Over the millennia, various objects, laws, and concepts have been considered fundamental. These fundamentals were thought to produce or generate everything. With time, most of the alleged fundamentals were shown to have been derived from other, deeper fundamentals. There is, however, one concept that has always withstood the test of time: the perception of order. Scientists have the ability to observe the seemingly chaotic universe around them and perceive order. We describe two methods that are used to determine such order. The paper closes with the consideration of this perception of order as being the only true fundamental.
Noson S. Yanofsky