A Brief History Of Physical Science

Why do we think matter is made of atoms and the Earth goes around the Sun? How big is the universe? Did it have a beginning or is it eternal? Is heat a fluid or just the random motion of molecules? Is light made of particles or is it a fluid or maybe something else? This book answers these questions and many more as it traces the development of our modern scientific understanding of the physical world. The historical approach allows us to see not only how the content of the modern physical sciences was formed but also how cultural, philosophical, and religious influences and attitudes have played a major role in that development.

As the twentieth century ended, computers, the Internet, and nanotechnology were central to modern American life. Yet the physical advances underlying these applications are poorly understood and underappreciated by U.S. citizens. In this overview, Cassidy views physics through America's engagement with the political events of a tumultuous century.

The first article in this volume, by Tetu Hirosige, is a definitive study of the genesis of Einstein's theory of relativity. Other articles treat topics—theoretical, experimental, philosophical, and institutional—in the history of physics and chemistry from the researches of Laplace and Lavoisier in the eighteenth century to those of Dirac and Jordan in the twentieth century. Contents: The Ether Problem, the Mechanistic World View, and the Origins of the Theory of Relativity (Tetu Hirosige); Kinstein's Early Scientific Collaboration (Lewis Pyenson); Max Planck's Philosophy of Nature and His Elaboration of the Special Theory of Relativity (Stanley Goldberg); The Concept of Particle Creation before and after Quantum Mechanics (Joan Brombery); Chemistry as a Branch of Physics: Laplace's Collaboration with Lavoisier (Henry Guerlac); Mayer's Concept of "Force": The "Axis" of a New Science of Physics (P. M. Heimann); Debates over the Theory of Solution: A Study of Dissent in Physical Chemistry in the English-Speaking World in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (R. G. A. Dolby); The Rise of Physics Laboratories in Britain (Romualdas Sviedrys); The Establishment of the Royal College of Chemistry: An Investigation of the Social Context of Early-Victorian Chemistry (Gerrylynn K. Roberts) Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This concise introduction to the history of physical science in the Middle Ages begins with a description of the feeble state of early medieval science and its revitalization during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as evidenced by the explosion of knowledge represented by extensive translations of Greek and Arabic treatises. The content and concepts that came to govern science from the late twelfth century onwards were powerfully shaped and dominated by the science and philosophy of Aristotle. It is, therefore, by focussing attention on problems and controversies associated with Aristotelian science that the reader is introduced to the significant scientific developments and interpretations formulated in the later Middle Ages. The concluding chapter presents a new interpretation of the medieval failure to abandon the physics and cosmology of Aristotle and explains why, despite serious criticisms, they were not generally repudiated during this period. As detailed critical bibliography completes the work.

Modern physical science is constituted by specialized scientific fields rooted in experimental laboratory work and in rational and mathematical representations. Contemporary scientific explanation is rigorously differentiated from religious interpretation, although, to be sure, scientists sometimes do the philosophical work of interpreting the metaphysics of space, time, and matter. However, it is rare that either theologians or philosophers convincingly claim that they are doing the scientific work of physical scientists and mathematicians. The rigidity of these divisions and differentiations is relatively new. Modern physical science was invented slowly and gradually through interactions of the aims and contents of mathematics, theology, and natural philosophy since the seventeenth century. In essays ranging in focus from seventeenth-century interpretations of heavenly comets to twentieth-century explanations of tracks in bubble chambers, ten historians of science demonstrate metaphysical and theological threads continuing to underpin the epistemology and practice of the physical sciences and mathematics, even while they became disciplinary specialties during the last three centuries. The volume is prefaced by tributes to Erwin N. Hiebert, whose teaching and scholarship have addressed and inspired attention to these issues.

While the physical sciences are a continuously evolving source of technology and of understanding about our world, they have become so specialized and rely on so much prerequisite knowledge that for many people today the divide between the sciences and the humanities seems even greater than it was when C. P. Snow delivered his famous 1959 lecture,

Our understanding of nature, and in particular of physics and the laws governing it, has changed radically since the days of the ancient Greek natural philosophers. This book explains how and why these changes occurred, through landmark experiments as well as theories that - for their time - were revolutionary. The presentation covers Mechanics, Optics, Electromagnetism, Thermodynamics, Relativity Theory, Atomic Physics and Quantum Physics. The book places emphasis on ideas and on a qualitative presentation, rather than on mathematics and equations. Thus, although primarily addressed to those who are studying or have studied science, it can also be read by non-specialists. The author concludes with a discussion of the evolution and organization of universities, from ancient times until today, and of the organization and dissemination of knowledge through scientific publications and conferences.