[msarchet]

> And yet I can speak concretely about a hydrogen atom

You can talk about some abstractions about how a hydrogen atom works, but we don't fully understand everything about atomic structure. We don't know if there is something that makes up the structures of subatomic particles becuase we don't have particle accelerators that have enough energy for us to peer deeper into what quarks are made up of. We don't even know if we've found all the types of particles.

[Robotbeat]

Actually, we do fully understand everything about the atomic structure of the hydrogen atom, everything relevant to chemistry and how life (for instance) works. If we have not yet unified the fundamental forces, that doesn't mean we don't have an INCREDIBLY detailed and complete understanding of the hydrogen atom.

Corner cases in several layers lower than chemistry vs not even really knowing where a memory is stored!

[Supermancho]

> Actually, we do fully understand everything about the atomic structure of the hydrogen atom,

Not sure where that hubris comes from. There are physical phenomena we have not been able to test, so there will always be unknowns and assumptions based on (abstract) modeling. eg the metallic liquid hydrogen described here https://edu.rsc.org/soundbite/hydrogen-falls-apart-under-pre...

[monocasa]

Quantum chemistry is a field with a lot of unknowns still. To say that chemistry has a complete understanding of the hydrogen atom is inaccurate.