Talk:History of physics/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

History of physics

Proceeding with the changes I outlined before. Sections on "X contributions to the sciences" are going to History of science and technology for all values of X. Text that is actually about physics is retained here; unfortunately, that's next to nothing. It seems to me that we should be liberal, though, in retaining work in other fields (e.g., mathematics) where it contributed to the history of physics.

One is tempted to leave sections on "X Contributions to physics" even where they'd be blank, as an incentive and reminder for new contributions. But I think it would look too much like a deliberate affront; and what Wikipedian needs that kind of reminder anyway? Dandrake 01:26, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

The history of science was getting too long, in mav's estimation. So I am looking for a new home for some of the content. Would it be allright with everyone if I injected some of the content here? Ancheta Wis 19:35, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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I'm a newbie here so I'm not sure whether to post this at the top of this page or the bottom. Please move it if I've done it wrong. Anyway, the history section talks about Ptolemy and his Geocentric model:

"For one thousand years following the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, Ptolemy's (not to be confused with the Egyptian Ptolemies) model of an Earth-centred universe with planets moving in perfect circular orbits was accepted as absolute truth."

This is wrong. Ptolemy had the planet's orbits following a complicated sytsem of epicycles - see Deferent and epicycle page for details. Neither Ptolemy, other scientists, or the Church even!, believed in orbits of perfect circles around the Earth. I've modified this and added links to the deferent and epicycle page which explains Ptolemy's system in a little more detail Adrian Baker 10:12, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

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spacetime "single entity"

In 1905, Einstein formulated the theory of special relativity, unifying space and time into a single entity, spacetime. : Not so! that concept is from Minkowski, a few years later. Let's hope this article isn't about the fables of physics... Harald88 19:59, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Please add references

I am not an expert on physics, but it is a subject that interests me. One of the values of wikipedia is that it allows me to find and read original sources. I would especially like to read about the experiment in the 21st century, but no link was provided. RonCram 23:53, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Feynman quote

The Feyman quote of "Outside the nucleus, we seem to know it all" has been removed as "possibly offensive". Why offensive? Yes there are many unknowns, but offensive?? Also, isn't it normally the case that people discuss changes before diving in? Adrian Baker 11:18, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

21st century

I've deleted the section on the 21st century since the only content was the mention of an experiment purporting to measure the speed of gravity. (While the experiment may or may not be valid, the propagation of gravity waves at the speed of light is a widely accepted prediction of general relativity, and its confirmation could hardly be more significant than, say, the discovery of neutrino mass.) Perhaps we've entered the 21st century too recently to fairly document its history of physics. Gnixon 06:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Too much early physics

I am not a phycisist. I am only part of the physis in Greek, or part of the nature in english. As you pointout, we talking about History of physics and physical theory. I will use the ability of the humans to speak, i.e. the language, the words, to proove that the prehistoric humans had advanced knowledges of physics. It is prooved( after the discovery of Greek letters, in the north Greece, dated 13 thousand years before present) that the Greek language is very old, going back too deep in prehistory. Fortunately, the ancient Greeks had the hapit to write. The words ,acting as vihacle, bring to ourdays the knowledges of the ancient people about the sciences and generally about their life. The word MATTER in Greek is ΥΛΗ (YLEY ) . According to the Greek etymology the word mean : the gazes of the chaos ,after concentration, are forming the different bodies of the universe .Physis (nature) is a Greek word and it mean: the rebirth of what is correct. Other words proove other scientific knowlwdges. First off, most physicists would agree that there was no physics before Galileo, yet there are countless pages about early philosophers and astronomers. For example, there is a passage that talks about how Hindu philosophers thought up atomic theory before the 6th century? One can ask the question, "what happens if I cut this in half a lot", but it isn't atomic theory (cite to argue this point) and isn't even argued fully.

This isn't the history of astronomy, mathematics or philosophy, it is the history of physics, so I think it should talk more about physical theory and experiment. All of this stuff about "early physics" seems like bad history because they use words like "atoms" and "energy" which people didn't fully understand until the early 1900s, so how could they understand them back then? There are all of these names and theories I have never heard of in my life, and I do physics.

