Physics

"The thought of the great epistemological difficulties with which the visual atom concept of earlier physics had to contend gives us the hope that the abstracter atomic physics developing at present will one day fit more harmoniously into the great edifice of Science."

"Light and matter are both single entities, and the apparent duality arises in the limitations of our language. It is not surprising that our language should be incapable of describing the processes occurring within the atoms, for, as has been remarked, it was invented to describe the experiences of daily life, and these consist only of processes involving exceedingly large numbers of atoms. Furthermore, it is very difficult to modify our language so that it will be able to describe these atomic processes, for words can only describe things of which we can form mental pictures, and this ability, too, is a result of daily experience. Fortunately, mathematics is not subject to this limitation, and it has been possible to invent a mathematical scheme — the quantum theory — which seems entirely adequate for the treatment of atomic processes; for visualisation, however, we must content ourselves with two incomplete analogies — the wave picture and the corpuscular picture."

"In the Brownian motion paper, Einstein... calculations involved the relationship between osmotic pressure, viscosity, and the way individual particles suspended in the liquid diffuse... He realized that the kick produced by a single molecule hitting a particle as large as a pollen grain could not produce a measurable shift... But the large particle is constantly being bombarded... if you take a very small time interval, then just by chance at that instant the particle will be receiving more kicks on one side. The combined effect will shift the particle by a minute amount... Einstein discovered that it gradually moved farther from its starting point... as a random walk. He showed the distance ... depends on the square root of the time... This is called "root mean square" displacement and the equation Einstein worked out for displacement involves the temperature of the liquid, its viscosity, the radius of the particle and Avogadro's number. ...He also realized that if the predicted displacement could be measured... the same equation... could be used to give a value of Avogadro's number. ...It was extremely difficult to make the observations... but in 1908... Jean-Baptiste Perrin finally succeeded. ...Perrin's results exactly matched the predictions from Einstein's theory. ...The whole package finally established the reality of atoms and molecules, and the validity of the kinetic theory..."

"The problem was that although ideas like statistical mechanics and the kinetic theory worked at the practical level to provide a mathematical description of what was going on, nobody had seen atoms—more to the point, given the technology of the time it was physically impossible to see atoms. This left the door open to for philosophers such as Ernst Mach to argue that the atomic hypothesis was no more than a hypothesis, what is known as a heuristic device, meaning just because things in the macroscopic world behave as if they were made of atoms that doesn't prove that they are... Mach regarded atoms as no more than a convenient fiction, which provided a basis for physicists to make calculations; anything that could not be detected by the human senses, he argued, was not the proper subject of scientific debate. Einstein disagreed, and argued the case for atoms with his friends. He became obsessed with the idea, and determined that if no one else could prove that atoms were real, he would do it himself."

"The atomic theory was not generally accepted in the time of Democritus, largely because of its deterministic character, for it allows no chance, choice, or free will."

"If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis... that all things are made of atoms — little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied."

"If the idea of physical reality had ceased to be purely atomic, it still remained for the time being purely mechanistic; people still tried to explain all events as the motion of inert masses; indeed no other way of looking at things seemed conceivable. Then came the great change, which will be associated for all time with the names of Faraday, Clerk Maxwell, and Hertz."

"There cannot exist any atoms or parts of matter that are of their own nature indivisible. For however small we suppose these parts to be, yet because they are necessarily extended, we are always able in thought to divide any one of them into two or more smaller parts, and may accordingly admit their divisibility. ...and although we should even suppose that God had reduced any particle of matter to a smallness so extreme that it did not admit of being further divided, it would nevertheless be improperly styled indivisible, for though God had rendered the particle so small that it was not in the power of any creature to divide it, he could not however deprive himself of the ability to do so... Wherefore, absolutely speaking, the smallest extended particle is always divisible..."

"By convention (νόμω) sweet is sweet, by convention bitter is bitter, by convention hot is hot, by convention cold is cold, by convention color is color. But in reality there are atoms and the void. That is, the objects of sense are supposed to be real and it is customary to regard them as such, but in truth they are not. Only the atoms and the void are real"

"Sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention, colour by convention; atoms and Void (alone) exist in reality."

