Chapter 1: Something Strange Is Afoot...

In terms of all of the writing I have been doing about the definition of science in terms of different philosophers, this quote from the first page of this book captures the essence of the definition of science in my opinion:

"Science, of course, has no brief to be useful, but many of the technological and social changes that have revolutionized our lives have arisen out of fundamental research carried out by modern-day explorers whose only motivation is to better understand the world around them."

The first chapter lays the basis for Quantum theory, the rules of which can apparently fit "on the back on an envelope." In relation to the quote above, the authors make it clear that Quantum theory is the result of some scientists trying to understand the world on a subatomic level.

Max Planck apparently was the first to use the world "quantum" in 1900. He was working with black body radiation, and he called the little packets of energy that made up light "quanta". The beginning of Quantum theory, it seems, lies in the study of light, and more specifically, stems from the point at which scientists realized that light  has characteristics of both a wave and a particle.