The Dialectic Relation Between Physics and Mathematics in the XIXth Century (History of Mechanism and Machine Science)
Language: English
Pages: 186
ISBN: 9400753799
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The aim of this book is to analyse historical problems related to the use of mathematics in physics as well as to the use of physics in mathematics and to investigate Mathematical Physics as precisely the new discipline which is concerned with this dialectical link itself. So the main question is: When and why did the tension between mathematics and physics, explicitly practised at least since Galileo, evolve into such a new scientific theory?
The authors explain the various ways in which this science allowed an advanced mathematical modelling in physics on the one hand, and the invention of new mathematical ideas on the other hand. Of course this problem is related to the links between institutions, universities, schools for engineers, and industries, and so it has social implications as well.
The link by which physical ideas had influenced the world of mathematics was not new in the 19th century, but it came to a kind of maturity at that time. Recently, much historical research has been done into mathematics and physics and their relation in this period. The purpose of the Symposium and this book is to gather and re-evaluate the current thinking on this subject. It brings together contributions from leading experts in the field, and gives much-needed insight in the subject of mathematical physics from a historical point of view.
The Search for Superstrings, Symmetry, and the Theory of Everything
The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
Quantum Mechanics: An Experimentalist's Approach
infinitesimals, but again it actually relied on AI, 168 A. Drago even if covertly.9 Hence this debate also was unsuccessful in recognising the corresponding option, between AI and PI and the dominant theoretical physics saw the use of classical mathematics as the only one possible. Following the birth of incommensurabilities, physicists lost their awareness of the historical evolution of theoretical physics. During the Restoration, each time two theories presented radical differences in their
of the entire surrounding space. The direction of an electric current is generally thought of as passing from a positive electrode to a negative. In order to provide a better physical idea of the phenomenon, Maxwell included a voltaic source. Solid arrows show the direction of current flow in his diagram. The figure represents “[ : : : ] the same relation between a circular current and the magnetic effect it surrounds” (Simpson, 19, line 3). It should be noted that most of the physical devices
the university of La Sorbonne in Paris in the year 1850. He proposed a mathematical unity with the invention of curvilinear coordinates, and for him the truly universal principle of Nature is aether. His pupil Emile Mathieu conceived the project of a complete treatise when he gave lessons in the university of La Sorbonne in Paris (Chap. 5). For him, the unity could not be found in the aether, but in the unique procedure, which operates in each of the physical sciences. He intended to work with a
to observe and measure physical magnitudes. During and after an experiment, this apparatus may be illustrated and/or designed. Generally, this procedure is not employed in pure mathematical studies. Thus, one can claim that experiments and their illustrations can be strictly characterized by physical principles and magnitudes to be measured. A modelling of results of the experimental apparatus allows for the broadening of the hypotheses and the establishment of certain theses. If one avoids
so that V .x; y; z/ D V0 is the initial family and V(x, y, z) has a laplacian equal to zero (V D 0). Therefore, V can be considered as a temperature or a thermic parameter. Lam´e showed that V can be expressed as a function of œ: Z V. / D A d ='. / C B a 14 Leibniz (1989, 190). Nouveau rapprochement qui fait entrevoir l’´ev´enement futur d’une science rationnelle unique, embrassant, par les mˆemes formules, les trois branches des math´ematiques appliqu´es, que je viens de d´efinir, et en
