CHAPTER
I. [BROAD POINTS OF VIEW]
New Kinds of Experience Always Possible
The Operational Character of Concepts
Einstein's Contribution in Changing Our Attitude
toward Concepts
Detailed Discussion of the Concept of Length
The Relative Character of Knowledge
Meaningless Questions
General Comments on the Operational Point of
View
II. [OTHER GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS]
The Approximate Character of Empirical Knowledge
Explanations and Mechanisms
Models and Constructs
The Rôle of Mathematics in Physics
III. [DETAILED CONSIDERATION OF VARIOUS CONCEPTS
OF PHYSICS]
The Concept of Space
The Concept of Time
The Causality Concept
The Concept of Identity
The Concept of Velocity
The Concepts of Force and Mass
The Concept of Energy
The Concepts of Thermodynamics
Electrical Concepts
The Nature of Light and the Concepts of Relativity
Other Relativity Concepts
Rotational Motion and Relativity
Quantum Concepts
IV. [SPECIAL VIEWS OF NATURE]
The Simplicity of Nature
Determinism
On the Possibility of Describing Nature Completely
in Terms of Analysis
A Glimpse Ahead
[INDEX]
THE LOGIC OF MODERN PHYSICS
CHAPTER I
BROAD POINTS OF VIEW
WHATEVER may be one's opinion as to our permanent acceptance of the analytical details of Einstein's restricted and general theories of relativity, there can be no doubt that through these theories physics is permanently changed. It was a great shock to discover that classical concepts, accepted unquestioningly, were inadequate to meet the actual situation, and the shock of this discovery has resulted in a critical attitude toward our whole conceptual structure which must at least in part be permanent. Reflection on the situation after the event shows that it should not have needed the new experimental facts which led to relativity to convince us of the inadequacy of our previous concepts, but that a sufficiently shrewd analysis should have prepared us for at least the possibility of what Einstein did.
Looking now to the future, our ideas of what external nature is will always be subject to change as we gain new experimental knowledge, but there is a part of our attitude to nature which should not be subject to future change, namely that part which rests on the permanent basis of the character of our minds. It is precisely here, in an improved understanding of our mental relations to nature, that the permanent contribution of relativity is to be found. We should now make it our business to understand so thoroughly the character of our permanent mental relations to nature that another change in our attitude, such as that due to Einstein, shall be forever impossible. It was perhaps excusable that a revolution in mental attitude should occur once, because after all physics is a young science, and physicists have been very busy, but it would certainly be a reproach if such a revolution should ever prove necessary again.
NEW KINDS OF EXPERIENCE ALWAYS POSSIBLE
The first lesson of our recent experience with relativity is merely an intensification and emphasis of the lesson which all past experience has also taught, namely, that when experiment is pushed into new domains, we must be prepared for new facts, of an entirely different character from those of our former experience. This is taught not only by the discovery of those unsuspected properties of matter moving with high velocities, which inspired the theory of relativity, but also even more emphatically by the new facts in the quantum domain. To a certain extent, of course, the recognition of all this does not involve a change of former attitude; the fact has always been for the physicist the one ultimate thing from which there is no appeal, and in the face of which the only possible attitude is a humility almost religious. The new feature in the present situation is an intensified conviction that in reality new orders of experience do exist, and that we may expect to meet them continually. We have already encountered new phenomena in going to high velocities, and in going to small scales of magnitude: we may similarly expect to find them, for example, in dealing with relations of cosmic magnitudes, or in dealing with the properties of matter of enormous densities, such as is supposed to exist in the stars.
Implied in this recognition of the possibility of new experience beyond our present range, is the recognition that no element of a physical situation, no matter how apparently irrelevant or trivial, may be dismissed as without effect on the final result until proved to be without effect by actual experiment.
The attitude of the physicist must therefore be one of pure empiricism. He recognizes no a priori principles which determine or limit the possibilities of new experience. Experience is determined only by experience. This practically means that we must give up the demand that all nature be embraced in any formula, either simple or complicated. It may perhaps turn out eventually that as a matter of fact nature can be embraced in a formula, but we must so organize our thinking as not to demand it as a necessity.