Popular Science Monthly/Volume 66/November 1904/The Fundamental Concepts of Physical Science

by Edward L. Nichols

Layout 4

THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE.^[1]

By Professor EDWARD L. NICHOLS,

CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

ALL algebra, as was pointed out by von Helmholtz nearly fifty years ago, is based upon the three following very simple propositions:

Things equal to the same thing are equal to each other.
If equals be added to equals the wholes are equal.
If unequals be added to equals the wholes are unequal.^[2]

Geometry, he adds, is founded upon a few equally obvious and simple axioms.

The science of physics, similarly, has for its foundation three fundamental conceptions: those of mass, distance and time, in terms of which all physical quantities may be expressed.

Physics, in so far as it is an exact science, deals with the relations of these so-called physical quantities; and this is true not merely of those portions of the science which are usually included under the head of physics, but also of that broader realm which consists of the entire group of the physical sciences, viz., astronomy, the physics of the heavens; chemistry, the physics of the atom; geology, the physics of the earth's crust; biology, the physics of the matter imbued with life; physics proper (mechanics, heat, electricity, sound and light).

The manner in which the three fundamental quantities L, M and T (length, mass and time) enter, in the case of a physical quantity, is given by its dimensional formula.

Thus the dimensional formula for an acceleration is LT^-2 which expresses the fact that an acceleration is a velocity (a length divided by a time) divided by a time. Energy has for its dimensional formula L²MT^-2; it is a force, LT^-2M (an acceleration multiplied by a mass), multiplied by a distance.

Not all physical quantities, in the present state of our knowledge, can be assigned a definite dimensional formula, and this indicates that not all of physics has as yet been reduced to a clearly established mechanical basis. The dimensional formula thus affords a valuable criterion of the extent and boundaries of our strictly definite knowledge of physics. Within these boundaries we are on safe and easy ground and are dealing, independent of all speculation, with the relations between precisely defined quantities. These relations are mathematical and the entire superstructure is erected upon the three fundamental quantities L, M and T and certain definitions; just as geometry arises from its axioms and definitions.

Of many of those physical quantities, for which we are not as yet able to give the dimensional formula, our knowledge is precise and definite, but it is incomplete. In the case, for example, of one important group of quantities, those used in electric and magnetic measurements, we have to introduce, in addition to L, M and T, a constant factor to make the dimensional formula complete. This, the suppressed factor of Rücker,^[3] is μ, the magnetic permeability, when the quantity is expressed in the electromagnetic system, and becomes Tc, the specific inductive capacity, when the quantity is expressed in terms of the electro-static system.

Here the existence of the suppressed factor is indicative of our ignorance of the mechanics involved. If we knew in what way a medium like iron increased the magnetic field or a medium like glass the electric field, we should probably be able to express μ and k in terms of the three selected fundamental dimensions and complete the dimensional formulæ of a large number of quantities.

Where direct mechanical knowledge ceases the great realm of physical speculation begins. It is the object of such speculation to place all phenomena upon a mechanical basis; excluding as unscientific all occult, obscure and mystical considerations.

Whenever the mechanism, by means of which phenomena are produced, is incapable of direct observation either because of its remoteness in space, as in the case of physical processes occurring in the stars, or in time, as in the case of the phenomena with which the geologist has to do, or because of the minuteness of the moving parts, as in molecular physics, physical chemistry, etc., the speculative element is unavoidable. Here we are compelled to make use of analogy. We infer the unknown from the known. Though our logic be without flaw and we violate no mathematical principle, yet are our conclusions not absolute. They rest of necessity upon assumptions, and these are subject to modification indefinitely as our knowledge becomes more complete.

A striking instance of the uncertainties of extrapolation and of the precarious nature of scientific assumptions is afforded by the various estimates of the temperature of the sun. Pouillet placed this temperature between 1461° C. and 1761° C; Secchi at 5,000,000°; Ericsson at 2,500,000°. The newer determinations,^[4] of the temperature of the surface are, to be sure, in better agreement. Le Chatelier finds it to be 7600°; Paschen 5400°; Warburg 6000°. Wilson and Gray publish as their corrected result, 8000°. The estimate of the internal temperature is of a more speculative character. Schuster's computation gives 6,000,000° to 15,000,000°; that of Kelvin 200,000,000°; that of Ekholm 5,000,000°.

