Aspects of French Theoretical Physics in the Nineteenth Century

1966 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. W. Herivel
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Physical Theory ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Theoretical Physics ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Claude Bernard ◽  
Electricity And Magnetism ◽  
Great Progress ◽  
Pierre Duhem

In France, as in other European countries, especially Britain and Germany, the nineteenth century was a period of great progress and achievement in science. This would still have been true if Claude Bernard and Louis Pasteur had been the only outstanding French scientists of the nineteenth century, whereas there were, of course, many others apart from an impressive number of brilliant French mathematicians. Nevertheless, although it was a great century for French science there was perhaps something rather disappointing about it, and something rather ingrowing about the attitude of French scientists towards scientific developments in other countries. For example, the French took it hard that the creator of the theory of evolution should have been an Englishman, remembering too late Darwin's predecessor Lamarck, and they certainly were very slow in accepting Darwin's theory of evolution.1 Again, the French may have felt that after the important contributions of French scientists such as Coulomb, Poisson, Biot and, above all, Ampère, the theory of electricity and magnetism which is today principally associated with the names of Faraday and Maxwell should have been created by a Frenchman. Once again this new theory was only accepted very slowly and hesitantly, and even unwillingly, in France—one thinks, for example, of the criticisms levelled at the theory by Pierre Duhem in his “The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory”.2 Of course it might be that if one knew how to weigh properly the various achievements of French scientists in different branches of science one would find that, allowing for her rather static population during the nineteenth century, the total contribution of France compared well with those of Britain and Germany. Nevertheless, in one case at least, that of theoretical physics, there seems to have been an unmistakable failure to live up to the promise of the beginning of the century. The purpose of this paper is to advance possible reasons to explain this failure.

New Sources for Social and Demographic History: The Belgian Population Registers

1978 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myron P. Gutmann ◽  
Etienne van de Walle
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Demographic History ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Population Register ◽  
Exact Match ◽  
German States ◽  
Belgian Population

In 1853, the First International Statistical Congress unanimously voted a resolution recommending the establishment of population registers in every country: It is indispensable to establish in each commune a population register. Each household will occupy one page. The first inscriptions will be entered according to the information provided by the general census, and all mutations that will occur in the composition of households will be noted successively and in order. Administrative measures will provide for the assessment of changes in legal residence, in order that there may be an exact match between the persons crossed out and the new inscriptions.Such a register has existed in Belgium since 1846. No other country except Sweden, Finland, and Hungary had much experience with such documents in 1853. The resolution was nevertheless ratified in successive International Congresses, but there was no rush to implement it. Several European countries followed suit, including small German states, the Netherlands in 1856, and Italy in 1864. According to a recent United Nations survey, eleven European countries have population registers that trace their origins to the nineteenth century or before: Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

OOK DE VIS MOET DUUR BETALEN

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 226-247
Author(s):  
Lucie Sedláčková
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Fin De Siecle ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Speaking Out ◽  
Fin De Siècle ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Sentient Beings ◽  
Animal Agency

THE FISH HAVE TO PAY DEARLY AS WELL The representations of animals and vegetarianism in the works of Herman Heijermans and other socially engaged writers of the fin de siècle At the end of the nineteenth century, the perception of animals changed significantly due to the theory of evolution and other new ideas, which also affected a number of Dutch socialist-leaning writers. Utilizing the framework of literary animal studies, this article investigates how animals were represented in their works. Most of the examined writers present animals as sentient beings, which is also ref lected by their speaking out in favour of vegetarianism. Herman Heijermans takes a more ambivalent position: some of his writings show the possibility of animal agency, whereas in others, animals are subordinate to people’s needs and are objectified.

scholarly journals Was Pierre Duhem an Esprit de finesse?

2017 ◽  
pp. 93
Author(s):  
Víctor Manuel Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Physical Chemistry ◽  
Theoretical Physics ◽  
English School ◽  
Psychological Profile ◽  
Psychological Profiles ◽  
Cognitive Value ◽  
Pierre Duhem ◽  
The One ◽  
Crucial Experiments ◽  
The Ideal

Although Pierre Duhem is well known for his conventionalist outlook and, in particular, for his critique of crucial experiments outlined in his thesis on the empirical indeterminacy of theory, he also contributed to the scholarship on the psychological profiles of scientists by revising Pascal’s famous distinction between the subtle mind and the geometric mind (esprits fins and esprits géométriques). For Duhem, the ideal scientist is the one who combines the defining qualities of both types of intellect. As a physicist, Duhem made important theoretical contributions to the field of thermodynamics as well as to the then-nascent physical chemistry. Due to his rejection of atomism and his unrelenting critique of Maxwell’s electrodynamics, however, in his later years, Duhem’s work was surpassed and abandoned by the dominant tendencies of physics of the time. In this essay, I will discuss whether Duhem himself can be understood through the lens of his own account of the scientist’s psychological profile. More specifically, I examine whether the subtle mind – to which he seems to assign greater cognitive value – in fact plays a key role in Duhem’s critique of the English School (école anglaise), or if his preference for the axiomatic structure of theoretical physics shows a greater affinity with the geometric mind.

scholarly journals Tourism Industry of Kashmir (1947-1989)

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 63-71
Author(s):  
Mushtaq Ahmad Itoo
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Reference Data ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Subsequent Change ◽  
Popular Government ◽  
Great Progress ◽  
Modern Sense

