principle, be rigorously localized independently of all the dynamic processes taking place within it. From then on, all developments in the physical world are necessarily represented by changes in the local states of space over time, and this is why in classical science dynamic quantities, such as energy and momentum, appear as derived quantities constructed with the help of the concept of velocity, kinematics thus serving as the basis for dynamics. The point of view of quantum physics is quite different. The existence of the quantum of action, to which we shall have to return so often in the course of this work, in fact implies a sort of incompatibility between the point of view of localization in space and time and the point of view of dynamic evolution ; each of these points of view is capable of being used for the description of the real world, but it is not possible to adopt them simultaneously in all their rigor. Exact localization in space and time is a sort of static idealization which excludes all evolution and all dynamism ; the idea of a state of motion taken in all its purity is, on the other hand, a dynamic idealization which is in principle contradictory with the concepts of position and instant. The description of the physical world in quantum theories can only be done by using more or less one or the other of these two contradictory images.(…) It is nevertheless perfectly legitimate to use kinematics when studying large-scale phenomena ; but for phenomena at the atomic scale where quanta play a predominant role, we can say that kinematics, defined as the study of movement made independently of any dynamic consideration, completely loses its meaning. (…) Classical mechanics and physics were built to account for phenomena that occur at our scale and they are also valid for higher scales, astronomical scales. But, if we go down to the atomic scale, the existence of quanta limits their validity. Why is this so ? Because the value of the quantum of action measured by the famous Planck constant is extraordinarily small compared to our usual units, that is to say, compared to the quantities that intervene at our scale. (…)

The equations of classical dynamics of the material point express that the product of the mass of the material point by any of the rectangular components of its acceleration is equal to the corresponding component of the force. (…) This result expresses that the classical dynamics of the material point is entirely in agreement with the postulate of physical determinism, postulate according to which the future state of the material world must be entirely predictable when we have a certain number of data on its present state.
Another interesting remark is to be made here. Since the material point is assumed to be punctual, its trajectory is a line which explores only a one-dimensional continuum in three-dimensional space. (…) It explores the force field only along its trajectory. (…) In classical mechanics, the topological accidents which may exist in space at finite distances from the trajectory of a material point cannot in any way influence its movement. Let us place, for example, on the trajectory of a material point, a screen pierced with a hole. If the trajectory passes towards the center of the hole, it will not be disturbed in any way by the topological accident constituted by the presence of the screen. (…) It is inconceivable, in classical mechanics, that the movement of the material point crossing the hole in question depends on whether or not there are other holes in the screen. We immediately understand the importance of these remarks for a corpuscular interpretation of Young's hole experiment and we sense that wave mechanics must contribute something new on this point. (…) Since light waves pass through empty spaces without difficulty, it is not matter that transmits them. What then is the support of these waves, what is the medium whose vibration constitutes the light vibration ? This is the question posed to the protagonists of the theory of waves. (…) The ether considered as an elastic medium must be an infinitely more rigid medium than steel because it can only transmit transverse vibrations and yet this very rigid medium exerts no friction on the bodies that pass through it and in no way slows down the movement of the planets. (…) After having shown that the rotational force of the magnetic field is equal to the density of the electric current, thus giving rise to electromagnetism, (…) Maxwell, after having written the general laws of electrical phenomena, realized the possibility of considering light as an electromagnetic disturbance. By this, he brought the entire science of optics within the framework of electromagnetism, thus uniting two fields that seemed entirely distinct. (…) Maxwell's electromagnetic theory provided equations representing exactly on our scale the connection between measurable electromagnetic fields on the one hand, and electric charges and currents on the other. Obtained by uniting the results of macroscopic experiments into a single formal system, their value was incontestable in this field. But to describe the details of electrical phenomena within matter and within atoms, to predict the radiation emitted or absorbed by the ultimate material particles, it was necessary to extrapolate Maxwell's equations and give them a form applicable to the study of phenomena on the atomic and corpuscular scale. This is what was done,with more boldness than it might appear at first glance, one of the great pioneers of modern theoretical physics, HA Lorentz.

Lorentz took as his starting point the idea of introducing the discontinuous structure of electricity into the equations of electromagnetism. (…) By operating averages on elementary microscopic phenomena, we can return from Lorentz's equations to Maxwell's equations. (…) The theory of electrons, built on the bases that we have just outlined, has led to important successes in the prediction of a large number of phenomena. First, it made it possible to rediscover the interpretation of the laws of dispersion. Then, and this was undoubtedly its most important success, it made it possible to predict in an exact manner the normal Zeeman effect, that is to say the way in which the spectral lines emitted by an atom are affected in the simplest case by the presence of a uniform magnetic field. (…) The theory of electrons also seemed to provide the solution to a crucial problem : the origin of the emission of radiation by matter. According to the Lorentz equations, an electron moving in a rectilinear and uniform motion carries its electromagnetic field with it globally and, consequently, in this case there is no emission of energy into the surrounding space. But if the movement of an electron involves acceleration, it can be demonstrated that there is emission of an electromagnetic wave and the energy thus lost at each instant by the electron is proportional to the square of its acceleration. (…) If we want to interpret the radiation of atoms by the movement of intra-atomic electrons, we must assume that in the normal state the electrons inside the atom are immobile ; otherwise, forced to move within the very small domain of the atom, they would necessarily be animated by very accelerated movements and would constantly emit energy in the form of radiation, which would be contrary to the very idea of stability of the atom. (…)

The origin of quantum theory lies in the research carried out around 1900 by Mr. Planck on the theory of dark radiation. (…) If we consider an enclosure maintained at a uniform temperature, the bodies kept in this enclosure emit and absorb radiation and a state of equilibrium is eventually established (…) Kirchoff showed that this state of equilibrium is unique and corresponds to a perfectly determined spectral composition of the radiation enclosed in the enclosure. Moreover, the composition of this radiation depends solely on the temperature of the enclosure. (…) It is often called by the rather incorrect name of “dark radiation” corresponding to this temperature. (…) Mr. Planck had begun by resuming the study of the question by imagining that matter is formed of electronic oscillators, that is to say of electrons capable of oscillating around an equilibrium position under the action of a force proportional to the elongation. (…) Mr. Planck was able to see that the inaccuracy of Rayleigh's law stems from the excessive role played by high-frequency oscillators in the classical image of energy exchanges between oscillators and radiation. (…) Mr. Planck then had the brilliant idea that it was necessary to introduce into the theory a new element, entirely foreign to classical conceptions, which would restrict the role of high-frequency oscillators, and he posed the following famous postulate : "Matter can only emit radiant energy in finite quantities proportional to the frequency." The proportionality factor is a universal constant, having the dimensions of a mechanical action. It is Planck's famous constant h. Bringing into play this paradoxical hypothesis, Planck took up the theory of thermal equilibrium and found a new law of spectral distribution of black radiation to which his name remained attached. (…)

Gradually, the fundamental importance of Planck's idea became apparent. Theorists realized that the discontinuity expressed by the quantum hypothesis was incompatible with the general ideas that had until then served as the basis of physics and required a complete revision of these ideas. (…) To find a general form for his theory, Planck had to abandon the primitive hypothesis of energy quanta and substitute it with the hypothesis of action quanta (product of energy by time or of a quantity of movement by a length).