Another interesting illustration of the dangers of extrapolation occurs in the history of electricity. Faraday, starting from data concerning the variation between the length of electric sparks through air with the difference of potential, made an interesting computation of the potential difference between earth and sky necessary to discharge a cloud at a height of one mile. He estimated the difference of potential to be about 1,000,000 volts. Later investigations of the sparking distance have, however, shown this function to possess a character quite different from that which might have been inferred from the earlier work, and it is likely that Faraday's value is scarcely nearer the truth than was the original estimate of the temperature of the sun, mentioned above.

Still another notable instance of the errors to which physical research is subject when the attempt is made to extend results beyond the limits established by actual observation occurs in the case of the measurements of the infra-red spectrum of the sun by Langley. His beautiful and ingenious device, the bolometer, made it possible to explore the spectrum to wave-lengths beyond those for which the law of dispersion of the rock-salt prism had at that time been experimentally determined. Within the limits of observation the dispersion showed a curve of simple form, tending apparently to become a straight line as the wave-length increased. There was nothing in the appearance of the curve to indicate that it differed in character from the numerous empirical curves of similar type employed in experimental physics, or to lead even the most experienced investigator to suspect values for the wave-length derived from an extension of the curve. The wave-lengths published by Langley were accordingly accepted as substantially correct by all other students of radiation, but subsequent measurements of the dispersion of rock salt at the hands of Rubens and his coworkers showed the existence of a second sudden and unlooked-for turn of the curve just beyond the point at which the earlier determinations ceased; and in consequence Langley's wavelengths and all work based upon them are now known to be not even approximately accurate. The history of physics is full of such examples of the dangers of extrapolation, or, to speak more broadly, of the tentative character of most of our assumptions in experimental physics.

We have then two distinct sets of physical concepts. The first of these deals with that positive portion of physics the mechanical basis of which, being established upon direct observation, is fixed and definite, and in which the relations are as absolute and certain as those of mathematics itself. Here speculation is excluded. Matter is simply one of the three factors which enters, by virtue of its mass, into our formulae for energy, momentum, etc. Force is simply a quantity of which we need to know only its magnitude, direction, point of application and the time during which it is applied. The Newtonian conception of force—the producer of motion—is adequate. All troublesome questions as to how force acts, of the mechanism by means of which its effects are produced are held in abeyance.

Speculative physics, to which the second set of concepts belong, deals with those portions of the science for which the mechanical basis has to be imagined. Heat, light, electricity and the science of the nature and ultimate properties of matter belong to this domain.

In the history of the theory of heat we find one of the earliest manifestations of a tendency so common in speculative physics that it may be considered characteristic; the assumption of a medium. The medium in this case was the so-called imponderable caloric; and it was one of a large class, of which the two electric fluids, the magnetic fluid, etc., were important members.

The theory of heat remained entirely speculative up to the time of the establishment of the mechanical equivalent of heat by Joule. The discovery that heat could be measured in terms of work, injected into thermal theory the conception of energy and led to the development of thermodynamics.

Generalizations of the sort expressed by Tyndall's phrase, heat a mode of motion, follow easily from the experimental evidence of the part which energy plays in thermal phenomena, but the specification of the precise mode of motion in question must always depend upon our views concerning the nature of matter, and can emerge from the speculative stage only, if ever, when our knowledge of the mechanics of the constitution of matter becomes fixed. The problem of the mechanism by which energy is stored or set free rests upon a similar speculative basis.

These are proper subjects for theoretical consideration, but the dictum of Rowland^[5] that we get out of mathematical formulae only what we put into them should never be lost from sight. So long as we put in only assumptions we shall take out hypotheses, and useful as these may prove, they are to be regarded as belonging to the realm of scientific speculation. They must be recognized as subject to modification indefinitely as we, in consequence of increasing knowledge, are led to modify our assumptions.

The conditions with which the physicist has to deal in his study of optics are especially favorable to the development of the scientific imagination, and it is in this field that some of the most remarkable instances of successful speculative work are to be found. The emission theory died hard and the early advocates of the undulatory theory of light were forced to work up with a completeness, probably without parallel in the history of science, the evidence, necessarily indirect, that in optics we have to do with a wave-motion. The standpoint of optical theory may be deemed conclusive, possibly final, so far as the general proposition is concerned that it is the science of a wave-motion. In a few cases, indeed, such as the photography of the actual nodes of a standing waves ystem, by Wiener, we reach the firm ground of direct observation.

Optics has nevertheless certain distinctly speculative features. Wave-motion demands a medium. The enormous velocity of light excludes known forms of matter; the transmission of radiation in vacuo and through outer space from the most remote regions of the universe, and at the same time through solids such as glass demands that this medium shall have properties very different from that of any substance with which chemistry has made us acquainted.

