7b SOCIAL SCIENTIST year of the century." The wave-particle duality states that to every particle is associated a wave,, and every wave-motion transfer of energy has a particulate aspect in the form of quanta. This postulate also describes the behaviour of physical reality. Together the two postulates offer^ a description of the world in terms of such opposite categories as continuity-discontinuity and wave-particle. They represent an advance and a deeper penetration into the structurs of the world as compared to classical physics. But in dealing with the crisis in physics, we are speaking of a crisis in the description of matter at this quantum level and of alternative theories which would transcend this crisis. In other words we are looking for theories which make ^lill deeper penetration into the motion of matter. In such a context an emphasis on the revolutionary break with classical physics represented by the quantum hypothesis and the wave-particle duality would suggest the raising of these postulates to the status of truths with absolute validity. We shall see that this would amount to placing a serious restriction on the possibilities of alternative quantum theories. Not the Last Word The dialectical method recognizes the qualitative infinity of nature. It further recognizes that "the measure of truth that we can achieve at any particular time, and how—in what terms and how adequately—we express it, depends on the means which are available at that time for discovering and expressing truth558. Further,as Lenin stated, ^every truth, if overdone, if exaggerated, if carried beyond the limits of its actual applicability, can be reduced to... absurdity, and is even bound to become an absurdity under the^e conditions."4 A deeper penetration into the properties of matter can certainly not evade such a question as: Why does energy come in packets of the definite size E-==-hy ? It has been suggested by Bohm5 that a transfer of energy less than a packet can under certain conditions take place. The Soviet physicist Yu V Sachkov says It is natural to presume that when physics penetrates still deeper into the structure of microentities, our present views on the synthesis of the wave and particle properties of micro-entities will acquire a new and more profound expression. In this case it is possible that the Planck constant (/z) may be theoretically calculated on the basis of certain new physical reasoning. This also means that Planck's constant is of a relative nature, and is not a univeral constant to be spared restrictions in the case of subsequent investigations of micro-processes, as is believed by many at the present time. The non-absolute character of the Planck constant is noted only in a few works. In particular, de Broglie hopes that the development of ideas of a causal interpretation of quantum theory based on the employment of non-linear equations will result in an elucidation of