(...) But Planck's quantization method only applied to movements for the description of which a single variable is sufficient. (...) On the other hand, if the electromagnetic theory in the Lorentz form were really applicable to the elementary particles of electricity, it would allow the calculation without any ambiguity of the radiation emitted by an atom of the Rutherford-Bohr planetary model. (...) the atom constantly losing energy in the form of radiation, its electrons would all very quickly fall on the nucleus and the frequency of the emitted radiation would constantly vary in a continuous way. The atom would be unstable and there could not exist spectral lines with well-defined frequencies, absurd conclusions. To avoid this essential difficulty, Mr. Bohr admitted that the atom in its stationary states does not radiate, which amounts to denying the possibility of applying the electromagnetic theory of radiation to the orbital movement of electrons on their stable trajectories. (..) Bohr resolved the question of the frequencies of spectral lines by assuming that each transition between quantized states is accompanied by the emission of a quantum of radiant energy. (...) In other words, according to quantum theory, the emission of spectral lines from a simple body is discontinuous and proceeds by isolated individual acts.

Louis de Broglie, in “New Perspectives in Microphysics”

"In 1927, I considered it (the pilot wave, called the "de Broglie wave") as a solution with singularity of the linear equations admitted by wave mechanics for the Phi wave (the wave called "probability of presence" by quantum physics). Various considerations, and in particular the connection with the theory of general relativity, made me think that the true equation of propagation of the de Broglie wave could be non-linear like those encountered in Einstein's theory of gravitation, a non-linear equation which would admit as an approximate form the linear equation of wave mechanics when the values of the de Broglie wave were quite low. (...) Unfortunately, this change of point of view does not facilitate the resolution of the mathematical problems which arise because, if the study of solutions with singularities of linear equations is often difficult, that of the solutions of non-linear equations is even more difficult. (…) Einstein placed great emphasis on an important property of nonlinear equations. If the equations of a certain field are linear, one can always find a singularity solution to these equations such that the singularity has a predetermined motion. One can also add a continuous solution to the singularity solution and this addition will have no influence on the motion of the singularity. This is no longer the case if the field equations are nonlinear because one can no longer obtain a solution by adding several solutions : the nonlinearity creates a sort of solidarity between solutions that would have been independent if the linear approximation had been valid everywhere. This nonlinearity explains why the singularity and the de Broglie wave are not independent as they would be if there were linearity and why they remain in phase. (…) Moreover, the non-linearity, not very noticeable in the body of the wave train, can reappear on their edges where the derivative groups of the de Broglie wave could take large values ; there is also a circumstance which can oppose the spreading of the wave trains. It therefore appears that a non-linear theory of de Broglie waves could make it possible to obtain “wave groups without spreading” representing for example a corpuscle which would move in a rectilinear and uniform motion without losing its wave (…) We have seen that in the theory of de Broglie waves, as in the relativistic interpretation of gravitation, the non-linearity of the basic equations must play an essential role and alone can explain the solidarity of the wave and the corpuscle. We have now arrived at the following image. A de Broglie wave train, constituting a corpuscle in the broad sense of the word, would be a sort of extended and organized unit, somewhat analogous to a "cell" in the biological sense of the term.It would in fact essentially comprise the following three parts : 1° a sort of nucleus, the singular region, the corpuscle in the narrow sense of the word, the seat of essentially non-linear phenomena ; 2° an extended surrounding region, the seat of a substantially linear phenomenon ; 3° an envelope constituting the edges of the wave trains where non-linearity would perhaps once again play an important role. Now, it seems to me to be the intervention of non-linear phenomena which would give this "cell" its unity, its solidarity and its permanence.
If it is true that non-linearity is the true key to corpuscular Microphysics, it is easy to understand why current quantum physics has not managed to write the wave-corpuscle dualism and has had to be content with a purely statistical and probabilistic description of phenomena on the atomic scale. Taking a priori linear equations as its basis and not leaving the domain of linear analysis, the current theory makes local accidents due to non-linearity disappear (such as singular regions and possibly abrupt edges of wave trains), it thus erases corpuscular structures and, incapable of grasping the true relationship between wave and corpuscle, it can only lead to continuous images of a statistical nature. (…) The continuous wave (…) not comprising any singular region (…) does not really describe physical reality.

Ten reasons why quanta, real and virtual particles, atomic nuclei, atoms and molecules are not objects in the sense of those in the world of our daily life.

The reasons for clearly distinguishing between, on the one hand, rocks, carpets, furniture, books, living beings, bottles and, on the other, molecules, atoms, atomic nuclei, particles, quanta, is that….

1°) The first are all different, they are individuals and there are no two that cannot be distinguished, even if they are very similar. The identical does not exist among the objects that surround us, whether they are inert or living. There are no more two absolutely identical marbles than two identical human beings or two identical wires or identical stars. On the other hand, two quanta of the same type in the same state are identical. If they come closer, they can no longer be distinguished. The same is true of two electrons or two protons, two nuclei, two atoms or two molecules of the same type in the same state. They cannot be distinguished not only by observation but also by theory. This means that nature itself does not distinguish the two quanta. It is therefore exactly the opposite of the situation of two objects on our scale which are never absolutely identical.

2°) Objects on our scale, non-quantum if we can say so because we will see that in fact all reality has a quantum foundation, have another particularity which distinguishes them from quantum objects : the former follow trajectories, the latter do not. The former seem to pass continuously from one point to another without break while the latter always jump from one position to another, without continuity. The jump does not apparently exist in reality on our scale and it is the rule for quanta. We can follow the trajectory of a cannonball or an airplane as if they followed continuous paths without any jump, in a way completely opposed to the movement of quanta. Even worse, when we follow the path of a quanta, we cannot even be sure that it is always the same ! Here too, it is not our observation which does not allow us to be sure, the theory also does not allow it which means that nature cannot discriminate between one particle and another passing nearby. They can be exchanged without changing the dynamics...

3°) In fact, quanta cannot move from one position to another continuously because they do not have a position but a probability of presence concentrated in a zone which is determined and they jump from a probability of presence in one zone to another… probability of presence (and not a position) ! This is absolutely not the case for matter at our scale. Quanta are marked in an obligatory and permanent manner by Heisenberg inequalities which cannot be violated while they absolutely do not exist for matter at our scale. These inequalities connect parameters describing the object, parameters whose precisions are connected in the following way : the more one is precise, the more the other… is not ! For example, the position of a quanta and its speed cannot be precise at the same time. This property absolutely does not exist for matter at our scale. Details of parameters of the same object that decrease while others increase are not found for cannonballs, airplanes, vehicles, planets, or any other object in our everyday world.

4) At our scale, objects can be measured, illuminated, captured, or observed without modifying or interrupting the dynamics and this is not at all the case at the quanta scale (from particle to molecule). Even worse, for quanta, it is enough to measure or capture one element of the quanta for the others to disappear !

5°) Quanta are both waves and corpuscles, whereas the objects in our world are either one or the other exclusively. Therefore, capturing the quantum corpuscle immediately suppresses the wave ! As if we were suppressing a duck or a boat by suppressing the wave it produces on a water surface !

6°) Rotation is still a source of discord between quantum and classical (as we call the macroscopic level where quantum effects do not manifest themselves). Indeed, a quantum object is brought back to its initial state by a rotation of two turns while a classical object is brought back by a rotation of only one turn. And there is no classical object that needs two turns to return to its initial state !

