““Plato holds a special place among them. His detailed interpretation of matter as a hollow space surrounded by regularly shaped bodies was too specific to hold up when scientific development advanced. On the other hand, his concept, taken over from the schools of the Eleatics and of Pythagoras-that only ideas possess reality-has persisted to this day. To him and his successors, matter really exists only by virtue of its form. It is only through its form, after all, that matter is tied to the ideas. It takes mathematics to describe form precisely. This means that the true laws of nature are expressed mathematically. We might say, the laws pin down the quantities that make up real existence.””
![“[M]odern physics has definitely decided for Plato. For the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense of the word: they are forms, structures, or – in Plato’s sense – Ideas, which can be unambiguously spoken of only in the language of mathematics.” quote by Rupert Sheldrake](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/219/rupert-sheldrake-11866_physics_m-odern-physics-has-definitely-decided-f_2733720.jpg)
