I.—Some Philosophical Aspects of Modern Physics

1938 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Born
Keyword(s):  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Mathematical Physics ◽  
Mathematical Science ◽  
Felix Klein ◽  
Modern Physics ◽  
Great Scholar

The Chair which I have been elected to occupy, in succession to Professor Darwin, is associated with the name of a great scholar of our fathers' generation, Peter Guthrie Tait. This name has been familiar to me from the time when I first began to study mathematical physics. At that time Felix Klein was the leading figure in a group of outstanding mathematicians at Göttingen, amongst them Hilbert and Minkowski. I remember how Klein, ever eager to link physics with mathematics, missed no opportunity of pointing out to us students the importance of studying carefully the celebrated Treatise on Natural Philosophy of Thomson and Tait, which became a sort of Bible of mathematical science for us.

Mechanics in the Eighteenth Century

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandro Caparrini ◽  
Craig Fraser
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Celestial Mechanics ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Mathematical Physics ◽  
Rigid Bodies ◽  
Mechanics Of Fluids ◽  
Elastic Bodies ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Mathematical Investigation ◽  
Statics And Dynamics

This article focuses on mechanics in the eighteenth century. The publication in 1687 of Isaac Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy has long been regarded as the event that ushered in the modern period in mathematical physics. The success and scope of the Principia heralded the arrival of mechanics as the model for the mathematical investigation of nature. This subject would be at the cutting edge of science for the next two centuries. This article first provides an overview of the fundamental principles and theorems of mechanics, including the principles of inertia and relativity, before discussing the dynamics of rigid bodies. It also considers the formulation of mechanics by Jean-Baptiste le Rond d’Alembert and Joseph-Louis Lagrange, the statics and dynamics of elastic bodies, and the mechanics of fluids. Finally, it describes major developments in celestial mechanics.

Locke and the Methodology of Newton’s Principia

2018 ◽  
Vol 100 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-335
Author(s):  
Patrick J. Connolly
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Mathematical Physics ◽  
Two Stage ◽  
Synoptic View

Abstract A number of commentators have recently suggested that there is a puzzle surrounding Locke’s acceptance of Newton’s Principia. On their view, Locke understood natural history as the primary methodology for natural philosophy and this commitment was at odds with an embrace of mathematical physics. This article considers various attempts to address this puzzle and finds them wanting. It then proposes a more synoptic view of Locke’s attitude towards natural philosophy. Features of Locke’s biography show that he was deeply interested in mathematical physics long before the publication of the Principia. This interest was in line with important developments in the Royal Society. It is argued that Locke endorsed a two-stage approach to natural philosophy which was consistent with an embrace of both natural history and mathematical physics. The Principia can be understood as consistent with this approach.

Chairman's introduction

1987 ◽  
Vol 323 (1575) ◽  
pp. 521-522
Keyword(s):  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Negative Ions ◽  
Mathematical Physics ◽  
Upper Atmosphere ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Great Abundance ◽  
Atomic Collisions ◽  
Ionospheric Physics ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Physical Problems

This Discussion Meeting dedicated to the late Sir Harrie Massey, F.R.S., is timely. It is almost exactly 50 years ago that his interest in atmospheric science was aroused by his old Professor, T. H. Laby, Head of the Department of Natural Philosophy at Melbourne University. Laby had long been concerned with the physical problems of telegraphy and telephony. He was one of the four executive members of the Australian Radio Research Board and Director of Research on Atmospherics. Because of this he knew a member of the staff of the Board, D. F. Martyn, who was engaged in outstandingly original research on the upper atmosphere including inter alia the loss and gain of the electrons in the F layer by attachment and associative detachment. Aware also of Chapman’s theory on the great abundance of negative ions in the E layer, Laby saw that the physics that was unfolding was well suited to the expertise possessed by his most brilliant former student Harrie Massey, who in 1935 was already a co-author of a book on atomic collisions and was shortly to commence a book on negative ions. Accordingly, when Laby next visited the United Kingdom, bringing with him a copy of a paper 'The temperature and constituents of the upper atmosphere’ that Martyn had written with O. O. Pulley, he contacted Massey (then Head of the Department of Mathematical Physics at the Queen’s University of Belfast) and suggested that he take up ionospheric physics.

The Scientific Culture of the Baltic Mathematician, Physician, and Calendar-Maker Laurentius Eichstadt (1596–1660)

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pietro Daniel Omodeo
Keyword(s):  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Mathematical Science ◽  
Geometrical Approach ◽  
Scientific Culture ◽  
Empirical Observation ◽  
Northern European ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Bear Witness ◽  
Aristotelian Metaphysics ◽  
Insight Into

This paper is devoted to Laurentius Eichstadt, a Baltic astronomer of the generation between Tycho and Hevelius. As a calendar-maker, Eichstadt used and tested the astronomical tables and the planetary theories of his elder contemporaries, Longomontanus and Kepler; as a town physician and gymnasium professor, he taught mathematics and astronomy alongside medicine and natural philosophy in Stettin and Gdańsk. Eichstadt’s indefatigable engagement with theory, practice, and teaching is marked by his continuous reassessment, adjustment, and revision of views in astronomy, physics, and metaphysics, aimed at bringing these fields in better agreement with each other and with empirical observation. Eichstadt’s critical attitude did not prevent him from remaining committed to his scholastic legacy. As a matter of fact, his creative reworking and teaching of astronomy and philosophy bear witness to the long vitality of the northern European scientific tradition rooted in Melanchthonian literacy and Aristotelian philosophy. The work and conceptions of this participant in the astronomical debates of the early seventeenth century offers us an insight into the complex interplay of technical astronomy and metaphysical discourse in a time of transition from a geometrical approach to planetary theory resting on Aristotelian metaphysics to a post-Keplerian physical–mathematical science unifying heavens and earth.