7) Another disagreement : when we count the number of objects. On our scale, we find a fixed number that cannot change unless we bring an object from outside. Those who claim the opposite are magicians, mystics, sorcerers and other nonsense talkers. On the quantum scale, the number of objects is not fixed. Quantum objects can perfectly well appear and disappear without there being anything mysterious or magical about it. We understand how it works perfectly : it is enough for a vacuum particle, called virtual, to receive enough energy (for example by receiving a Higgs boson) for it to suddenly become real (it has doubled its internal energy).

8°) The law of conservation of the total energy of an isolated system, always verified at our scale, cannot work at the quantum level for the simple reason that there is no isolated system there and that the vacuum energy can constantly provide it to the quanta.

9°) Causality following the arrow of time is a rule on our scale and not at all on the quantum scale. It is very possible that actions take place in quantum terms in the opposite direction of the arrow of time. Quanta do not follow a single sequence of punctual events but they obey the passage from one set of possibilities with various probabilities to another set of possibilities with various probabilities.

10°) Multiple notions, such as spin, orbitals, wave packet reduction, presence probability wave, tunnel effect, virtual cloud, virtual particles and antiparticles and their formation in clouds allowing in particular the screening of the particle and the phenomenon of Young's slits, creation-annihilations, quantum numbers, quantum transitions and many others do not have any currency at our scale (classical physics) and are unavoidable at the quantum level.

What should we conclude from this ? That classical physics is completely wrong and that we are misled by our everyday worldviews ? Not really ! That quantum physics is talking nonsense ? Not at all ! It underpins all of reality, both quantum and classical, and explains both, as well as the transition from one to the other (called "decoherence").

In fact, it is quantum reality that is at the base of the world, and at the foundations of this quantum reality, there are the different levels of the quantum vacuum, called the virtual. This physics is the quantum physics of discrete fields in the sense that it is based on virtual quanta (particles and antiparticles with an energy half that of so-called real particles). And in this regard, let us recall an eleventh opposition between the quantum and classical worlds : in the former, the vacuum is not diametrically opposed to matter, whereas in the latter, matter is vacuum !

What is an atom ? What is a particle ? What is an electron ?

Robert Paris — 2025-09-10T08:09:00Z

What is an atom ? What is a particle ? What is an electron ?

"The electron is unthinkable without its procession of potential photons."

Gilles Cohen-Tannoudji in "Matter-Space-Time"
We have long sought the "atom," that is, the indivisible, fundamental object, the elementary brick of an entire edifice of the construction of the universe. Quantum physics has shown that there is no elementary object in the absolute and not even any fixed objects, because the atom (or the particle like the electron or the proton) is not conceivable without the exchanges of photons that allow electrons to change atomic layer, for example. Or that allow the various particles to interact. Matter has no direct relationship with matter without passing through so-called interaction particles. It absorbs them and emits them. And it does so because, potentially, they are part of its environment called a cloud. The proton, the neutron, or the quarks are no more individual particles that exist without a cloud that is a procession of gluons, for example. This property is fundamental in the quantum interpretation of the atom and its jumps from one state to another. It is the basis for the study of the atom through that of light emissions, or emission spectrum. It is also the basis of a new understanding of the stability of matter, which is not based on fixity as individual objects but on dynamic phenomena that allow the conservation of certain properties thanks to high-speed changes called virtual because the world on our scale does not see them directly. They appear and disappear in a time shorter than the times characteristic of the interactions of matter and light.

Even if the virtual is not directly "visible" or "sensible" to us and our observation devices, experiments of all kinds on particles impose its existence which alone can allow them to be explained.

The particle is "dressed" by its virtual cloud formed by the transformation of the quantum vacuum surrounding it near the particle. This means that all the characteristics of the particle, such as mass or charge, and all the experiments of interaction of the particle cannot be interpreted if we consider the "naked" corpuscle without a virtual cloud around it.

Virtual means fleeting but also means potential because the particle can jump from one point in its cloud to another.

When the particle interferes with itself as in Young's slit experiment, the only possible interpretation is that it has passed through both slits. It is not the corpuscle but the cloud which passes through both and which interferes with itself, thus modifying the probabilities of presence.

When the particle is both a wave and a corpuscle, that is to say before measurement or observation, it is because it is a dressed corpuscle.

When there is a "reduction of the wave packet", this means that the disappearance of the corpuscle instantly leads to that of the cloud.

When a charge "feels" the charge e of the electron, it is the product of the action of all the virtual charges of the cloud because there are in the cloud electrically charged virtual particles and antiparticles which position themselves in layers around the particle and "screen" it.

When two oppositely charged particles do not fall on each other, this again comes from the dynamics represented by the corpuscle and its cloud.

When a particle passes through a sufficiently small hole, it momentarily loses its cloud and therefore its orientation. This is diffraction.

When the particle passes through a "tunnel", it moves almost instantly because it momentarily loses its cloud.

It is its cloud that slows down the particle, thus defining its mass and speed.

and, etc....
What matter and light are for us today :

Matter and light are two dialectically opposed phenomena, that is to say, inseparable inverses. No communication between matters without the exchange of light (physicists say photons or bosons for "light" or even interaction particles). No matter without an entourage of so-called virtual photons. No perception of these photons without matter. Matter and light also manifest an impressive unity. They are both made of quanta of action. Matter emits and absorbs light. They obey quantum laws identically, notably with this astonishing property of wave/corpuscle duality, this no less astonishing property of plurality of states and finally that of quantum jumps. However, matter and light oppose each other. Some obey an attractive logic (bosons) and others a repulsive logic called the Pauli principle (material particles). This means that light particles tend to group together between photons that are in phase and the particles cannot exist in the same state.

Both are structures and rhythms resulting from the constant, all-round interactions of a large number of coupled dipolar oscillators, which are pairs of particles and their virtual antiparticles of the quantum vacuum.

Neither light nor matter, even in their so-called elementary manifestations (a single corpuscle), are objects. They are phenomena of emergence of structure and rhythm. They are based on a large number of virtual particles and virtual photons.

For a long time, it was believed that reality was described by objects, atoms, or particles. These were "things," that is, fixed elements characterized by constant parameters. We talked about the charge of an electron, the mass of an atom, or the trajectory (speed and position) of a particle. All of this had to be abandoned in the face of the discoveries of quantum physics. What image ultimately emerges from this great upheaval ? None, some will say. For the "Matter and Revolution" website, this is not the case.

It turns out that the parameters and structures that appear owe their durability to an extraordinarily lively dynamic based on shocks. The attributes that seemed attached to each corpuscle are not properties that belong to it in a fixed way. Any corpuscle can change its nature abruptly and does so constantly. If a certain type of corpuscle is preserved in a given area, this is not due to an individual conservation of each corpuscle. The number of a certain type of corpuscle can even change.

The property of mass, far from being attached to a particle, constantly jumps from one particle to another, from a material electron to a virtual electron which will thus be materialized. The property of "matter" therefore jumps from one virtual particle of the void to another. Every virtual electron is destined to eventually become real and vice versa. The reality in question is only an existence at a certain level, the virtual an existence no less real but on a much shorter scale. Every virtual proton can also become real and vice versa. On the other hand, a proton can change into a neutron within the nucleus of the atom, and vice versa. Here again, the oppositions can change into their opposite. Proton into neutron as previously matter into void and void into matter. Similarly, the interaction quanta is not fixed. Every photon can also change into a matter and antimatter pair, for example virtual electrons and positrons. As a result, the photon can "mix" with matter to produce new matter and new photons by exchanging virtual particles. Particles can also exchange photons. All these interactions change matter and light and occur through collisions, interactions on a scale much faster than the characteristic times of the phenomena on which they act. Similarly, one quark can change into another. Color is not a parameter attached to the quark but a property that can jump from one quark to another. A neutrino can also spontaneously change into another. An atomic nucleus can change into one or more others, just as spontaneously.