The assumption of a medium is, indeed, an intellectual necessity and the attempt to specify definitely the properties which it must possess in order to fulfill the extraordinary functions assigned to it has afforded a field for the highest display of scientific acumen. While the problem of the mechanism of the luminiferous ether has not as yet met with a satisfactory solution, the ingenuity and imaginative power developed in the attack upon its difficulties command our admiration.

Happily the development of what may be termed the older optics did not depend upon any complete formulation of the mechanics of the ether. Just as the whole of the older mechanics was built up from Kepler's laws, Newton's laws of motion, the law of gravitational attraction, the law of inverse squares, etc., without any necessity of describing the mechanics of gravitation or of any force, or of matter itself, so the system of geometrical relations involved in the consideration of reflection and refraction, diffraction, interference and polarization was brought to virtual completion without introducing the troublesome questions of the nature of the ether and the constitution of matter.

Underlying this field of geometrical optics or what I have just termed the older optics are, however, a host of fundamental questions of the utmost interest and importance, the treatment of which depends upon molecular mechanics and the mechanics of the ether. Our theories as to the nature and causes of radiation, of absorption and of dispersion, for example, belong to the newer optics and are based upon our conceptions of the constitution of matter; and since our ideas concerning the nature of matter, like our knowledge of the ether, is purely speculative, the science of optics has a doubly speculative basis. One type of selective absorption, for example, is ascribed to resonance of the particles of the absorbing substance, and our modern dispersion theories depend upon the assumption of natural periods of vibration of the particles of the refracting medium of the same order of frequency as that of the light waves. When the frequency of the waves falling upon a substance coincides with the natural period of vibration of the particles of the latter we have selective absorption, and accompanying it anomalous dispersion. For these and numerous other phenomena no adequate theory is possible which does not have its foundation upon some assumed conception as to the constitution of matter.

The development of the modern idea of the ether forms one of the most interesting chapters in the history of physics. We find at first a tendency to assume a number of distinct media corresponding to the various effects (visual, chemical, thermal, phosphorescent, etc.) of light waves, and later the growth of the conception of a single medium, the luminiferous ether.

In the development of electricity and magnetism, meantime, the assumption of media was found to be an intellectual necessity without which no definite philosophy of the phenomena was possible. At first there was the same tendency to a multiplicity of media—there were the positive and negative electric fluids, the magnetic fluid, etc. Then there grew up in the fertile mind of Faraday that wonderful fabric of the scientific imagination, the electric field; the conception upon which all later attempts to form an idea of a thinkable mechanism of electric and magnetic action have been established.

It is the object of science, as has been pointed out by Ostwald, to reduce the number of hypotheses, and the highest development would be that in which a single hypothesis served to elucidate the relations of the entire universe. Maxwell's discovery that the whole theory of optics is capable of expression in terms identical with those found most convenient and suitable in electricity, in a word that optics may be treated simply as a branch of electromagnetics, was the first great step towards such a simplification of our fundamental conceptions. This was followed by Hertz's experimental demonstration of the existence of artificially produced electromagnetic waves in every respect identical with light waves, an achievement which served to establish upon a sure foundation the conception of a single medium. The idea of one universal medium as the mechanical basis for all physical phenomena was not altogether new to the theoretical physicist but the unification of optics and electricity did much to strengthen this conception.

The question of the ultimate structure of matter, as has already been pointed out, is also speculative in the sense that the mechanism upon which its properties are based is out of the range of direct observation. For the older chemistry and the older molecular physics the assumption of an absolutely simple atom and of molecules composed of comparatively simple groupings of such atoms sufficed. Physical chemistry and that new phase of molecular physics which has been termed the physics of the ion demand the breaking up of the atom into still smaller parts and the clothing of these with an electric charge. The extreme step in this direction is the suggestion of Larmor that the electron is a 'disembodied charge' of negative electricity.

Since, however, in the last analysis, the only conception having a definite and intelligible mechanical basis which physicists have been able to form of an electric charge is that which regards it as a phenomenon of the ether, this form of speculation is but a return under another name to views which had earlier proved attractive to some of the most brilliant minds in the world of science, such as Helmholtz and Kelvin. The idea of the atom, as a vortex motion of a perfect fluid (the ether), and similar speculative conceptions, whatever be the precise form of mechanism imagined, are of the same class as the moving electric charge of the later theorists.

