Physics as History

[Robert]

As I was reviewing a history of physics, as recorded over the last few
hundred years, it suddenly struck me that physics is not merely
composed of actual observations and measurements. Physics is as much
composed of physicists as it is of their abstractions.

For example, Newton did not formulate his theory of gravity in a
(excuse the non-literal expression) vacuum. His intellect, his
education and his social context, along with his experience, all
converged at a point of space-time to produce the profound insight
which he then developed into a full blown theory that altered the
course of world history.

We may speculate that physics eventually would have arrived at its
present state even had none of the particular physicists whose names
mark chapters in the history of science ever been born. There seems
to be a certain inevitability about discovery, that says that if
indeed, E=MC squared, that someone would eventually stumble across
that fact. If not Einstein, then perhaps Billybob would have
discerned it, albeit many years later than Einstein did.

But two thoughts occur in this regard.

First, there is no guarantee. While it is probably true that someone,
somewhere, would eventually invent the wheel, there are certain
critical discoveries that are so counter-intuitive, so original, and
perhaps so unlikely, that it is quite possible that they might never
happen at all, or at least, be delayed by centuries. (Footnote:
consider that the Mayans never employed the wheel except as a toy.)

Second, if we accept that the first thought is plausible, then a
second, more curious thought must follow. Can we be sure that physics
has not missed something?

To illustrate this in a somewhat entertaining fashion, I conceive of
the plot for a science fiction story in which earthlings land on a
faraway planet to discover an advanced civilization that suffers the
handicap of never having made a fundamental discovery, such as for
example the invention of the wheel. Once the earthlings demonstrate
the invention, the aliens slap themselves on some of their foreheads,
and declare, how could we have missed something so obvious?

At the same time, aliens land on earth, and are astonished to find
that we humans have never developed a simple anti-gravity device.
Once they show it to us, we slap ourselves on the forehead, and
declare, how could we have missed something so obvious?

If you are thinking that this is beyond implausible, consider the
invention of the steam engine. While the steam engine did not come
into practical use until the late 1700s, it was actually invented (in
primitive form) in about the year 100 by a man named Heron of
Alexandria. He discarded it as an impractical novelty. But had there
been anyone on the scene to recognize its potential, and done for the
steam engine what other ancient engineers did for the antikythera
device, imagine how radically different a course human history would
almost surely have taken. Imagine something akin to the Industrial
Revolution occurring in about the year 150 AD!

In this day and age, science and technology have the advantage of a
highly efficient network of interconnected communications. Each
advance in one field, say for example the development of a new heat
resistant material, or a room temperature superconductor, can rapidly
be combined with many other projects that are stalled on the back
burner awaiting precisely such an advancement. Technology has, in
principle at least, the potential to advance exponentially fast. That
interconnection makes us less dependent than ever before on a Newton
or Einstein suddenly gaining that form of insight which we call a
stroke of genius.

But looking at the history of science, one must wonder if the seeming
inevitability of it all was never the case to begin with. One wonders
how many (figuratively speaking) Spartan warriors lived out their
lives as ancient Nikola Tesla’s, having secretly planned to harness
the earth’s magnetic field to produce instant, worldwide
communications signals, when suddenly a Persian spear pierced his
heart.

Was our generation’s Nikola Tesla killed in a guerilla war in Uganda,
or discarded on the floor of an abortion clinic in London? When
someone finally invents the next, world changing, counter-intuitive
technology, will we slap ourselves on the forehead, and say, how could
we have missed something so obvious?

Maybe there is no such thing as the science of physics, but rather,
only the cumulative biographies of physicists.

[Aetherist]

It has been my observation that the most serious failing or flaw of
our higher education system in the sciences is the near total lack
of teaching the actual history of the development of science. What
is taught is usually soooo superficial and garbled by the re-telling
(the classroom telephone effect) as to almost never reflect the
actual details. One need only go back and look into the actual
published papers of many famous authors. Politics permeates and
shade all. Examples include Einstein, Helholtz, Lord Kelvin, Tesla,
Volta, Maxwell, and many others.

One should not be allowed to graduate without at least having two
full semesters of the history of science. Whittaker's book would
make a great basis for such a curriculum.