So all the characteristics that were previously attributed to the object jump and all the dynamics are the product of these jumps.

The appearance of structures and "constants" is only the product of these exchanges of properties or averages over a large number of particles.

The electron property can be maintained, but only by jumping from one corpuscle to another. If we try to follow an electron individually, we see that it disappears and reappears further away. And, more surprisingly, a corpuscle can reappear before disappearing. There has been a distortion of time. In these jumps, time no longer resembles its old, tranquil image, moving as if on a continuous line traveled regularly. In dynamics, time does not travel a linear succession of successive instants resembling points aligned like instants.

Here again, time, but also space, do not resemble the world in which we believe we live on our scale : that of macroscopic objects which do not seem to undergo sudden appearances and disappearances.

Maurice Jacob in "At the Heart of Matter" :

"At the heart of matter and on the scale of the cosmos

Nature is richer than our imagination. We can dismantle molecules into atoms. We can tear the electrons from an atom and separate the protons and neutrons that make up its nucleus. We discover the different levels of matter that bring into play increasingly elementary constituents. (...) Mass, this property that we thought was intrinsically associated with an object and which resulted from the addition of the masses of its constituents, a mass that we associated with each particle before considering the forces to which they could be subjected, this mass becomes a dynamic effect of the actions to which the fundamental constituents are subjected. (...) The elementary particles are quarks (which notably form protons and neutrons) and leptons (like the electron). (...) The forces that allow them to interact with each other are all of the same type : they take the particular form of an exchange of bosons. (...) One of these bosons is the "grain of light", the photon. (...) Two charged particles attract or repel each other by exchanging photons. During a collision, or simply when accelerated, a charged particle can emit a photon (...) whose frequency is proportional to its energy. (...) The atom is formed of a very small nucleus surrounded by a "cloud" of electrons. The radius of the nucleus is a hundred thousand times smaller than that of the atom, but it contains practically all the mass. The atom is therefore practically empty, but its volume, extremely vast compared to that of the nucleus, is filled by the incessant movement of electrons which are concentrated on successive layers. The nucleus has a positive charge and the electrons have a negative charge. They are all attracted by the nucleus but rotate at a respectable distance. The atom is globally neutral, the total charge of the electrons being compensated by that of the protons which are found in its nucleus. (....) In quantum physics, we must give up considering a particle as perfectly localizable. (...) This quantum blur can clash with natural intuition (...) can we not consider the observation of an electron for a very short time during which it could only travel a small part of the distance associated with this quantum blur ? It is possible but in this case we can no longer distinguish the electron from the multiple other particles (pairs of electrons and fugitive positrons from the vacuum) which can be freely emitted and reabsorbed during this very short time. (...) The vacuum is animated by the continual creation and rapid disappearance of electron-positron pairs (the positron is the antiparticle of the electron). These are virtual pairs (...) The negatively charged electron will attract the positrons of these virtual pairs by repelling their electrons. As it approaches the electron, the photon will find itself surrounded by a "cloud" of positive charge due to the attracted virtual positrons.He will have the impression that the charge of the electron is weaker than that announced. (...) the mass of the particles comes from the structure of the vacuum which froze at the beginning of the evolution of the Universe (...) The diversity of matter comes out of the structure of the vacuum. (...) the vacuum is bubbling with activity, it can even exist in several forms and manifest a structure. (...) This bubbling of activity is of a quantum nature."

The atom is not an object that can be apprehended like a marble or another "thing" that is to say a matter to catch or follow in a regular movement in space. This was a disappointment for many physicists but it must be admitted that nature cannot be reduced to this type of notion like the one that was called "the elementary particle". This reductionism is no longer current in physics. We will try to show that it has been replaced by a much more fascinating and dynamic notion that combines the existence of matter but as the emergence of a lasting structure, of an order, within an extraordinarily agitated universe. And this order is fractal, coexists at several hierarchical levels having between them astonishing feedbacks.

Here we have the last "classical image" of the quantum world of the atom : a nucleus around which electrons revolve. But this image has long since shown its limitations. And first, if such a set existed, it would not last long enough to tell ! It would have no stability. How can we replace this image ? This requires several conceptual revolutions. The problems stem from a macroscopic vision of the world, but this is not the only problem. There are also false images of stability, of space-time, reductionist, continuist, linear images of the world. Because the conception of the world has not advanced as quickly as our knowledge and our techniques.

Louis de Broglie writes in "La physique nouvelle et les quanta" :
"If the electromagnetic theory in the form of Lorentz were really applicable to the elementary particles of electricity, it would allow the calculation without any ambiguity of the radiation emitted by an atom of the Rutherford-Bohr planetary model. (...) the atom constantly losing energy in the form of radiation, its electrons would all very quickly fall on the nucleus and the frequency of the emitted radiation would constantly vary in a continuous way. The atom would be unstable and there could not exist spectral lines with well-defined frequencies, absurd conclusions. To avoid this essential difficulty, Mr. Bohr admitted that the atom in its stationary states does not radiate, which amounts to denying the possibility of applying the electromagnetic theory of radiation to the orbital motion of electrons on their stable trajectories. (...) Bohr resolved the question of the frequencies of the spectral lines thanks to the hypothesis that each transition between quantized states is accompanied by the emission of a quantum of radiant energy. (...) In other words, according to quantum theory, the emission of spectral lines from a simple body is discontinuous and proceeds by isolated individual acts."

Elementarity is a concept that must be overturned. The "objectification" of the world must also be questioned. There are no longer any fixed objects in microscopic physics. Finally, the place of the void must be reviewed.

Continuous trajectories of the electron around the nucleus do not exist.

The "objects" electron, neutron or proton do not exist as things independent of the space in which they move.

Shakespeare in "Hamlet" Act I :

"It only takes one atom to disturb the mind's eye."

Physicist Erwin Schrödinger :

"Particles are not identifiable objects. (...) they could be considered as events of an explosive nature (...) We cannot arrive - neither in the case of light nor in that of cathode rays - at understanding these phenomena by means of the concept of an isolated, individual corpuscle endowed with a permanent existence."

Physicist Léon Léderman :

"If the electron is a point, where is the mass, where is the charge ? How do we know the electron is a point ? Can I get my money back ?"

Physicist Manfred Mac Gregor in "The Enigmatic Electron" :

"There is a world in the electron"

Michel Paty in “New Journeys to the Land of Quanta” :

"The electron interacts with the "virtual pairs" of its own electromagnetic field. (…) The quantum vacuum contains such virtual pairs and this effect has been observed under the name of "vacuum polarization". The electron is found to interact with the charge of one of the elements of the virtual pair, so that a quantum electron is never "naked" but "dressed" in a swarm or cloud of virtual pairs which polarize its immediate environment and consequently modify its energy levels. (…) The so-called renormalization procedure considers that the mass and physical charge of the electron are those of the "dressed" electron and not those of the "naked" electron. The latter does not really exist, since it is always unthinkable without its field."

The electron does not have a fixed position : its charge quivers, its mass jumps from one point to another, its polarization cloud interacts with its neighbors... This defines various "dimensions" of the electron. If it is captured, it is point-like. Its mass is point-like. Its charge is point-like. If it interacts, it is considered by the other object as a non-zero-dimensional zone. The various dimensions have a ratio between them equal to the fine structure constant alpha. These are the results of quantum physics on the "elementary particle".