Tourism is one of the vital sectors of Kashmir economy. Though this industry emerged in modern sense during nineteenth century but it flourished after 1947 with the establishment of popular government and subsequent change in the nature of state. Also the various plans were framed and implemented for the promotion of this industry. The present paper highlights the historical development of tourism industry and the causes responsible for its vicissitudes during the period under reference. Data has been collected from the department of tourism, Jammu & Kashmir Govt. The statistical data of the tourism industry reveals that the tourism industry in Kashmir saw a great progress and reached to its full boom in the eighties of the twentieth century, though the industry saw many ups and downs during this period.

scholarly journals On the Multiplied Spectacle in Tyrtej–Za Kulisami by Cyprian Norwid

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (English Version) ◽  
pp. 35-53
Author(s):  
Mirella Kryś
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Dramatic Works ◽  
Critical Writings

The main object of analysis in this article is the doubly understood category of theatricality, which organizes Norwid’s reflections in the dramatic diptych titled Tyrtej–Za kulisami, and to demonstrate the influence of Norwid’s experiences with theatre on the development of the category of theatricality in these dramatic works. The poet recorded his remarks about theatre in critical writings and art. This article proposes two ways of reading his plays. The first assumes that the described events are realistically motivated because they take place in the space of nineteenth-century theatres in Warsaw and other European countries. The second involves interpreting the metaphorical and parabolic senses in the diptych, with special emphasis on passages from Dedykacja.

Physical Models and Physiological Concepts: Explanation in Nineteenth-Century Biology

1965 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Everett Mendelsohn
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Concept Formation ◽  
Explanatory Models ◽  
Physical Models ◽  
The Other ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Claude Bernard ◽  
French School ◽  
Biological Laws ◽  
Analytical Tools

SynopsisThe response to physics and chemistry which characterized mid-nineteenth century physiology took two major directions. One, found most prominently among the German physiologists, developed explanatory models which had as their fundamental assumption the ultimate reducibility of all biological phenomena to the laws of physics and chemistry. The other, characteristic of the French school of physiology, recognized that physics and chemistry provided potent analytical tools for the exploration of physiological activities, but assumed in the construction of explanatory models that the organism involved special levels of organization and that there must, in consequence, be special biological laws.The roots of this argument about concept formation in physiology are explored in the works of Theodor Schwann, Johannes Müller, François Magendie and Claude Bernard among others.

Models, structure, and generality in Clerk Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Darrigol
Keyword(s):  
Physical Theory ◽  
Electromagnetic Theory ◽  
System Of Equations ◽  
Structural Requirements ◽  
Electricity And Magnetism ◽  
Lagrangian Form ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
William Thomson ◽  
Fundamental Equations ◽  
Lines Of Force

This article examines the gradual development of James Clerk Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory, arguing that he aimed at general structures through his models, illustrations, formal analogies, and scientific metaphors. It also considers a few texts in which Maxwell expounds his conception of physical theories and their relation to mathematics. Following a discussion of Maxwell’s extension of an analogy invented by William Thomson in 1842, the article analyzes Maxwell’s geometrical expression of Michael Faraday’s notion of lines of force. It then revisits Maxwell’s honeycomb model that he used to obtain his system of equations and the concomitant unification of electricity, magnetism, and optics. It also explores Maxwell’s view about the Lagrangian form of the fundamental equations of a physical theory. It shows that Maxwell was guided by general structural requirements that were inspired by partial and temporary models; these requirements were systematically detailed in Maxwell’s 1873 Treatise on electricity and magnetism.

Ali Sedad Bey’s (d. 1900), ()

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nazif Muhtaroglu
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Working Mechanism ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
First Time ◽  
Late Ottoman

This chapter presents and evaluates Ali Sedāt’s (d. 1900) Principles of Transformation in the Motion of Particles. In this work, Ali Sedad gives a detailed description of the working mechanism of the whole universe, including topics that range from the interaction of atoms to the emergence of animate bodies and the motion of heavenly bodies. In doing this, he introduces thermodynamics and Darwin’s theory of evolution for the first time to the Turkish-speaking community in a detailed way and discusses the laws behind natural phenomena in a philosophical way. Ali Sedāt’s Principles of Transformation is a unique work introducing the basic principles of the natural sciences in nineteenth-century European circles to the Ottoman world and interpreting them from an Ashʿarite perspective. It shows how an Ashʿarite scholar from the late Ottoman era followed modern science thoroughly but interpreted it critically from its own philosophical point of view.

Political Censorship of the Theatre in Nineteenth-Century Europe

1987 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 220-241
Author(s):  
Robert Justin Goldstein
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
World War I ◽  
European Country ◽  
European Countries ◽  
World War ◽  
The Press ◽  
Printed Word ◽  
End Stage

Censorship of the stage, like censorship of the printed word, was widespread and well-established in Europe in 1815. However, while prior censorship of the press was eliminated throughout Europe by 1914, European countries almost universally retained prior censorship of the stage until (and sometimes well after) World War I. England became the first major European country to abolish censorship of the press in 1695, yet Parliament systematized a formerly haphazard theatre censorship in 1737, and did not end stage censorship until 1968. Most other European countries did not eliminate press censorship until about the middle of the nineteenth century, while maintaining theatre censorship throughout the century, and typically exercised much harsher controls over the stage than over the printed word. As John Allen has noted, ‘In many times and places the drama has been subject to far greater censorship than any other form of literature or art’, reflecting governmental feelings that ‘the theatre, with its power of affecting an audience with possibly subversive emotions and ideas, is more to be feared’.

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