for which our senses have evolved a direct affinity.

Although we see light electromagnetic undulations whose wavelengths lie in the range our eyes can detectour visual experiences dont directly trace the undulating fields the theory posits. Even so, we can build sophisticated equipment that measures these vibrations and that, together with the theorys abundance of confirmed predictions, builds an overwhelming case that were immersed in a pulsating ocean of electromagnetic fields. In the twentieth century, fundamental science came to increasingly rely on inaccessible features. Space and time, through their melded union, provide the scaffolding for special relativity. When subsequently endowed with Einsteinian malleability, they become the flexible backdrop of the general theory of relativity. Now, Ive seen watches tick and Ive used rulers to measure, yet Ive never grasped spacetime in the same way I grasp the arms of my chair. I feel the effects of gravity, but if you pressed me on whether I can directly affirm that Im immersed in curved spacetime, I find myself back in the Maxwellian situation. Im convinced that the theories of special and general relativity are correct not because I have tangible access to their core ingredients but rather because when I accept their assumed frameworks, the mathematics makes predictions about things I can measure. And the predictions turn out to be extraordinarily accurate. Quantum mechanics takes such inaccessibility still further. The central ingredient of quantum mechanics is the probability wave, governed by an equation discovered in the mid-1920s by Erwin Schrdinger. Even though such waves are its hallmark feature, we will see in Chapter 8 that the architecture of quantum physics ensures that theyre permanently and completely unobservable. Probability waves give rise to predictions for where this or that particle is likely to be found, but the waves themselves slither outside the arena of everyday reality.2 Nevertheless, because the predictions succeed so well, generations of scientists have accepted such an odd situation: a theory introduces a radically new and vital construct that, according to the theory itself, is unobservable. The common theme running through these examples is that a theorys success can be used as an after-the-fact justification for its basic architecture, even when that architecture remains beyond our ability to access directly. This is so thoroughly part of the daily experience of theoretical physicists that the