Wranglers And Physicists

This work is the first explicit examination of the key role that mathematics has played in the development of theoretical physics and will undoubtedly challenge the more conventional accounts of its historical development. Although mathematics has long been regarded as the "language" of physics, the connections between these independent disciplines have been far more complex and intimate than previous narratives have shown. The author convincingly demonstrates that practices, methods, and language shaped the development of the field, and are a key to understanding the mergence of the modern academic discipline. Mathematicians and physicists, as well as historians of both disciplines, will find this provocative work of great interest.

Putting physics into the historical context of the Industrial Revolution and the European nation-state, Purrington traces the main figures, including Faraday, Maxwell, Kelvin, and Helmholtz, as well as their interactions, experiments, discoveries, and debates. The success of nineteenth-century physics laid the foundation for quantum theory and relativity in the twentieth. Robert D. Purrington is a professor of physics at Tulane University and coauthor of Frame of the Universe.

Leaving aside for once all utilitarian considerations, this book attempts to demonstrate the role and influence of the natural sciences in the development of human thought and in shaping the way in which we perceive the world. This seems to be particularly necessary in the present day and age, in view of the fact that a large section of the public is scarcely aware of the great cultural contribution that the natural sciences make towards moulding our conception of the world and scarcely acknowledges their function in helping us to find our bearings in a world that is becoming increasingly complex.

Modern science has changed every aspect of life in ways that cannot be compared to developments of previous eras. This four-volume set presents key developments within modern physical science and the effects of these discoveries on modern global life. The first two volumes explore the history of the concept of relativity, the cultural roots of science, the concept of time and gravity before, during, and after Einstein's theory, and the cultural reception of relativity. Volume 3 explores the impact of modern science upon global politics and the creation of a new kind of war, and Volume 4 details the old and new efforts surrounding the elucidation of the quantum world, as well as the cultural impact of particle physics. This reprint collection pools the best scholarship available, collected from a large array of difficult to acquire books, journals, and pamphlets. Each volume begins with an introductory essay, written by one of the top scholars in the history of science. Students and scholars of modern culture, science, and society will find these volumes a veritable research gold mine.

Mathematicians and lay people alike will enjoy this fascinating book that details the life of George Green, a pioneer in the application of mathematics to physical problems. Green was a mathematical physicist who spent most of the first 40 years of his life working not as a physicist but as a miller in his father's grain mill. Green received only four terms of formal schooling, and at the age of nine he had surpassed his teachers. Green studied mathematics in his spare time and in 1828 published his most famous work, An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism. It was in this essay that the famous Green's Theorem and Green's functions first appeared. Although this work was largely ignored during his lifetime, it is now considered of major importance in modern physics.

The sub-title of this symposium is accurate and, in a curious way, promises more than it states: Classical Physicist, Modem Philosopher. Heinrich Hertz, as the con summate experimentalist of 19th century technique and as brilliant clarifying critic of physical theory of his time, achieved one of the fulfilments but at the same time opened one of the transition points of classical physics. Thus, in his 'popular' lecture 'On the Relations Between Light and Electricity' at Heidelberg in the Fall of 1889, Hertz identified the ether as henceforth the most fundamental problem of physics, as the conceptual mystery but also the key to understanding mass, electric ity, and gravity. Of Hertz's demonstration of electric waves, Helmholtz told the Physical Society of Berlin: "Gentlemen! I have to communicate to you today the most important physical discovery of the century. " Hertz, philosophizing in his direct, lucid, pithy style, once wrote "We have to imagine". Perhaps this is metaphysics on the horizon? In the early pages of his Principles of Mechanics, we read A doubt which makes an impression on our mind cannot be removed by calling it metaphysical: every thoughtful mind as such has needs which scientific men are accustomed to denote as metaphysical. (PM23) And at another place, concerning the terms 'force' and 'electricity' and the alleged mystery of their natures, Hertz wrote: We have an obscure feeling of this and want to have things cleared up.

As recently as two hundred years ago, physics as we know it today did not exist. Born in the early nineteenth century during the second scientific revolution, physics struggled at first to achieve legitimacy in the scientific community and culture at large. In fact, the term "physicist" did not appear in English until the 1830s. When Physics Became King traces the emergence of this revolutionary science, demonstrating how a discipline that barely existed in 1800 came to be regarded a century later as the ultimate key to unlocking nature's secrets. A cultural history designed to provide a big-picture view, the book ably ties advances in the field to the efforts of physicists who worked to win social acceptance for their research. Beginning his tale with the rise of physics from natural philosophy, Iwan Morus chronicles the emergence of mathematical physics in France and its later export to England and Germany. He then elucidates the links between physics and industrialism, the technology of statistical mechanics, and the establishment of astronomical laboratories and precision measurement tools. His tale ends on the eve of the First World War, when physics had firmly established itself in both science and society. Scholars of both history and physics will enjoy this fascinating and studied look at the emergence of a major scientific discipline.