Absolutely Small, Chapter 2: Size Is Absolute

This chapter lays out the basic problem with our normal description of nature. We usually think of the size of things by comparing one thing to another. A rock is big or small depending on what you compare it to. Classical mechanics, which is great for baseballs and airplanes, assumes that size is a relative concept. However, this is fundamentally wrong. Size is absolute. Atoms and molecules are small in an absolute sense. Classical mechanics cannot describe absolutely small things. It took a revolution in physics, beginning in 1900, to produce a new theory, quantum mechanics, that can describe atoms and molecules, and, therefore, describe the properties of everything around us.