“What is conserved, in modern physics, is not any particular substance or material but only much more abstract entities such as energy, momentum, and electric charge. The permanent aspects of reality are not particular materials or structures but rather the possible forms of structures and the rules for their transformation.”

—  Frank Wilczek

Source: Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics (1987), Ch.8 The Weak Interaction

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physicist 1951

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