Oppenheimer Says Physics 'Not Through'

There are inconsistencies at the heart of physics which indicate that scientists are far from understanding the nature of the subject, J. Robert Oppenheimer '26 told another capacity audience in Sanders Theatre yesterday afternoon.

This was the third of the eight William James Lectures on Philosophy and Psychology to be delivered this spring by Oppenheimer, who is director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.

The first half of the lecture developed more fully the idea of how right and left-handedness in sub-atomic physics may lead to a deeper understanding of the asymmetries of the universe as a whole. The possibility that we may live in a right-handed world is disturbing to physicists who are as yet "unwilling to admit the element of the purely arbitrary into the laws of physics." He also introduced the notion of the symmetry of past and future built into physical laws.

Limits on Atomic Knowledge

The second half of the lecture was designed as an introduction to the problem of the limitations imposed on atomic knowledge by the present theory.

He pointed out how the conflict between the necessity to praise and blame, and the necessity to understand the reasons for human action paralleled the conflict between equally useful but mutually exclusive theories in physics.

For the first time, the physicist's lecture hit at a level inaccessible to many members of the audience. Dealing with the problems that arise in the formulation of concepts at the base of atomic physics, he seemed to some to deal with material above the scientific level of the average layman, and below that of people who have been trained in science.