Light is made up of two (or an even number) opposing virtual particles of electricity.

The void, with its various hierarchical levels, is therefore the basic constituent of the matter/light universe.

The probabilistic nature of the electron comes from the fact that it is not a single object but a set of nested levels based on the agitation of the vacuum.

The duality property of the elementary particle (behaving as both a corpuscle and a wave) has been one of the most difficult questions in quantum physics. Wave and corpuscle are two very opposite descriptions of reality, and yet matter, like light, have been shown to be both corpuscular and wave-like. Both does not mean that one can perform an experiment that gives both results at the same time. On the other hand, as soon as one performs an experiment that gives a wave-like result, one obtains a wave. And, each time one performs an experiment of the corpuscle type, one obtains a corpuscle. From this arose an interpretation according to which it was human observation that decided the nature of reality…

In fact, duality stems from the fractal nature of the particle. It exists at multiple scales. If you measure at one scale, you get a result at that scale. As a result, you lose the result found at another scale.

If the experiment performs a measurement on the polarization cloud, we obtain a wave-like result. If we interact with the material point, we obtain a corpuscular result which proves that the electron is indeed a point and is indeed a single being. But this being exists simultaneously at different levels. On the other hand, as soon as the corpuscle is captured, in an extremely short time, the cloud disappears. Indeed, at the level where the virtual particles are located, the speed limit of light no longer applies. It is the "reduction of the wave packet" which has so complicated the lives of quantum physicists.

This is how we can interpret all the properties, often seemingly strange, of the so-called elementary particle, the electron.
Physicists had long noticed that there was a problem in understanding its nature. As Abraham Pais points out in "Subtle is the Lord," probably the best biography of Einstein, "All that remains of this (the work of Abraham, Lorentz, Poincaré, Einstein, ... on the self-energy of the electron) is that we still do not understand this problem." Some physicists even theorize the impossibility of representing it Margenau (1961) : "Electrons are neither particles nor waves (...) An electron is an abstraction, which can no longer be described by an intuitive image corresponding to our everyday hope but determined through mathematical formulas." But, as Einstein said to Wheeler : "If I cannot imagine it, I cannot understand it." » And Einstein said : "You know, it would be enough to really understand the electron." In 1991, the International Electron Conference in Antigonish still wrote : "We are gathered here to discuss our current knowledge of the electron. (…) It is strange to see what an enormous mass of technology is based on the electron without us being able to understand this particle." This pessimism of physicists in the face of the contradictions of the electron has a real basis : it is impossible to give a single coherent picture of its functioning if we consider the electron to be a single object on a single scale.

These remarks actually stemmed from numerous theoretical difficulties in interpreting the observed phenomena. The interpretation given here is that of the fractal character of the electron. It explains in particular the quantum jumps of the particle and the atom. There is a jump at each interaction between levels of reality of the particle. The jump in scale explains the jump of the phenomenon. For example, the electron does not follow a trajectory, but jumps from one position to another. This discontinuity comes from the fact that the electron does not move in a continuous space, but interacts with the virtual particles of the vacuum. The "simple" displacement is already the product of this fractal character. The same is true for the interactions between particles of matter, between matter and light, and, more generally, between matter and vacuum.
As for the probabilistic character of the particle, so strange that its discoverer Einstein could not accept it, it would not exist if we were able to study reality simultaneously at all scales.
Much has been said about the "uncertainty" inherent in quantum physics, the supposed limit of human capacity to understand the world or even, some say, proof that materialist realism should be abandoned. In fact, it is the fractal nature of reality that causes this indeterminacy when measuring at a scale.
What physicists have noticed is that when measuring or reasoning at a scale, we must not seek to exceed a certain precision. Otherwise, we do not improve our image, we deteriorate it, but they wondered why. It has often been said that this is contrary to our daily experience and common sense. I do not believe so. When we read a text, we get a little closer to read correctly, but if we get too close, we see less well. There is a favorable scale for reading and we cannot read at all scales at the same time. Similarly, you can't have a map at a scale that can simultaneously show several distant cities and the streets within those cities. You have to choose. Does this mean the map chooses what reality will be ? No, it just means that reality exists at several scales that are different enough that they can't be examined simultaneously.
The polarization cloud surrounding the electron is made up of elements from a lower world, the world of virtual particles characterized by two interrelated properties : no mass and no space-time as we know it at our macroscopic scale nor as it exists (locally) in the environment of a mass. These particles are electrified positively or negatively and dynamically arrange themselves around the electron in alternating positive and negative layers, thus screening the field of the electric charge near the electron. This explains why no electric charge can approach to the point of touching the electron. There are always layers of virtual particles between two "real" particles. Let us recall once again that the so-called virtual particles are just as real as those called real but are located at another level of reality. They are not the only ones since they exist at an even lower level, the "virtual of virtual". Thus, two virtual particles are themselves surrounded, at a lower hierarchical level, by electrified particles. These worlds are not only nested. The levels are interactive. And even more so, since each level emerges from the lower level. The "real" particles are structures carried by virtual particles that receive a Higgs boson. When the virtual particle becomes a mass carrier, it builds a space-time field around itself ; it structures the disordered space-time of the virtual level.
The polarization cloud rotates due to magnetism through the action of the electron's movement. This is called the electron's spin. But the positive and negative layers do not rotate in the same way because the electron is negatively charged. This explains why it takes a turn to return to the initial situation, which is called spin ½.
The electron's charge is point-like. Its mass is point-like. Yet experiments also show that they are never exactly in the same place, hence the internal rotational properties of the electron structure. This difference arises from the fact that the electron's jump does not produce the same reaction at the various space-time scales. Mass moves more slowly than bosons. It takes longer to move. It therefore travels less far. This produces several different motions. The cloud of charge positions is much larger than that of mass : the ratio called the "fine structure constant" is the scaling ratio of the different nested hierarchical worlds and is therefore also the ratio between times or distances. It is therefore also the ratio between the different "electron radii". While mass wobbles around its position (a property called "zitterbezegung"), charge spreads over an entire area.

One of the oddities of electron physics is quantum : it is the superposition of states. Two interacting particles share their states. This would make no sense if we kept the image of the particle, an independent object. The "superposition of states" cannot be interpreted as a physical wave, which is why the first quantum physicists spoke only of a "presence probability wave." But what is the physical reality of the phenomenon leading to this presence probability ? How does the electron "know" that it must take this or that position within its presence probability cloud ? Quantum physics has long answered that there was no answer, and some even ventured to say that there never would be. This was logical for quantum physics : within its formalism, the question could not be asked. However, the study of the vacuum has changed the data of the problem. It taught us the existence of an entire vacuum medium, a restless medium full of energy : positive and negative quanta that appear and disappear in a very short time. "Virtual particles" were first used as a basis for calculations before their reality was recognized. Today, the existence of several levels of the vacuum is accepted. There is thus a virtual of the virtual. Particles do not interact at a distance but through the vacuum. However, the quantum vacuum is a medium with very different properties from those we know at the level of matter we know. First of all, there are as many antiparticles as particles. Then, space and time are agitated in all directions, constantly jumping, preventing any notion of trajectory or force. Virtual particles have no mass. Energy and momentum are concepts that are current, but they are used differently. There is no conservation of energy at all times. In matter on our scale, energy cannot suddenly appear where it did not exist. Within the quantum vacuum, energy is only globally conserved. Any energy that appears within the vacuum must disappear within a short time, the shorter the time the energy is significant. This is what establishes the notion of quanta : the product of time and energy.
There is a link between the vacuum and matter/light. The vacuum is not only the media of matter-matter or matter-light interactions, it is the foundation of matter and light. It is the vacuum that constantly produces the phenomena of "matter" and "light." The vacuum is not only the space in which photons and particles move. This movement is nothing other than an interaction with the vacuum. Moreover, the vacuum is the constituent of matter and light.
The result is a new understanding of matter and light. Particles and photons have in common... the vacuum that composes them ! Particles do not interact through mechanical collisions but through interactions between elements at a lower level : that of the vacuum. As a result, particles can exchange their virtual components : interact. They can thus constitute superpositions of states, correlated states.

