1965 Geloof en Wetenschap : Orgaan van de Christelijke vereeniging van natuur- en geneeskundigen in Nederland - pagina 246

202

G. J. SIZOO

extensity or intensity and which can be determined by measurement. Such quantifiable qualities are usually called physical quantities or also observables. Evidently, the definition of each physical quantity requires the establishment of a relevant unit and the fixation of methods to determine the equality of two specimina of the same observable. In principle these methods will be based on the determination of commutability in the case of an extensive quantity and of equilibrium in the case of an intensive quantity. The mathematical equations, expressing the time- and spaceindependent relations between the observables of a physical system, are sometimes called laws, sometimes principles and sometimes simply equations. I believe that the suggestive term law, which is so easily combined with the ideas of command and obedience, is responsible for a lot of confusion in the interpretation of physical knowledge. The mathematical form in which physical thought and knowledge can be expressed, has by some authors been used as an argument in favour of the ancient philosophical conception, that the ultimate truth about reality has to be sought in its numerical and geometrical aspect, which conception would mean that physics is in principle reducible to mathematics. I cannot agree with this argument. In the first place, the physical knowledge does not comprise the full reality of the phenomena but is the result of a selective choice among the variety of their aspects. The choice is determined by the desire to discover the permanent infrastructure, which underlies the partial reproduceability and predictability, which is observable and can be established, within the stream of phenomena, which in its full reality is essentially irreproduceable and unpredictable. Besides this, the concepts by which this infrastructure can be described do not point to a world in which reigns the Eleatic rest of geometrical figures or the Pythagorean harmony of numerical proportions but to a world of change and becoming, of polarity and interaction, of attraction and repulsion. Though we usually and for good reasons indicate this infrastructure as the quantitative aspect, I would like to emphasize that quantity and quality form the woof and warf of the texture of its relations. With regard to the said philosophical conception, which sometimes leads to the identification of the concept of Deity with that of

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