Lodge^[6] in a recent article in which he attempts to voice in a popular way the views of this school of thought says:

"Electricity under strain constitutes 'charge'; electricity in locomotion constitutes light. What electricity itself is we do not know, but it may, perhaps, be a form or aspect of matter. . . . Now we can go one step further and say, matter is composed of electricity and of nothing else. . . ."

If for the word electricity in this quotation from Lodge we substitute ether, we have a statement which conforms quite as well to the accepted theories of light and electricity as his original statement does to the newer ideas it is intended to express.

This reconstructed statement would read as follows:

Ether under strain constitutes 'charge'; ether in locomotion constitutes current and magnetism; ether in vibration constitutes light. What ether itself is we do not know, but it may, perhaps, be a form or aspect of matter. Now we can go one step further and say: Matter is composed of ether and of nothing else.

The use of the word electricity, as employed by Lodge and others, is now much in vogue, but it appears to me unfortunate. It would be distinctly conducive to clearness of thought and an avoidance of confusion to restrict the term to the only meaning which is free from criticism; that in which it is used to designate the science which deals with electrical phenomena.

The only way in which the noun electricity enters, in any definite and legitimate manner into our electrical treatises is in the designation of Q in the equations

$Q=Idt,C=Q|E,W=QE,$ etc.

Here we are in the habit—whether by inheritance from the age of the electric fluid, by reason of the hydrodynamic analogy or as a matter of convention or of convenience merely—of calling Q the quantity of electricity.

Now Q is 'charge' and its unit the coulomb is unit charge. The alternative expression, quantity of electricity, is a purely conventional designation and without independent physical significance. It owes its prevalence among electricians to the fact that by virtue of long familiarity we prefer to think in terms of matter, which is tangible, rather than of ether.

Charge is to be regarded as fundamental, and its substitute, quantity of electricity, as merely an artificial term of convenience; because of the former we have a definite mechanical conception, whereas we can intelligently define a quantity of electricity only in terms of charge.

In the science of heat the case differs in that the term heat is used, if not as precisely synonymous with energy, at least for a quantity having the same dimensions as energy and having as its unit the erg. It might easily have happened, as has happened in electrical theory, that the ancient notion of a heat substance should survive, in which case we should have had for the quantity of heat not something measured in terms of energy, but, as in the case of electricity, one of the terms which enter into our expression for energy. We should then have had to struggle continually, in thermo-dynamics, as we now do in electrical theory, against the tendency to revert to an antiquated and abandoned view.

It would, I can not but think, have been fortunate had the word electricity been used for what we now call electrical energy; using charge, or some other convenient designation, for the quantity Q. That aspect of the science in accordance with which we regard it as a branch of energetics in which movements of the ether are primarily involved would have been duly emphasized. We should have been quit forever of the bad notion of electricity as a medium, just as we are already freed from the incubus of heat as a medium. We should have had electricity—a mode of motion (or stress) of the ether as we have heat—a mode of motion (of matter). When our friends asked us: 'What is electricity?' we should have had a ready answer for them instead of a puzzled smile.

One real advance which has been attained by means of the theory of ionization, and it is of extreme significance and of far-reaching importance, consists in the discovery that electrification or the possession of charge, instead of being a casual or accidental property, temporarily imparted by friction or other process, is a fundamental property of matter. According to this newer conception of matter, the fruit of the ionic theory, the ultimate parts of matter, are electrically charged particles. In the language of Rutherford:^[7]

It must then be supposed that the process of ionization in gases consists in a removal of a negative corpuscle or electron from the molecule of gas. At atmospheric pressure this corpuscle immediately becomes the center of an aggregation of molecules which moves with it and is the negative ion. After removal of the negative ion the molecule retains a positive charge and probably also becomes the center of a cluster of new molecules.

The electron or corpuscle is the body of smallest mass yet known to science. It carries a negative charge of $3.4\times 10^{-10}$ electrostatic units. Its presence has only been detected when in rapid motion, when it has for speeds up to about 10^-10 cms. a second, an apparent mass m given by $e/m=1.86\times 10{7}$ electromagnetic units. This apparent mass increases with the speed as the velocity of light is approached.

At low pressures the electron appears to lose its load of clustering molecules, so that finally the negative ion becomes identical with the electron or corpuscle and has a mass, according to the estimates of J. J. Thomson, about one thousandth of that of the hydrogen atom. The positive ion is, however, supposed to remain of atomic size even at low pressures.