Joseph Liouville's theorem, reported by Jean-Paul Auffray in "L'atom" :

"The density of points in the neighborhood of a given point in the phase extension is constant over time."

Poincaré's statement in "The Quantum Hypothesis" :

Jean-Paul Auffray in “The Atom” :

"Richard Feynman asked his son : 'When an atom makes a transition from one state to another, it emits a photon. Where does the photon come from ?' (...) In Feynman's terminology, the quantum is a virtual photon."

Excerpts from "Between Time and Eternity" by Prigogine and Stengers :

"The reason for quantum chaos is the appearance of resonances. (...) These resonances, which characterize all the fundamental situations of quantum mechanics, correspond to interactions between fields (that is to say also to matter-light interactions). We can affirm that our access to the quantum world is conditional on the existence of quantum chaotic systems. (...)
We have above all emphasized the negative dimensions of dynamic chaos, the necessity it implies of abandoning the notions of trajectory and determinism. But the study of chaotic systems is also an opening ; it creates the need to construct new concepts, new theoretical languages. The classical language of dynamics implies the notions of points and trajectories, and, until now, we ourselves have had recourse to them even while we were showing the idealization – in this case illegitimate – from which they proceed. The problem now is to transform this language, so that it integrates in a rigorous and coherent manner the constraints we have just recognized.
It is not enough, in fact, to express the finite nature of the definition of a dynamical system by describing the initial state of this system by a region of phase space, and not by a point. Because such a region, subject to the evolution defined by classical dynamics, may well fragment over time, it will retain its volume in phase space. This is expressed by a general theorem of dynamics, Liouville's theorem. All attempts to construct an entropy function, describing the evolution of a set of trajectories in phase space, have come up against Liouville's theorem, the fact that the evolution of such a set cannot be described by a function that would increase over time.
Now, a simple argument makes it possible to show the incompatibility, in the case of a chaotic system, between Liouville's theorem and the constraint according to which any description defines the "resolving power" of our descriptions ; there will always be a distance r such that we will not be able to differentiate between points closer to each other on the other (…) The new description of chaotic dynamical systems substitutes for the point a set corresponding to a fragment of contracting fiber. This is a non-local description, which takes into account the indistinguishability constraint that we have defined. But this description is not relative to our ignorance. It gives an intrinsic meaning to the finite character of our descriptions : in the case where the system is not chaotic, where the Lyapunov exponent is of zero value, we find the classical, point-like representation, and the limits placed on the precision of our measurements no longer affect the representation of the dynamical system.
This new representation also breaks the temporal symmetry. (…) Where a single evolution equation allowed us to calculate the evolution towards the past or towards the future of points themselves indifferent to this distinction, we now have two different evolution equations. One would describe the evolution of a system towards an equilibrium located in the future, the other would describe the evolution of a system towards an equilibrium located in the past.
One of the major problems with the probabilistic interpretation of the evolution towards equilibrium was that the probabilistic representation does not give meaning to the distinction between past and future. (…) The new dynamic description that we have constructed, on the other hand, incorporates the arrow of time (…) Chaotic dynamic behaviors make it possible to build this bridge, which Boltzmann had not been able to create, between dynamics and the world of irreversible processes. The new representation of the dynamic object, non-local and with broken temporal symmetry, is not an approximate description, poorer than the classical representation. On the contrary, it defines this classical representation as relative to a particular case. (…) We know today that the latter (non-chaotic systems), which dominated the imagination of physicists for so long, in fact form a very particular class. (…) It was in 1892, with the discovery of a fundamental theorem by Poincaré (the three-body law), that the homogeneous image of dynamic behavior was shattered : most dynamic systems, starting with the simple "three-body" system, are not integrable.
How can we understand this statement ? Since Hamilton's work, we know that the same dynamic system can be represented in different equivalent ways by a so-called canonical (or unitary) transformation (…) The Hamiltonian of the system is the quantity that determines its temporal evolution.
Among all the unitary transformations, there is one that allows us to arrive at a privileged representation of the system. This is the one that makes energy, that is to say the Hamiltonian, a function of only the moments, and no longer of the positions. In such a representation, the movements of the different particles of the system are described as if they no longer depended on the relative positions of the particles, that is to say as if they were no longer interacting. (…)
The possible movements of such systems therefore have the simplicity of free movements. (…) Now, in 1892, Poincaré showed that in general it is impossible to define the unitary transformation that would make “actions” invariants of the system. Most dynamical systems do not admit invariants outside of energy and momentum, and therefore are not integrable.
The reason for the impossibility of defining the invariants of motion that correspond to the representation of an integrable dynamic system is due to a resonance mechanism. (…) The resonance mechanism can be characterized as a transfer of energy between two coupled periodic motions whose frequencies are in a simple relationship to each other.
It is these resonance phenomena – but, this time, between the different degrees of freedom that characterize the same dynamic system – that prevent this system from being put into an integrable form. The simplest resonance between frequencies occurs when these frequencies are equal, but it also occurs whenever the frequencies are commensurable, that is, whenever they have a rational relationship to each other. The problem is complicated by the fact that, in general, the frequencies are not constant. (…) This means that, in the phase space of a dynamic system, there will be points characterized by a resonance, while others will not. The existence of resonance points generally prohibits representation in terms of cyclic variables, that is, a decomposition of the motion into independent periodic motions.
Resonance points, that is, points at which frequencies have a rational relationship to each other, are rare, just as rational numbers are rare compared to irrational numbers. Therefore, almost everywhere in phase space, we will have periodic behavior of the usual type. Nevertheless, resonance points exist throughout the finite volume of phase space. Hence the frighteningly complicated nature of the image of dynamical systems as revealed to us by modern dynamics initiated by Poincaré and continued by the work of Kolmogoroff, Arnold, and Moser.
If dynamical systems were integrable, dynamics could only provide us with a static image of the world, an image of which the motion of the pendulum or the planet on its Keplerian trajectory would constitute the prototype. However, the existence of resonances in dynamic systems with more than two bodies is not enough to transform this image and make it consistent with the evolutionary processes studied previously. When the volume remains small, periodic behaviors always dominate. (…)
However, for large systems, the situation is reversed. Resonances accumulate in the phase space ; they now occur not at every rational point, but at every real point. (…) From then on, non-periodic behaviors dominate, as is the case in chaotic systems. (…)
In the case of a system of hard spheres in collision, Sinai was able to demonstrate the identity between kinetic and chaotic behavior, and define the relationship between a kinetic quantity such as the relaxation time (mean time between two collisions) and the Lyapunov time which characterizes the time horizon of chaotic systems. (…)
Now, the atom in interaction with its field constitutes a “large quantum system” to which, as we have demonstrated, Poincaré's theorem can be extended. (…) Poincaré's “catastrophe” is repeated in this case : contrary to what the usual quantum representation presupposed, systems characterized by the existence of such resonances cannot be described in terms of superposition of eigenfunctions of the Hamiltonian operator, that is to say, invariants of the motion. Quantum systems characterized by average lifetimes, or by behaviors corresponding to "collisions," therefore constitute the quantum form of dynamic systems with chaotic behavior (…)
The abandonment of the model of integrable systems has consequences as radical in quantum mechanics as in classical mechanics. In the latter case, it implied the abandonment of the notion of point and of the law of reversible evolution that corresponds to it. In the latter, it implies the abandonment of the wave function and its reversible evolution in Hilbert space. In both cases, this abandonment has the same meaning : it allows us to decipher the message of entropy. (…)
The collision, transfer of momentum and kinetic energy between two particles, constitutes, from the dynamic point of view, an example of resonance. However, it is the existence of resonance points which, as we have known since Poincaré, prevents us from defining most dynamic systems as integrable. Kinetic theory, which corresponds to the case of a large dynamic system having resonance points "almost everywhere" in phase space, therefore marks the transformation of the notion of resonance : it ceases to be an obstacle to description in terms of deterministic and predictable trajectories, to become a new principle of description, intrinsically irreversible and probabilistic.
It is this notion of resonance that we have found at the heart of quantum mechanics, since it is this that Dirac used to explain the events that open experimental access to the atom, the emission and absorption of photons of specific energy, whose spectrum constitutes the true signature of each type of atom. (…) The lifetime, which intrinsically characterizes an excited level, depends, in the current formalism of quantum mechanics, on an approximation and loses its meaning if the calculation is pushed further. From then on, quantum mechanics had to recognize the event without being able to give it an objective meaning. This is why it could appear to call into question the very reality of the observable world that it was supposed to make intelligible. (…)
To explain the spontaneous electronic transitions that give any excited state a finite lifetime, Dirac had to make the hypothesis of a field induced by the atom and entering into resonance with it. The finite system represented by the isolated atom is therefore only an abstraction. The atom interacting with its field is itself a "large quantum system," and it is at this level that the "Poincaré catastrophe" occurs.
The atom interacting with the field it induces does not, in fact, constitute an integrable system and can therefore no more be represented by the evolution of the wave function than a classical system characterized by resonance points can be characterized by a trajectory. This is the flaw that concealed the impressive edifice of quantum mechanics. (…) It is significant that, everywhere, we encountered the notion of "symmetry breaking." This notion implies a seemingly insurmountable reference to the symmetry affirmed by the fundamental laws that constitute the heritage of physics. And, indeed, initially, it was these laws that guided our research. (…) The description with broken time symmetry allows us to understand the symmetry itself as relative to the particularity of objects formerly favored by physics, that is to say to situate their particularity within a more general theory.

