{"title":"Professors of Natural Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century","authors":"Thomas B. Greenslade Jr.","doi":"10.1007/s00016-020-00264-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-020-00264-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The introductory physics course taught in American College and Universities in the twenty-first century is a descendent of the natural philosophy—later, physics—course that developed in these institutions in the nineteenth century. In the present paper, I discuss the backgrounds of a number of prominent professors of natural philosophy who taught these courses. These came, variously from experience as high-school teachers, engineers, and clergymen. Few of them planned to become faculty members, as contrasted to today’s professors who have rigorous educational and research training to prepare themselves for their task.</p>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"22 4","pages":"226 - 238"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s00016-020-00264-y","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"4683649","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Problem of Reflection in Eighteenth-Century Projectile Theories of Light","authors":"Breno Arsioli Moura","doi":"10.1007/s00016-020-00266-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-020-00266-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper explores the mechanical models elaborated by projectile theorists throughout the eighteenth century to explain the reflection of light. Influenced by Isaac Newton’s <i>Opticks</i>, these projectile theorists proposed that repulsion was the cause of reflection. My purpose is to show that their models were not unified and lacked a deeper understanding of the origin of repulsive powers. This analysis illustrates how a simple optical phenomenon was not easy for eighteenth-century theorists to explain, even when the projectile theory of light was prominent among natural philosophers.</p>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"22 4","pages":"191 - 214"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s00016-020-00266-w","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"4015932","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fundamental Themes in Physics from the History of Art","authors":"Robert Fleck","doi":"10.1007/s00016-020-00269-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-020-00269-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Mindful of a stated <i>Project 2061</i> goal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, emphasizing that “scientific literacy includes seeing the scientific endeavor in the light of cultural and intellectual history,” and in the continuing spirit of narrowing the gap between the “two cultures” by enhancing STEAM awareness and education, this essay illustrates, quite literally through well-known works of Western art, the striking parallels between fundamental themes in physics and the visual arts through history. These connections include: the identification of microcosm–macrocosm analogies in prehistoric proto-science; the beginning of the appreciation in pre-classical antiquity of the lawfulness of nature under the aegis of a Divine Lawgiver; the rise of rationalism and the first theories of the architecture of matter during the so-called “Greek miracle”; the overlapping role of theology’s “handmaiden” during the emblematic medieval Age of Faith; Renaissance renovations and the triumph of the “mechanical universe” as the capstone of the scientific revolution in the early modern period; the influence on physics of the Romantic notion of an underlying unity in all of nature, and the increasing abstraction in both art and physics during the nineteenth century; and, finally, the parallels between twentieth-century art and the physics of relativity and quantum theory, concluding with examples from modern cosmology.</p>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"23 1","pages":"25 - 48"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s00016-020-00269-7","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"5502894","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Redshifts versus Paradigm Shifts: Against Renaming Hubble’s Law","authors":"Cormac O’Raifeartaigh, Michael O’Keeffe","doi":"10.1007/s00016-020-00263-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-020-00263-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We consider the proposal by many scholars and by the International Astronomical Union to rename Hubble’s law as the Hubble-Lema?tre law. We find the renaming questionable on historic, scientific, and philosophical grounds. From a historical perspective, we argue that the renaming presents an anachronistic interpretation of a law originally understood as an empirical relation between two observables. From a scientific perspective, we argue that the renaming conflates the redshift/distance relation of the spiral nebulae with a universal law of cosmic expansion derived from the general theory of relativity. We note that the first of these phenomena is merely one manifestation of the second, an important distinction that might be relevant to contemporary puzzles concerning the current rate of cosmic expansion. From a philosophical perspective, we note that many of the named laws of science are empirical relations between observables, limited in range, rather than laws of universal application derived from theory.</p>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"22 4","pages":"215 - 225"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s00016-020-00263-z","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"5103549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Reconsideration of Ştefania Mărăcineanu’s Measurements of Polonium-210’s Half-Life: Understanding Her Claim to the Discovery of Artificial Radioactivity","authors":"Dorel Bucurescu","doi":"10.1007/s00016-020-00259-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-020-00259-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p>I re-examine the raw data of the measurements of the half-life of <sup>210</sup>Po from the Romanian physicist ?tefania M?r?cineanu’s doctoral thesis, performed at the Institut du Radium, 1921–1923, under the supervision of Marie Curie. The half-life values reported in the thesis show relatively large divergences and a possible dependence on the (metallic) support on which the Po source was deposited. These findings influenced M?r?cineanu’s subsequent independent research, and later compelled her to claim priority for the discovery of artificial radioactivity. The present analysis of these data, performed with the least-squares method, certifies the outstanding accuracy of the experimental measurements by providing values with good agreement between the different series of measurements and an average value that is close to the currently adopted half-life value of this isotope. On the other hand, this analysis changes our perspective by showing that the rudimentary procedure M?r?cineanu used to processing the data introduced errors in her reported values, which favored a poor interpretation of the results.