The System of Physics

2019 ◽  
pp. 158-176
Author(s):  
Dmitri Nikulin
Keyword(s):  
First Principles ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Universal Theory ◽  
Physical Change ◽  
Prime Mover ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Applicability Of Mathematics ◽  
Theory Of Motion ◽  
Rational Science ◽  
Modern Physics

Chapter 10 considers the structure of Proclus’ rarely discussed Elements of Physics and its original contribution to the understanding of physics in antiquity. It is argued that the purpose of the treatise is not only a systematic arrangement of the arguments scattered throughout Aristotle’s works on natural philosophy, using the structure of Euclid’s Elements as a model. Proclus also aims to develop a universal theory of motion or physical change that establishes the first principles as definitions, formulates and demonstrates a number of mutually related propositions about natural objects, and culminates in establishing the existence and properties of the prime mover. Unlike modern physics, which presupposes the applicability of mathematics to physics, Proclus shows that the study of natural phenomena in the more geometrico way can be a systematic rational science arranged by means of logic rather than mathematics.

Samuel Pepys and the Royal Society

1963 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 82-93
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Mathematical Physics ◽  
Title Page ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Astronomy ◽  
Samuel Pepys

Undoubtedly the most epoch-making book in the history of science is Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica , published in 1687, which established the principles of mathematical physics and modern astronomy in a way familiar to all students of natural philosophy. On the title page appear two names, that of Newton as the author and, with at least equal prominence, that of Pepys— ‘Imprimatur S. Pepys, Reg. Soc. Praeses . For Samuel Pepys was elected President of the Royal Society in 1684 and was in office in July, 1686, when the Imprimatur was officially subscribed to the manuscript. If he had no other claims to distinction his name would have been perpetuated by this prominent association with a worldfamous book. As Sir Joshua Reynolds said that he would go down to posterity on the hem of Mrs Siddons’ garment, so Pepys might have said that he would go down to posterity on the title page of Newton’s Principia .

scholarly journals Hawking on "Gödel and the End of Physics"

2012 ◽  
pp. 20-25
Keyword(s):  
Finite Number ◽  
Mathematical Physics ◽  
Mathematical Science ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Gödel’S Theorem

A brief summary of Professor Hawing is lecture is given at the Center of Mathematical Science, Cambridge University, July 20, 2002, entitled “Gödel and the end of physics”. An overview of the triumphs of mathematical physics from Newton to t’Hoff is followed by the final statement that it may not be possible to formulate a theory of the universe in a finite number of statements, which is reminiscent of Gödel’s theorem.

scholarly journals The Digital and the Real Universe. Foundations of Natural Philosophy and Computational Physics

Philosophies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Klaus Mainzer
Keyword(s):  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Computational Physics ◽  
Epistemic Status ◽  
Quantum Field Theories ◽  
The Real ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
Modern Physics ◽  
Further Development ◽  
The Continuum ◽  
Real Universe

In the age of digitization, the world seems to be reducible to a digital computer. However, mathematically, modern quantum field theories do not only depend on discrete, but also continuous concepts. Ancient debates in natural philosophy on atomism versus the continuum are deeply involved in modern research on digital and computational physics. This example underlines that modern physics, in the tradition of Newton’s Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis, is a further development of natural philosophy with the rigorous methods of mathematics, measuring, and computing. We consider fundamental concepts of natural philosophy with mathematical and computational methods and ask for their ontological and epistemic status. The following article refers to the author’s book, “The Digital and the Real World. Computational Foundations of Mathematics, Science, Technology, and Philosophy.”

Einstein as a Disciple of Galileo A Comparative Study of Concept Development in Physics

1993 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 311-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Renn
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Classical Mechanics ◽  
Concept Development ◽  
The Other ◽  
Mathematical Science ◽  
Conceptual Systems ◽  
Active Structure ◽  
Modern Physics ◽  
Structural Analogy ◽  
The One

The ArgumentIn this paper I present and argue for a model of conceptual development in science and apply it to the transition from classical to modern physics associated with Einstein. The model claims a continuous and rational transition between incompatible subsequent conceptual systems in mathematical science and explains its mechanism. The model was developed in a study of the transition from preclassical to classical mechanics. I argue for a strong structural analogy between the transition from preclassical to classical mechanics on the one hand and from classical to modern physics on the other. The first transition is briefly sketched here by reference to Galileo and his disciples; in the second transition Planck and Lorentz on the one hand and Einstein on the other play the respective roles.A detailed and documented reconstruction of the transition from preclassical to classical mechanics on the basis of this model has already been published and is only briefly referred to in the paper. The transition from classical to modern physics is portrayed here much more extensively—though of course merely in broad brush strokes. Einstein–s role in this transition is reconstructed in the light of a conceptualization of his scientific knowledge as an active structure of thought, shaped by his intellectual experience. In this way, the development of his individual thinking is shown to be part of the overall process of conceptual transformation from classical to modern physics. The reconstruction sketched in this paper is to be considered as a proposal to be substantiated, reformed, and improved by future detailed studies.

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