In his book, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
(1687), Isaac Newton (1642-1727) proposed a theory of mechanics that would let us calculate the change in the motion of any
body when influenced by a given force. The success of Newton’s
theory presented a whole new worldview. Newton’s deterministic
viewpoint stated that in any event, regardless of its nature, a certain natural law will manifest. The presence of the Divine was of
little importance because the trajectory of all motion is fixed, and
there was no intervention by the Divine.
The deterministic approach was well described by the astronomer, Pierre Simon Laplace (1749-1827) as he sought to explain to Napoleon how our solar system had been formed. When
Napoleon asked him about God’s place in the process, Laplace
replied: “Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là” (“I did not
need this hypothesis there”).
Thus, science left no room for the existence of other aspects
beyond its own limits, including those realities that are hidden
from our perception. Everyone believed that humanity had discovered the necessary measures to know the world as it really was.
In the late 1800s, it seemed that classical physics had provided researchers with a complete set of laws for every natural phenomenon. Many researchers maintained that these laws would
help them explain even the few phenomena that remained mysteries. Since physics has always been considered “the mother of all
sciences” and the forefront of technology and experimentation,
its discoveries served as the foundation for research in other sciences, as well.
The era of modern physics began in the early 1900s with
Albert Einstein’s (1879-1955) revolutionary discoveries. Einstein’s
Theory of Relativity generated a fundamental change in attitude
towards everything that had previously been known about time,
space, mass, motion, and gravity. Einstein’s theory unified time