</p>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"22 3","pages":"162 - 181"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s00016-020-00259-9","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"4447751","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Joshua Nall, News from Mars: Mass Media and the Forging of a New Astronomy, 1860–1910, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019, 287 pages, $50 (hardcover)","authors":"Robert W. Smith","doi":"10.1007/s00016-020-00261-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-020-00261-1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"22 3","pages":"182 - 184"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s00016-020-00261-1","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"4680109","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Enrico Fermi’s Discovery of Neutron-Induced Artificial Radioactivity: A Case of “Emanation” from “Divine Providence”","authors":"Francesco Guerra, Matteo Leone, Nadia Robotti","doi":"10.1007/s00016-020-00258-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-020-00258-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We reconstruct Enrico Fermi’s remarkable discovery of neutron-induced radioactivity in March 1934 with a focus on the experimental apparatus he used, such as the original neutron sources preserved in Italy and abroad. Special attention is paid to the role of the Radium Office of the Institute of Public Health in Rome in providing to Fermi the “radium emanation” (Radon-222) used to make his radon-beryllium neutron sources. This particular angle of investigation allows us to make a full reconstruction of what Fermi actually realized in his laboratory, to gain a better insight into his methodological choices, and, ultimately, to understand how special circumstances conspired to make the discovery of neutron-induced radioactivity possible.</p>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"22 3","pages":"129 - 161"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s00016-020-00258-w","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"4252087","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Robert P. Crease, Joseph D. Martin, Richard Staley
{"title":"Don’t Be Like Ike","authors":"Robert P. Crease, Joseph D. Martin, Richard Staley","doi":"10.1007/s00016-020-00257-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-020-00257-x","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"22 2","pages":"53 - 54"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s00016-020-00257-x","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"4800264","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Battle of the Astronomers: Johann Adam Schall von Bell and Ferdinand Verbiest at the Court of the Celestial Emperors (1660–1670)","authors":"Stefano Salvia","doi":"10.1007/s00016-020-00254-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-020-00254-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The paper is focused on the two most outstanding figures among the Jesuit missionaries in seventeenth-century China: Johann Adam Schall von Bell and Ferdinand Verbiest. Schall aimed to introduce the telescope into Chinese astronomy, which was traditionally based on naked-eye observation and calculation. With the advent of the Qing dynasty, he became head of the Mathematical Board and director of the Imperial Observatory. Verbiest was called upon in 1660 to assist Schall in his project of reforming the Chinese traditional calendar. The political situation changed in 1661, with the Empire ruled by a regency hostile to the Jesuits, as were most of the mandarins at the observatory. This was the difficult context of the famous dispute between Yang Guangxian, Wu Mingxuan, and the two Jesuit mathematicians to compare the merits of Western and Chinese astronomy, which lasted from 1664 to 1669. What happened was more than a scientific contest and a court conspiracy: it was a cultural confrontation between the Jesuits and the traditionalist side of the ruling elite, which regarded the Europeans and their increasing influence as a threat for the Empire.</p>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"22 2","pages":"81 - 109"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s00016-020-00254-0","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"4088699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"When Missionary Astronomy Encountered Chinese Astrology: Johann Adam Schall von Bell and Chinese Calendar Reform in the Seventeenth Century","authors":"Liyuan Liu","doi":"10.1007/s00016-020-00255-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-020-00255-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Western missionaries played an important role as go-betweens, promoting communication and interaction between Europe and China in science, culture, and religion. In 1644, the Qing government appointed the Germany Jesuit missionary Johann Adam Schall von Bell head of the Bureau of Astronomy, placing him in charge of reforming the Chinese calendar. In the traditional calendar, in addition to dates based on astronomical calculation, there were annotations attached to each day, which included auspicious and inauspicious days with advice on what to do in daily life according to Chinese astrology. Schall reformed the time arrangements with Western astronomical methods. However, he hoped to go further and proposed to change the annotations on the basis of Western natural astrology. Why did Schall choose to import Western astrology into Chinese astronomy, rather than simply sticking to astronomy? I argue that his views were influenced by both the attitudes of the Roman Catholic Church and the Aristotelianism scholarly tradition. The underlying tensions between Europe and China did not involve conflicts between science and pseudoscience, but between different religious beliefs, as well as different natural philosophies and cosmologies. The encounter of two radically different cultural traditions reflected the complicated relationship between science and belief from a global point of view.</p>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"22 2","pages":"110 - 126"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s00016-020-00255-z","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"4874766","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}