Nikola Tesla Books
CHAPTER TWO When it comes to the investigation of nature scientists always run the danger of becoming convergent in their approach. Questions asked within the context of a particular theory tend to confirm and reinforce that theory. They may be irritating and badly behaved facts that never quite seem to fit but these can always be patched together by additional assumptions. It is only when the whole process has reached schizophrenic proportions that some scientific revolutionary comes on the scene and shouts, 'Stop. What's nature really trying to tell us?" This had happened in the first years of the century when Einstein had overthrown Newton's mechanics and founded his new theory of relativity. Likewise Heisenberg, Schrodinger and others were able to follow the clues given to them by Planck, Einstein and Bohr in formulating the quantum theory. During my sabbatical in London I had come to the conclusion that we were facing such a crisis yet again in modern physics. While so many scientists were attempting to patch together relativity and the quantum theory and resolve such internal inconsistencies as the infinite self-energy of the 'vacuum state', I felt that a totally new set of questions must be asked. I was reminded of PG Wodehouse's creation, Jeeves. When the perfect butler was faced with an obnoxious quest or his master's formidable aunt, together with a plethora of lost telegrams, newts in the bathtub and purloined policemen's helmets, he did not rush about looking for the way out of the problem. Instead Jeeves would contemplate what he called 'the psychology of the individual'. Armed with an understanding of the way his master's antagonist would think and act Jeeves could then rise above the problem. It was not so much a matter of 'solving' anything, more that the difficulties just dissolved in the white heat of the butler's fish-fed brain. With all that nonsense out of the way Jeeves could get on with the real problems of the world such as the choice of a tie or the exact shade and cut of a jacket. I felt that scientists should take a leaf from Jeeves's notebook by learning the 'psychology' of modern physics. Instead of trying to patch up their stricken theories they should realize that incompatibilities in theoretical structure were pointing us in new and surprising directions. 20
