  We still lack any consensus about what one is actually talking about as one
uses quantum mechanics. There is a gap between the abstract terms in which the
theory is couched and the phenomena the theory enables each of us to account
for so well. Because it has no practical consequences for how we each use
quantum mechanics to deal with physical problems, this cognitive dissonance has
managed to coexist with the quantum theory from the very beginning. The absence
of conceptual clarity for almost a century suggests that the problem might lie
in some implicit misconceptions about the nature of scientific explanation that
are deeply held by virtually all physicists, but are rarely explicitly
acknowledged. I describe here such unvoiced but widely shared assumptions.
Rejecting them clarifies and unifies a range of obscure remarks about quantum
mechanics made almost from the beginning by some of the giants of physics, many
of whom are held to be in deep disagreement. This new view of physics requires
physicists to think about science in an unfamiliar way. My primary purpose is
to explain the new perspective and urge that it be taken seriously. My
secondary aims are to explain why this perspective differs significantly from
what Bohr, Heisenberg, and Pauli had been saying from the very beginning, and
why it is not solipsism, as some have maintained. To emphasize that this is a
general view of science, and not just of quantum mechanics, I apply it to a
long-standing puzzle in classical physics: the apparent inability of physics to
give any meaning to "Now" --- the present moment.