"I have raised a question which may be regarded as heretical. At the time when our modern conception of chemistry first dawned... the average chemist... accepted the elements as ultimate facts... absolutely simple, incapable of transmutation or decomposition, each a kind of barrier behind which we could not penetrate. ...[H]e said they were self-existent from all eternity ...But in our times... we cannot help asking what are the elements, whence do they come, what is their signification? ...These elements perplex us in our researches, baffle us in our speculations, and haunt us in our very dreams. They stretch like an unknown sea before us—mocking, mystifying and murmuring strange revelations and possibilities. If I venture to say that... elements are not simple and primordial... but have evolved from simpler matters—or... one sole kind of matter—I... give formal utterance to an idea... for some time "in the air" of science. Chemists, physicists, philosophers of the highest merit declare explicitly their belief that the seventy... elements of our text-books are not the which we must never hope to pass."

"Dalton did not propose atoms as an abstraction or mathematical device; Dalton's atoms were physical. ...Despite its foundation in dubious hypothesis and its erroneous initial results, Dalton's theory was just the breakthrough that was needed. For the first time it allowed chemists to interpret mass relationships rationally."

"In 1738 Daniel Bernoulli correctly derived Boyle's law by assuming gases consisted of collections of particles that continuously collided with the container walls."

"To try to make a model of an atom by studying its spectrum is like trying to make a model of a grand piano by listening to the noise it makes when thrown downstairs."

"Fraunhofer's publication of 1814 did not receive prompt recognition, nor did his papers of 1821 and 1823. Physicists were fighting over the emission and wave theories of light. The attention of chemists was concentrated upon Dalton's atomic theory and the Berthollet-Proust controversy over the law of definite proportions. The full explanation of the new fact brought forth by Fraunhofer was not given for nearly forty years. He himself had failed to find the key to the hieroglyphics of the solar lines, the "Fraunhofer lines," nor had he clearly defined the role which the spectral lines were destined to play in chemical analysis."

"And, to prevent mistakes, I must advertize You, that I now mean by Elements, as those Chymists that speak plainest do by their Principles, certain Primitive and Simple, or perfectly unmingled bodies; which not being made of any other bodies, or of one another, are the Ingredients of which all those call'd perfectly mixt Bodies are immediately compounded, and into which they are ultimately resolved: now whether there be any one such body to be constantly met with in all, and each, of those that are said to be Elemented bodies, is the thing I now question."

"It may likewise be granted, that those distinct Substances, which Concretes generally either afford or are made up of, may without very much Inconvenience be call'd the Elements or Principles of them."

"I shall not peremptorily deny, that from most of such mixt Bodies as partake either of Animal or Vegetable Nature, there may by the Help of the Fire, be actually obtain'd a determinate number (whether Three, Four or Five, or fewer or more) of Substances, worthy of differing Denominations."

"Neither is it impossible that of these minute Particles divers of the smallest and neighbouring ones were here and there associated into minute Masses or Clusters, and did by their Coalitions constitute great store of such little primary Concretions or Masses as were not easily dissipable into such Particles as compos'd them."

"It seems not absurd to conceive that at the first Production of mixt Bodies, the Universal Matter whereof they among other Parts of the Universe consisted, was actually divided into little Particles of several sizes and shapes variously mov'd."

"In 1763 a Croatian Jesuit named Roger Joseph Boscovich (1711 - 1787) identified the ultimate implication of this mechanical atomic theory. One of the crucial aspects of Isaac Newton's laws of motion is their predictive capability. If we know how an object is moving at any instant - how fast, and in which direction - and if, furthermore, we know the forces acting on it, we can calculate its future trajectory exactly. This predictability made it possible for astronomers to use Newton's laws of motion and gravity to calculate, for example, when future solar eclipses would happen. Boscovich realized that if all the world is just atoms in motion and collision, then an all-seeing mind "could, from a continuous arc described in an interval of time, no matter how small, by all points of matter, derive the law [that is, a universal map] of forces itself … Now, if the law of forces were known, and the position, velocity and direction of all the points at any given instant, it would be possible for a mind of this type to foresee all the necessary subsequent motions and states, and to predict all the phenomena that necessarily followed from them.""

"Who sees the future? Let us have free scope for all directions of research; away with dogmatism, either atomistic or anti-atomistic!"

"It is mere rubbish thinking, at present, of origin of life; one might as well think of origin of matter. —"

"What matter itself is we know not, but its properties and powers are essentially opposite, "toto genere," to those of mind. From the Infinite Mind matter in its nature must stand yet more perfectly distinct. It has even been argued that, since the effect cannot possess qualities which are not in the cause, and since the effect, in this instance, is material, the cause must be material also; or if the Infinite One be purely spiritual, then matter can be no creation but must have existed eternally. ...But it is not necessary that the effect should be of the same nature with the cause."

