МАКРОКОСМ И МИКРОКОСМ

Macrocosm and Microcosm

Two specific spheres of objective reality. The sphere of macrophenomena is the world in which man lives and acts (planets, terrestrial bodies, crystals, large molecules, etc.). Here the length of objects is measured in centimetres, metres or kilometres, and time intervals are measured in seconds, hours, years, that is, they are directly observable. The microcosm (atoms, nuclei, elementary particles, etc.) is qualitatively different. Here the measurements of objects are less than a thousand-millionth part of a centimetre, and time intervals are measured in thousand-millionths of a second.

Both macrocosm and microcosm are characterised by their peculiar structure of matter, spatio-temporal relations, and law-governed movement. Thus macrocosm material objects have a clearly discernible discontinuous, corpuscular structure, or a continuous wave structure, and their movement is subject to the dynamic laws of classical mechanics. Microcosm phenomena, on the other hand, are characterised by a close-knit connection between corpuscular and wave properties, this being expressed in the statistical laws of quantum mechanics. A border dividing the macrocosm and microcosm has been established with the discovery of Planck's constant (see Planck).

Modern "physical idealism" makes absolute the distinctions between the macrocosm and the microcosm, the peculiarities of their cognition and denies the objectivity and knowability of the microworld. The penetration of physics into the world of atoms, and then into the atomic nuclei and elementary particles, was brilliant proof of Lenin's conclusion on the "infiniteness of matter in depth", a confirmation and enrichment of the principles of dialectical materialism.