Light’s Revelation of Time and Space

As we have seen, the twentieth century began what would prove to be its iconoclastic life certain that the physical interpretation of the world was more or less over and done with. Newtonian dynamics governed the motion of solid bodies, from the planets to the atomic constituents of matter. On the other hand, electrical and magnetic effects obeyed Maxwell's neat equations, with one of the consequences being that electromagnetic waves were propagated at the speed of light. These grand concepts of Newtonian mechanics and electromagnetism, which found numerous applications, interpreted individual phenomena and employed specialist mathematics, were what made up the classical edifice of physics. As is obvious, within its framework the world was separated into two diametrically opposed and seemingly incompatible entities: matter particles and electromagnetic waves. Through this logical separation into particles and waves, classical physics had acquired remarkable unity and economy.