"The matter which we suppose to be the main constituent of the universe is built out of small self-contained building-blocks, the chemical atoms. It cannot be repeated too often that the word "atom" is nowadays detached from any of the old philosophical speculations: we know precisely that the atoms with which we are dealing are in no sense the simplest conceivable components of the universe. On the contrary, a number of phenomena, especially in the area of spectroscopy, lead to the conclusion that atoms are very complicated structures. So far as modern science is concerned, we have to abandon completely the idea that by going into the realm of the small we shall reach the ultimate foundations of the universe. I believe we can abandon this idea without any regret. The universe is infinite in all directions, not only above us in the large but also below us in the small. If we start from our human scale of existence and explore the content of the universe further and further, we finally arrive, both in the large and in the small, at misty distances where first our senses and then even our concepts fail us."

"To those who ask why God did not so create all men, that they should be governed only by reason, I give no answer but this: because matter was not lacking to him for the creation of every degree of perfection from highest to lowest; or, more strictly, because the laws of his nature are so vast, as to suffice for the production of everything conceivable by an infinite intelligence."

"My opinion concerning God differs widely from that which is ordinarily defended by modern Christians. For I hold that God is of all things the cause immanent, as the phrase is, not transient. I say that all things are in God and move in God, thus agreeing with Paul, and, perhaps, with all the ancient philosophers, though the phraseology may be different ; I will even venture to affirm that I agree with all the ancient Hebrews, in so far as one may judge from their traditions, though these are in many ways corrupted. The supposition of some, that I endeavour to prove in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus the unity of God and Nature (meaning by the latter a certain mass or corporeal matter), is wholly erroneous."

"Matter and energy seem granular in structure, and so does "life", but not so mind."

"We must therefore not be discouraged by the difficulty of interpreting life by the ordinary laws of physics. For that is just what is to be expected from the knowledge we have gained of the structure of living matter. We must also be prepared to find a new type of physical law prevailing in it. Or are we to term it a non-physical, not to say a super-physical, law?"

"What is mind? no matter; what is matter? never mind."

"Matter is substance that may be perceived through the medium of the senses. It has form, colour, weight, taste, smell; is hard or soft, moveable, or immoveable. Those who are acquainted with the principles of Natural Philosophy, will perceive that some of these properties are inherent in matter, and that others depend on circumstances. The human body is a material substance; that is, it has the properties of matter—so has a stone or a rock."

"The modern scientific concept of Matter first emerged between the 17th and 18th centuries, and therefore has no continuity or homogeneity with Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius."

"What now is the answer to the question as to the bridge between the perception of the senses and the concepts, which is now reduced to the question as to the bridge between the outer perceptions and those inner image-like representations. It seems to me one has to postulate a cosmic order of nature — outside of our arbitrariness— to which the outer material objects are subjected as are the inner images... The organizing and regulating has to be posited beyond the differentiation of physical and psychical... I am all for it to call this "organizing and regulating" "archetypes." It would then be inadmissible to define these as psychic contents. Rather, the above-mentioned inner pictures (dominants of the collective unconscious, see Jung) are the psychic manifestations of the archetypes, but which would have to produce and condition all nature laws belonging to the world of matter. The nature laws of matter would then be the physical manifestation of the archetypes."

"Whilst Copernicus has persuaded us to believe, contrary to all the senses, that the earth does not stand fast Boscovich has taught us to abjure the belief in the last thing that stood fast of the earth—the belief in "substance," in "matter," in the earth-residuum, and particle-atom: it is the greatest triumph over the senses that has hitherto been gained on earth. One must, however, go still further, and also declare war... against the "atomistic requirements" which still lead a dangerous after-life in places where no one suspects them, like the more celebrated "metaphysical requirements": one must also above all give the finishing stroke to that other and more portentous atomism which Christianity has taught best and longest, the soul-atomism. Let it be pemitted to designate by this expression the belief which regards the soul as something indestructible, eternal, indivisible, as a monad, as an atomon : this belief ought to be expelled from science!"

"Descartes... fell back on his original confusion of matter with space—space being, according to him, the only form of substance, and all existing things but affections of space. This error... forms one of the ultimate foundations of the system of Spinoza."

"By... confounding the properties of matter with those of space he arrives at the logical conclusion, that if the matter within a vessel could be entirely removed the space within the vessel would no longer exist. In fact he assumes that all space must be always full of matter."