Michel Bitbol in "The material body and the object of quantum physics" :

"E. Schrödinger was undoubtedly the creator of quantum theory who most insisted on this lack of identity criteria in ordinary space, and who drew the most radical conclusions from it. According to him, in the absence of criteria of identity or strict genidentity, we must go so far as to refuse to refer to the slightest particle. "In my opinion," he wrote, "abandoning the trajectory is equivalent to abandoning the particle." The principled unavailability of any trajectory (principled because it has legal value in quantum theory through the relations of indeterminacy) even leads to the admission that "(...) particles, in the naive sense of the past, do not exist." The physicist's discourse is completely reversed. Instead of admitting that at short distances, individual particles have a non-zero "probability of exchange," we then risk taking one for the other and lose the statistical consequences of their individuality, Schrödinger does not hesitate to affirm that "(...) there are no individuals who could be confused or taken for one another. Such statements are meaningless." Rather than using a formalism involving symmetry and antisymmetry operators, with its states labeled by particle names and its permutations of labels, he therefore advocates implementing the formalism of quantum field theory, in which it is no longer a question of n particles in a state at all, but of a state in its n-th quantum level. Moreover, instead of considering that particles have an approximate trajectory, Schrödinger points out that all that is available, and all that quantum mechanics governs, are "(...) long strings of successively occupied states (...)". The only thing that leads many physicists to speak of particle trajectories in this case is that "(...) such strings give the impression of an identifiable individual (...)". This is only an impression, or worse, an illusion, Schrödinger adds : "Sometimes these events form chains that give the illusion of permanent entities."

The atom was considered the indivisible element, that is, it cannot be divided. Atomism, like Zeno, considers that reality cannot be divided infinitely and that we come up against a limit.

It was assumed that the atom must be a small ball. Then it was realized that most of the space it occupied was empty space. The rest was other, smaller particles, occupying a very small part of the atom's space. We thought we had found the indivisible. But the design of a ball for the electron or the proton posed a problem. They would have lost energy and ended up falling on top of each other within the atom since they were rotating around each other. It was realized that they also had internal rotational properties that could not be described in mechanical terms.

Quantum physics had to abandon this type of description. The rotation in question was quantum, that is, discontinuous : in multiples of an integer.

These were no longer balls of matter but particles considered as material points. However, there was a contradiction raised in particular by Manfred Mac Gregor : the electron, however, occupied a space that was highlighted in certain experiments.

So the particle is not a simple point.

On the other hand, this particle does not follow trajectories. It jumps from one position to another. This explains why it is only probabilistic. We cannot know where it will be present, but only know a probability of presence in an area around the particle.

Finally, we realized that the problems of quantum physics : the infinities in physics (like the interaction of the electron with itself) or Young's slits posed the problem of the interaction between the electron and the vacuum around the electron : the polarization cloud.

Ultimately, the electron is not naked. It is surrounded by its cloud. It jumps from one point to another in this cloud.

Quantum physics also emphasized that the fundamental elements are not mass or energy, but rather the quanta h and the electric charge e. These are constants. There are quanta that are made up of matter or so-called "real" quanta, and the others are called "virtual," such as those that constitute light or the vacuum.

Everyone knows that physics has discovered that matter, like light, is made up of "grains" called particles. Matter would be called fermions, that is, particles obeying Fermi's rule, which prevents particles of the same state from agglomerating due to the "Pauli principle." Fermions are of two types : leptons (like the electron) or quarks (constituting neutrons and protons). Light—an expression used here to group together all so-called interacting particles—would be made up of bosons, that is, particles that obey Bose's rule, which concerns particles that tend to agglomerate in a common state.

The whole thing initially seemed to work like a construction set : particles are added together to form larger groups like atoms, molecules, and macromolecules. Neutrons and protons are added together to form the nuclei of atoms, and electrons are added together to form the atomic environment that allows the atom to be electrically neutral overall.

This additive logic is not entirely false, but it has reached its explanatory limits and has long been abandoned by physicists to explain the functioning of matter/light. The first reason stems from the fact that this additive image assumed that particles were static, individual objects, existing permanently or at least for long periods of time. Each individual particle was assigned a mass that was considered attached to the material thing. Current physics is very different. The individuality of the particle is no longer accepted. Mass is a property that moves and jumps from one point to another, without being fixed to an object. The object itself is no longer a recognized image. In fact, matter is no longer explained by fixity but, on the contrary, by an extraordinarily agitated dynamic : that of the void, which is no longer synonymous with absence. The basis of the apparently conservative character of the globally conserved structure that is matter is the permanent agitation of the void !

