I don't expect anyone wants me to go into the flaws of this statement, so I will leave it at this:
Sorry for vexxing your sense of science fact. The ancient Greeks thought stuff was made of earth, air, fire and water. At best, they named the four states of matter. Your knowledge of physics is better than theirs, and thus it would influence your view of the nature of the universe. However, like Aristotle, what you just declared as pretty much fact, Captain Picard's scientific world has likely corrected with visual sightings of both the Higgs and Iiggs (I comes after H) bosons that actually occurred during the early 21st century experiments in Switzerland.
It was more a metaphor that you haven't truly seen a Higgs particle or other quantum physics stuff like string theory.
You have math and tests that indicate the idea is correct, but you haven't actually unraveled the whole ball of wax of how the universe works and seen it in a microscope.
Captain Picard has seen a Higgs Particle with the help of 23rd and a half based technology. The stuff your knowledge says is probably true, will be absolutely proven true or false by then, leaving new unexplained theoretical layers that HIS generation is pondering about the nature of existance.
Take germs for instance. Pre-microscope, I can tell you this stuff exists, it's really tiny. it makes you sick. I'm right, but I don't have any definitive proof. I can make you wash your hands, and demonstrate how you don't get sick as often as proof. It's not wrong, but it's not as definitive as "Look into this microscope. See that squiggly stuff? That's germs. You're sick, you got lots of them. I'm not, I don't have lots of them."
I have no idea if we're actually able to see atoms yet. Atomic microscope implies it by the name, but I suspect that's just artisitic license for "really powerful microsope".
Either way, there's a big difference between having some math and tests that say "this thing we can't actually see, scored in this range on this here meter, proving it exists" which is different from having sufficient technology to ACTUALLY see the thing you are trying to prove exists.
In any event, it demonstrated my point, by means of my mis-stating the current science. Umbran clearly has a definite view of the nature of existance (from a physics perspective). His advanced knowledge informs his understanding of the nature of existance. (that's not snark, he studies this stuff, he knows his stuff. I do not.)
300 years from now, however, a scientist's view of what Umbran's describes will be as his view of my example.
The chips in your computer are designed using the laws of quantum mechanics, and require reality to follow the laws of quantum mechanics in order to function. So, if QM is "not actual fact", how is it that you're posting on a website? Somehow, they did a lot of math that was really false, but still predictably gets thousands of different electronic devices to work?
As always, I'm probably not qualified to answer this. The chips in my computer were designed using the laws of electricity and the thermodynamics.
It probably did not take a physics major to invent the first computer, or the second. Or possibly even the transistor. And for quite a long time, it was Electrical Engineering majors who became computer programmers, designers, etc. I've never worked with a physicist when I was in the computer industry.
Of course quantum mechanics are defining the laws of electricity, chemistry, thermodynamics etc. But at the layer of science that's needed to design a computer or create a new drug, it's off the radar. Such that an entirerly different theory could be proposed that gets the exact same results in the physical world, but has a completely different break down of what's inside a proton, etc.
If nothing else, I surmise that Umbran sees quantum mechanics as fact. I see it as probably right, but until you put a Higgs boson on the main viewer and I can emit them from the deflector array, you haven't proven it, and in fact there's yet room for ammendment.
