The Emergence of a New Vision: The Unfolding Universe

Abstract

The central thesis in this chapter is that we are moving toward acceptance of the proposition that the universe must be viewed as a quantum system not merely in its early stages but at all scales and times. If this thesis is correct, the epistemological situation confronted in the quantum domain, which the principle of complementarity describes and comprehends, must also be invoked in the study of the largest system known to us—the universe. The new epistemological situation that results could also serve, in our view, to resolve some now seemingly irresolvable observational problems associated with the big-bang models of the universe. Since this more narrowly scientific argument can best be appreciated by those with a background in astrophysics, we have chosen to place it in an appendix.

In the world of quantum physics, no phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is a recorded phenomenon.

—John A. Wheeler