"Upon Clifford's death the labour of revision and completion was entrusted to Mr. R. C. Rowe, then Professor of Pure Mathematics at University College, London. ...On the sad death of Professor Rowe, in October 1884, I was requested... to take up the task of editing... For the latter half of Chapter III. and for the whole of Chapter IV. ...I am alone responsible. Yet whatever there is in them of value I owe to Clifford; whatever is feeble or obscure is my own. ...With Chapter V. my task has been by no means light. ...Without any notice of mass or force it seemed impossible to close a discussion on motion; something I felt must be added. I have accordingly introduced a few pages on the laws of motion. I have since found that Clifford intended to write a concluding chapter on mass. How to express the laws of motion in a form of which Clifford would have approved was indeed an insoluble riddle to me, because I was unaware of his having written anything on the subject. I have accordingly expressed, although with great hesitation, my own views on the subject; these may be concisely described as a strong desire to see the terms matter and force, together with the ideas associated with them, entirely removed from scientific terminology—to reduce, in fact, all dynamic to kinematic. I should hardly have ventured to put forward these views had I not recently discovered that they have (allowing for certain minor differences) the weighty authority of Professor Mach, of Prag. But since writing these pages I have also been referred to a discourse delivered by Clifford at the Royal Institution in 1873, some account of which appeared in Nature, June 10, 1880. Therein it is stated that 'no mathematician can give any meaning to the language about matter, force, inertia used in current text-books of mechanics.' This fragmentary account of the discourse undoubtedly proves that Clifford held on the categories of matter and force as clear and original ideas as on all subjects of which he has treated; only, alas! they have not been preserved."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Atheists from EnglandUniversity of Cambridge alumniPhilosophers from EnglandUniversity of Cambridge facultyMathematicians from England
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Preface by Karl Pearson, pp. vi-ix.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Kingdon_Clifford
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
William Kingdon Clifford
William Kingdon Clifford (May 4, 1845 – March 3, 1879) was an English mathematician and philosopher.
52 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by William Kingdon Clifford →
Related Quotes
"' may be roughly described as quantity motion. A body moving at a speed of say twenty an hour, has a certain quantity…"
"It is a very serious thing to consider that not only the earth itself and all that beautiful face of Nature we see, b…"
"If God holds all mankind guilty for the sin of Adam, if he has visited upon the innocent the punishment of the guilty…"
"We ought not to teach to little children, as a known fact, that which is not a known fact."
"There is in the true man of science a desire stronger than the wish to have his beliefs upheld; namely, the desire to…"
"The name philosopher, which meant originally 'lover of wisdom,' has come in some strange way to mean a man who thinks…"
"Riemann has shewn that as there are different kinds of lines and surfaces, so there are different kinds of space of t…"
"I hold in fact (1) That small portions of space are in fact of a nature analogous to little hills on a surface which …"
"I am endeavouring in a general way to explain the laws of double refraction on this hypothesis, but have not yet arri…"
"Causation is defined by some modern philosophers as unconditional uniformity of succession, e.g., existence of fire f…"