"Will matter then be destroyed or not? The Savior said, All nature, all formations, all creatures exist in and with one another, and they will be resolved again into their own roots. For the nature of matter is resolved into the roots of its own nature alone."

"Matter gave birth to a passion that has no equal, which proceeded from something contrary to nature. Then there arises a disturbance in its whole body."

"The entire cosmos is made out of one and the same world-stuff, operated by the same energy as we ourselves. "Mind" and "matter" appears as two aspects of our unitary mind-bodies. There is no separate supernatural realm: all phenomena are part of one natural process of evolution. There is no basic cleavage between science and religion; they are both organs of evolving humanity."

"The upward progress of terrestrial life towards individuality has found apparently insurmountable obstacles, gross material difficulties before it, but once more through consciousness it finds wings, and, laughing at matter, flies over lightly where it could not climb."

"The fundamental principle of the atheism of Spinoza is the doctrine of the simplicity of the universe, and the unity of that substance, in which he supposes both thought and matter to inhere. There is only one substance, says he, in the world; and that substance is perfectly simple and indivisible, and exists every where, without any local presence. Whatever we discover externally by sensation; whatever we feel internally by reflection; all these are nothing but modifications of that one, simple, and necessarily existent being, and are not possest of any separate or distinct existence. Every passion of the soul; every configuration of matter, however different and various, inhere in the same substance, and preserve in themselves their characters of distinction, without communicating them to that subject, in which they inhere."

"Epicurus held an opinion almost the opposite of all others. He supposed that the beginnings of the universals were atoms and a void; that the void was as it were the place of the things that will be; but that the atoms were matter, from which all things are."

"He said that the beginning of the universe was mind and matter, mind being the creator and matter that which came into being."

"To the naked eye it was a dense, solid object, but its lattice of tiny nuclei immersed in an insubstantial fog of electrons was one part matter to two hundred trillion parts empty space."

"Materialism in its literal sense is long since dead. But its place has been taken by other philosophies which represent a virtually equivalent outlook. The tendency today is not to reduce everything to manifestations of matter—since matter now has only a minor place in the physical world—but to reduce it to manifestations of the operation of natural law... laws of the type prevailing in geometry, mechanics, and physics which are found to have this common characteristic—that they are ultimately reducible to mathematical equations. ...[T]hey are laws which, unlike human law, are never broken. It is the belief in the universal dominance of scientific law which is nowadays generally meant by materialism."

"Leibniz reversed the traditional conception of mind and matter by applying attributes of matter (in terms of sensory experience) to mind. Mind is what it experiences. Every mind or soul becomes an independent attribute of the universe, divinely ordered or arranged. Leibniz’s focus truly was mind."

"Popular thought, supported by desires common to all human beings, readily accepts the view that mind is essentially different from matter, that its laws are in every respect different from the laws of material nature, and that the brain, being a part of the material nature, is simply the special tool used by the mind in its intercourse with nature."

"Natural science served as - if we overlook the hasty identification of mind and matter which had its origin in natural science - as a shining and fruitful example to psychology."

"Matter in quantum mechanics is not an inert substance but an active agent, constantly making choices between alternative possibilities according to probabilistic laws. ...It appears that mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent inherent in every electron. ...Our brains appear to be devices for the amplification of the mental component of the quantum choices made by molecules inside our heads. ...There is evidence from peculiar features of the laws of nature that the universe as a whole is hospitable to the growth of mind. ...an extension of the Anthropic Principle up to a universal scale."

"I recently listened to a talk by a famous biologist. He spoke about... scientific materialism and religious transcendentalism. He said, "...they are incompatible and mutually exclusive." This seems to be a widely accepted view... I do not share it. I do not know what the word "materialism" means. ...I judge matter to be an imprecise and ...old-fashioned concept ...[M]atter is the way particles behave when a large number of them are lumped together. When we examine matter in the finest detail in experiments of particle physics, we see it behaving as an active agent... Its actions are... unpredictable. It makes what appear to be arbitrary choices between alternative possibilities. Between matter... and mind... there seems to be only a difference of degree... We stand... midway between the unpredictability of matter and the unpredictability of God. This view... may not be true, but it is... logically consistent and compatible with... experiments of modern physics. Therefore... scientific materialism and religious transcendentalism are neither incompatible nor mutually exclusive. We have learned that matter... does not limit God's freedom to make it do what he pleases."