...experimental physics was particularly interested in the processes taking place inside the atom, and in this field the classical mechanics was fail… - James Hopwood Jeans

The motion of the stars over our heads is as much an illusion as that of the cows, trees and churches that flash past the windows of our train.

At this time, space was supposed to be filled with an ether, a substance which might well serve, among other functions, to transmit forces across space. So long as such an ether could be called on, the transmission of force to a distance was easy to understand; it was like ringing a distant bell by pulling a bell-rope.

Physics and philosophy are at most a few thousand years old, but probably have lives of thousands of millions of years stretching away in front of them. They are only just beginning to get under way...