But seriously the guy sounds just like Ernst Mach (1838-1916) who cautioned against attributing reality to "molecules" (at that time not directly observed). I appreciate Professor Henry's viewpoint (chemistry is distinct from physics, in fact chemistry is better and chemistry is cool) but almost every part of his discussion uses the tools of _physics_ to support both sides.
Perhaps he's irritated by the unspoken idea that chemistry is merely the yet-to-be-straightened-out basement of physics, to be organized only after physics has found the missing strings. (And perhaps string theory is physicists' way of putting off the chemistry basement cleanup?8-))
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=ph...
But seriously the guy sounds just like Ernst Mach (1838-1916) who cautioned against attributing reality to "molecules" (at that time not directly observed). I appreciate Professor Henry's viewpoint (chemistry is distinct from physics, in fact chemistry is better and chemistry is cool) but almost every part of his discussion uses the tools of _physics_ to support both sides.
Perhaps he's irritated by the unspoken idea that chemistry is merely the yet-to-be-straightened-out basement of physics, to be organized only after physics has found the missing strings. (And perhaps string theory is physicists' way of putting off the chemistry basement cleanup?8-))