To take it one step further, I recently read From Atomos to Atom and From Alchemy to Chemistry. Those books are a fascinating read that made me appreciate both

To take it one step further, I recently read From Atomos to Atom and From Alchemy to Chemistry. Those books are a fascinating read that made me appreciate both how much we've figured out and how far we are from nature's truths. The idea of an atom, or a quark, is a construct that approximates reality. Nature doesn't care about our constructs. Just because we've kinda "figured it out" doesn't mean we've robbed nature of it's magic. We are only discovering the magic that was always there. And, IMH(umble)O, the magic we discovered since the Renaissance is far cooler - far more magical - than anything the Alchemists could come up with in their wildest dreams.