The ionic theory and the related hypothesis of electrolytic dissociation afford a key to numerous phenomena concerning which no adequate or plausible theories had hitherto been formed. By means of them explanations have been found, for example, of such widely divergent matters as the positive electric charge known to exist in the upper atmosphere and the perplexing phenomena of fluorescence.

The evidence obtained by J. J. Thomson and other students of ionization, that electrons from different substances are identical, has greatly strengthened the conviction which for a long time has been in process of formation in the minds of physicists, that all matter is in its ultimate nature identical. This conception, necessarily speculative, has been held in abeyance by the facts, regarded as established and lying at the foundation of the accepted system of chemistry, of the conservation of matter and the intransmutability of the elements. The phenomena observed in recent investigations of radioactive substances have, however, begun to shake our faith in this principle.

If matter is to be regarded as a product of certain operations performed upon the ether there is no theoretical difficulty about transmutation of elements, variation of mass or even the complete disappearance or creation of matter. The absence of such phenomena in our experience has been the real difficulty, and if the views of students of radioactivity concerning the transformations undergone by uranium, thorium and radium are substantiated, the doctrines of the conservation of mass and matter which lie at the foundation of the science of chemistry will have to be modified. There has been talk of late of violations of the principle of the conservation of energy in connection with the phenomena of radio-activity, but the conservation of matter is far more likely to lose its place among our fundamental conceptions.

The development of physics on the speculative side has led, then, to the idea, gradually become more definite and fixed, of a universal medium, the existence of which is a matter of inference. To this medium properties have been assigned which are such as to enable us to form an intelligible, consistent conception of the mechanism by means of which phenomena, the mechanics of which is not capable of direct observation, may be logically considered to be produced. The great step in this speculation has been the discovery that a single medium may be made to serve not only for the numerous phenomena of optics, but, without ascribing to it any characteristics incompatible with a luminiferous ether, is equally available for the description and explanation of electric and magnetic fields, and finally may be made the basis for intelligible theories of the structure of matter.

To many minds this seemingly universal adaptability of the ether to the needs of physics almost removes it from the field of speculation; but it should not be forgotten that a system, entirely imaginary, may be devised, which fits all the known phenomena and appears to offer the only satisfactory explanation of the facts, and which subsequently is abandoned in favor of other views. The history of physics is full of instances where a theory is for a time regarded as final on account of its seeming completeness, only to give way to something entirely different.

In this consideration of the fundamental concepts I have attempted to distinguish between those which have the positive character of mathematical laws and which are entirely independent of all theories of the ultimate nature of matter and those which deal with the latter questions and which are essentially speculative. I have purposely refrained from taking that further step which plunges us from the heights of physics into the depths of philosophy.

With the statement that science in the ultimate analysis is nothing more than an attempt to classify and correlate our sensations the physicist has no quarrel. It is, indeed, a wholesome discipline for him to formulate for himself his own relations to his science in terms such as those which, to paraphrase and translate very freely the opening passages of his recent 'Treatise on Physics,' Chwolson^[8] has employed.

For every one there exist two worlds, an inner and an outer, and our senses are the medium of communication between the two. The outer world has the property of acting upon our senses, to bring about certain changes, or, as we say, to exert certain stimuli.

The inner world, for any individual, consists of all those phenomena which are absolutely inaccessible (so far as direct observation goes) to other individuals. The stimulus from the outer world produces in our inner world a subjective perception which is dependent upon our consciousness. The subjective perception is made objective, viz., is assigned time and place in the outer world and given a name. The investigation of the processes by which this objectivication is performed is a function of philosophy.

Some such confession of faith is good for the man of science; lest he forget; but once it is made he is free to turn his face to the light once more, thankful that the investigation of objectivication is, indeed, a function of philosophy and that the only speculations in which he, as a physicist, is entitled to engage are those which are amenable at every step to mathematics and to the equally definite axioms and laws of mechanics.

1. An address at the International Congress of Arts and Science, St. Louis, September, 1004.
2. Von Helmholtz, Populäre Wissenschaftliche Vorträge, p. 136.
3. Rücker, Philos. Mag., 27, p. 104, 1889.
4. See Arrhenius, Kosmische Physik, p. 131.
5. Rowland, president's address to the American Physical Society, 1900.
6. Lodge, Harper's Magazine, August, 1904, p. 383.
7. Rutherford, 'Radioactivity,' p. 53, 1904.
8. Chwolson, 'Physik,' Vol. I., Introduction.