The void is full of virtual quanta. These quanta appear and disappear as pairs of virtual matter and virtual antimatter. The virtual characteristic comes from the rapid appearance and disappearance. This makes the virtual a fundamental universe that founds the material universe. Similarly, the virtual of the virtual founds the virtual, etc.

Light is made up of a virtual pair of matter and antimatter.

Matter is a structure formed by a large number of quanta and the emergent interactions they create. The main interaction is the one that exchanges the property of matter, currently called the Higgs boson. This is how the particle "jumps" from one point to another. In fact, it is only the boson that jumps from one virtual particle to another and makes it "real."

Nature has long been considered a collection of fixed objects that can be set in motion, modified, or broken by an external force. This static, stable image, without internal dynamics, is dead. In all fields, it is giving way to a dynamic image. Instead of fixed "things," we call upon structures arising from the underlying agitation. Structure is only a mode in which the whole is globally stable although in continual change. The molecules of the cloud change, move, exchange energy, even when the external appearance of the cloud remains unchanged. Temperature stability is not based on the absence of agitation but on average agitation. The component elements themselves change constantly, as is the case with the cells of a living being, or even with its molecules forming its biochemical components. Not so long ago, we still saw matter as a construction based on fixed objects. With atoms, we made molecules. With electrons and nuclei, atoms were made. With neutrons and protons, atomic nuclei were made. Elementary particles seemed to be fixed objects, capable only of moving, attracting, repelling, approaching or colliding with each other. The electron was an individual to whom encounters happened like any other individual, encounters through which it remained itself. The only question was whether the electron was elementary or composite. The characteristics of the electron (mass, charge, speed, energy, etc.) seemed to be proof of the conservation of the same object over time.

Today, things are quite different. The electron is no longer seen as an individual object, existing stably at a single scale, but as a phenomenon, a property that moves, that jumps from one particle to another within a cloud of points. It is the agitation of the vacuum that allows the existence of the electron as of other particles, an agitation that is manifested by the appearances and disappearances of particle/antiparticle pairs. The nucleus of the atom itself exists only because of an incredible agitation formed not only by the vacuum but by myriads of ephemeral particles and by multiple exchanges between protons and neutrons and not by a fixity of neutrons and protons.

It therefore appears today that nature, at all scales, is formed of structures and not of objects, dissipative structures therefore based on agitation and drawing their energy from the underlying disorder, these structures, a kind of membrane surrounding domains, being the thresholds between disorders at several levels. The disorders are themselves the product of the permanent combat of contradictory forces, of opposing tendencies which prevail or inhibit each other alternately. The constants are nothing other than the thresholds between two disorders.

The cloud, the city, man, the atomic nucleus, the electron, the plant, the bacterium are such dissipative structures that can in no way be described as independent, individual, and fixed objects but, on the contrary, as products of a permanent external agitation. Without the agitation of the void, there is no matter. Without the agitation of molecules, there are no crystal structures. Without the agitation of trade and production, there are no cities.

Here is what James Trefil of George Mason University in Virginia writes : "Although we usually think of the nucleus as a static collection of protons and neutrons, it is in reality an essentially dynamic place. Particles of all kinds move in all directions and at high speeds, colliding with each other, undergoing creation and destruction as their energies are converted into mass or their masses into energy. (...) Since the 1950s, more than 200 of these particles have been discovered inside the nucleus."

In this dynamic, the notion of an isolated individual or static equilibrium has no meaning. There is no fixed nucleus or fixed proton, any more than there is a fixed electron, conceivable as an individual equal to itself. The individual particle does not exist any more than the isolated star, without galaxies and galaxy clusters. No more than man isolated from his human, social, cultural and material universe.

La discontinuité de l'espace-temps : une solution pour unifier physique quantique et relativité générale ?

Robert Paris — 2025-06-27T22:01:00Z

La solution de toutes les énigmes de la physique et de l'astrophysique est dans la quantique (notamment le vide quantique) et dans la discontinuité générale (matière, mouvement et espace-temps)

Le discontinu en Physique et en Mathématiques

Il doit y avoir déjà quinze ou vingt ans, en feuilletant le modeste volume constituant l'œuvre complète de Riemann, j'avais été frappé par une remarque de lui « en passant ». Il y fait observer qu'il se pourrait bien que la structure ultime de l'espace soit « discrète », et que les représentations « continues » que nous nous en faisons constituent peut-être une simpliﬁcation (excessive peut-être, à la longue . . . ) d'une réalité plus complexe ; que pour l'esprit humain, « le continu » était plus aisé à saisir que « le discontinu », et qu'il nous sert, par suite, comme une « approximation » pour appréhender le discontinu. C'est là une remarque d'une pénétration surprenante dans la bouche d'un mathématicien, à un moment où le modèle euclidien de l'espace physique n'avait jamais encore été mis en cause ; au sens strictement logique, c'est plutôt le discontinu qui, traditionnellement, a servi comme mode d'approche technique vers le continu.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354067870_Objets_Reels_En_Mathematique_et_Physique

L'espace et le temps semblent continus. Selon la théorie de la « gravitation quantique à boucles », ils seraient, comme la matière, constitués de minuscules entités discrètes.

https://www.pourlascience.fr/sd/physique/des-atomes-d-espace-et-de-temps-5399.php

L'espace est-il discret ?

https://www.pourlascience.fr/sd/physique/l-espace-est-il-discret-6731.php

Que veut dire « discret » en sciences ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2957

Physique discrète et relativité

https://fondationlouisdebroglie.org/AFLB-441/aflb441m911.pdf

La discontinuité et la physique quantique

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2060

Qu'est-ce que la physique quantique ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article568

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5361

Où en est l'unification quantique/relativité

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article447

Des fluctuations dans l'espace-temps pour concilier la relativité générale et la mécanique quantique

https://www.pourlascience.fr/sd/physique-theorique/des-fluctuations-dans-l-espace-temps-pour-concilier-la-relativite-generale-et-la-mecanique-quantique-26005.php

L'espace-temps est-il discret ?

https://www.pourlascience.fr/sd/physique/l-espace-est-il-discret-6731.php

Comment réfléchir aux notions de continuité et de discontinuité

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article11

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?breve252

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5563

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article16

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4258

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article10

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article19

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article12

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article17

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article13

Pourquoi parle-t-on d'espace-temps ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4568

L'espace-temps de la théorie de la relativité

https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00004245/document

Un espace-temps fondé sur le vide quantique

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article8013

Que savons-nous de l'espace-temps quantique ?

https://www.artshebdomedias.com/article/quand-lespace-temps-fait-des-boucles/

https://www.pourlascience.fr/sd/physique-theorique/a-la-poursuite-de-l-espace-temps-quantique-9645.php

https://www.pourlascience.fr/sd/cosmologie/l-essence-quantique-de-l-espace-temps-9865.php

Le couplage de la relativité et de la quantique, produit de la rétroaction de l'expansion de l'espace et de la création-annihilation de matière au sein du vide quantique et relativiste

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3698

Qu'est-ce que la théorie de la relativité générale d'Einstein

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5091

Quelle gravitation quantique ?

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article3850

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?breve269

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article2632

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitation_quantique_%C3%A0_boucles

https://sciencepost.fr/la-gravite-quantique-a-boucle-une-revolution-pour-comprendre-lunivers/

Qu'est-ce que la théorie de la relativité générale d'Einstein

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5091

La physique quantique peut-elle tout unifier ?