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Millennium Essay

Nature 405, 399 (25 May 2000) | doi:10.1038/35013162

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Many paths to enlightenment

Susantha Goonatilake1

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Modern physics bears the imprint of Western and Asian philosophies.

The discovery of the physics of relativity and quantum mechanics meant that the process of observation had to be radically reorientated. Relativity deemed all observational platforms to be equivalent, whereas in the quantum world, the act of observation itself changes the field of observation.