The evolution of mathematical physics

Being the Rouse Ball Lecture for 1924,
BY HORACE LAMB, Sc.D., F.R.S., HONORARY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE
CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1924
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
THE founder of this Lecture has chosen as one of his special interests the history of Mathematics, both through the ages and as reflected in the studies of the University. Within a short compass he has given an account of the development of the subject which contrasts with the elaborate treatises of previous writers by its concentration on essentials, and also by the glimpses which it affords of the personalities of the mathematicians whose achievements he records, with their limitations and their failures, as well as their ambitions and successes.
The study of the successive steps in the evolution of any subject is an attractive pursuit, and many years ago, speaking not far from this place, I was led to hazard some speculations as to the ideas which prompted and guided the very first steps in the development of Greek Mathematics. I even ventured to say, not altogether in the spirit of paradox, that if any one scientific invention could claim pre-eminence above all others, I should be inclined to suggest a monument to the unknown inventor of the mathematical point , as the first step in that long process of abstraction and idealization which has culminated in the science (and not merely mathematical science) of to-day. I remember that the eminent engineer who sat near remarked to me afterwards that if the scale of subscriptions was to be appropriate to the dimensions of the object to be commemorated he would gladly head the list. An even more eminent astronomer told me that the whole address was an elaborate scientific joke. Such friendly satire did not disturb my opinion; but speculations on the psychology of the primitive mathematicians, attractive as I think they are, are necessarily precarious, and I am not tempted to venture on this field again. The task which I would attempt to-day is to trace the leading steps in the development of that great tradition of Mathematical Physics, as distinguished from Dynamics and Astronomy, which began in the early years of the last century, and has dominated physical speculation until quite recent times, when new discoveries and new ideas have emerged, calling for newer methods, without, however, rendering the old ones obsolete. The ground has of course been traversed before, but not I think quite from the present point of view. I am not concerned with physical theories as such but rather with the mathematical dress which they have assumed from time to time. My object is to shew how it comes about that we have inherited a mathematical scheme which in its final form embraces subjects physically so different as Heat-Conduction, Hydrodynamics, Elasticity, Magnetism, Electricity, and Light, and can be made to include any one of these by assigning proper names to the symbols. The scheme admits of course of being set forth in a purely abstract form without any physical reference at all, and this has in fact been done; but its chief value is for the physical analogies which it facilitates, and in which it originated. The development has been continuous, although the wide scope of the final result could not have been foreseen.