Paper: Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution of Modern Science and the Indeterminacy Principle

A foundational exposition by one of the fathers and supreme architects of quantum mechanics, Werner Heisenberg, on the overwhelming philosophical implications of the Uncertainty Principle and the physics of elementary particles. In this masterpiece, Heisenberg argues with the irrefutable weight of quantum equations that the most sacred concepts of classical physics (such as strict and inflexible determinism, pure objectivity absolutely independent of the observer, and the atomistic-mechanistic model of the universe in its entirety) have been invalidated and pulverized at the subatomic level. Paradoxically, the author himself suggests, categorically, that the vanguard of contemporary theoretical physics forces us, almost reluctantly, to return to ontological concepts originally formulated by Aristotle in classical antiquity. Specifically, he points out that the only rational way to understand the superposition of quantum states and probability as objective physical realities is through the rescue and application of the ancient hylemorphic distinction between 'power' (Aristotelian potentia objective) and 'act'.