  Along with weaving together observations, experiments, and theoretical
constructs into a coherent mesh of understanding of the world around us,
physics over its past five centuries has continuously refined the base concepts
on which the whole framework is built. In quantum physics, first in
non-relativistic mechanics and later in quantum field theories, even familiar
concepts of position, momentum, wave or particle, are derived constructs from
the classical limit in which we live but not intrinsic to the underlying
physics. Most crucially, the very idea of the individual, whether an object or
an event, distinguished only in a mere label of identity from others identical
to it in all the physics, exists only as an approximation, not an element of
underlying reality. Failure to recognize this and seeking alternative
explanations in many worlds or multiverses leads only to incoherent logic and
incorrect physics.
  As an example, in a physical system such as an atom in a particular state,
physics deals with the universal system of all such atoms but makes no
meaningful prediction of the position of an electron or the time of decay of
any specific atom. Those are incidental, entirely random among all possible
positions and times, even while physics makes very precise predictions for the
distribution of the outcomes in measurements on atoms in that state. Physics
deals with the universal, not the individual.
