The Meaning of Existence

Abstract

OTHERS perhaps besides myself may have regretted that the recent correspondence between Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir James Jeans should have closed just at the point at which questions were raised by it that go far beyond the actual issue between these distinguished physicists, and yet may have an important bearing upon it. Asked whether ether exists, Sir James sums up his attitude to the question in the words, “nothing in science seems to exist any more in the good old-fashioned sense—that is, without qualifications; and modern physics always answers the question ‘To be or not to be?’ by some hesitating compromise, ambiguity, or evasion” (NATURE, Dec. 6).