Why the Authorized Version of Reality Can’t be Right The truth of a theory can never be proven, for one never knows if future experience will contradict its conclusions. Albert Einstein1 The last four chapters have provided something of a whirlwind tour of our current understanding of light, matter and force, space, time and the universe. Inevitably, I’ve had to be a bit selective. It’s not been possible to explore all the subtleties of contemporary physics, and the version of its historical development that I’ve provided here has been necessarily ‘potted’. I would hope that as you read through the last four chapters, you remembered to refer back to the six principles that I outlined in Chapter 1. I’d like to think that the developments in physical theory in the last century amply demonstrate the essential correctness of these principles, if not in word then at least in spirit. Quantum theory really brings home the importance of the Reality Principle. The experimental tests of Bell’s and Leggett’s inequalities tell us fairly unequivocally that we can discover nothing about a reality consisting of things-in-themselves.