Somebody needs to either make a strong case about why there is more stone-age Indian physics than 20th century physics, or else I am going to move for a huge clean-up of this article (delete a lot of early sections, or move them somewhere not here)

I disagree. It is important to understand older physics even though one can argue that it is not so much physics as metaphysics. However what was once conceived to be metaphysics is now considered physics and so this early physics is still important to know about. But it could be stated in this article that it is debated wheter it is considered physics. --83.226.131.224 18:57, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Aristarchus

I will remove the part were it is stated that Aristarchus thought the stars were suns with orbiting planets. This is because acording to Archimedes this is not a part of his hypothesis. However it would be a consequence of Aristarchus theories I have seen no source this hypothesis. Therefore I remove it but if someone can find a source they can offcourse re-add it.

After consideration I suggest the whole paragraph of Aristarchus to be re-written as if you change the hypothesis of Aristarchus the passage of him loses its orginal meaning and must therefore be re-written.--Redslap 19:21, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

what did Hubble claim?

"In 1929, Edwin Hubble published his discovery that the speed at which galaxies recede positively correlates with their distance."

It is well known that Hubble did not accept that claim; thus it seems unlikely to me that he claimed it himself. Can anyone provide a quote? Harald88 20:10, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

OK I found a link to his original paper [1]:

'a correlation between apparent radial velocities and distance'

as well as a commentary with further citation about this matter [2]:

'In a letter by Hubble to the Dutch cosmologist Willem De Sitter in 1931, he stated his concerns about these velocities by saying "... we use the term 'apparent velocities' in order to emphasize the empirical feature of the correlation. The interpretation, we feel, should be left to you and the very few others who are competent to discuss the matter with authority.'

Thus I'll simply add "apparent" to the above line, then it's OK. Harald88 19:15, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

The review of Physics continues at Talk:Physics/wip

Some time ago a group of editors set up a "work in progress" page (at Talk:Physics/wip) to hammer out a consensus for the Physics article, which for too long had been in an unstable state. Discussion of the lead for the article has taken a great deal of time and thousands of words. The definitional and philosophical foundations seem to cause most headaches; but progress has been made. Why not review some of the proposals for the lead material that people are putting forward, or put forward your own, or simply join the discussion? The more contributors the better, for a consensus. – Noetica 01:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Update: Concrete proposals have now been put forward, arising from recent discussion aimed at producing a stable and consensual lead section for the Physics article. We have set up a straw poll, for comments on the proposals. Why not drop in at Talk:Physics/wip, and have your say? The more the better! – Noetica 22:35, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Sources

A great list of sources can be found at [3]. —— Eagle 101 ^{(Need help?)} 22:08, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Summarize for Physics

The main Physics article currently has a long section devoted to History of Physics. Much of the material there is at a level of detail that would be better suited to this article. It would be a great service to both Physics and History of Physics if someone would incorporate here some of the good material in Physics, then replace its History section with a concise summary of this article. Gnixon 18:01, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect information

"It was only after Newton published his Principia that Descartes was compelled to rethink his understanding of the Laws of Motion"

This sentence is incorrect: Descartes died long before Newton had published his Principia.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.35.224.64 (talk • contribs) 20:14, 2 September 2007

Well-spotted. I've deleted that sentence. Cardamon 05:34, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

more on the history of physics

I think some of the topics on early physics need to be removed. I mean this is about the science of physics, not speculative philosophy, which is pretty much all of the indian contributions to physics. Egyption contributions to physics is a a sub-title, yet it has on sentence written, which is about astronomy, and there is of course islamic contributions. I have had to edit so much of the islamic contributions, becuase studying science myself in university, well some of the content is stretched way beyond imagination, foreshadowing scientific laws?????, does that even sound right. At one point some claimed that Ibn Bajja, "discovered" there was a reaction for every action, am sorry but how does someone go about discovering that, its something that is implied no one can actually discover it, and if they did, how did they do it exactly. Someone has written down that Hibat Allah Abu'l-Barakat al-Baghdaadi described acceleration as the rate of change of velocity, am sorry but how is that a discovery in the first place, all that is just merely stating what the definition of acceleration is, it cant be discovered since the very fact that the word exists at all is a testement that it has been known all along. a third and massive error is that Ja'far Muhammad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir discovered that there was a a force of attraction of between heavinly bodies. Hmmm how exactly did he make that discovery, he didnt know Newton's law of gravitation, and there is no way he had any instruments to somehow measure this supposed force of attraction. If it wasnt done scientifically then it must be philosophy, and as i have stated before this article on physics should be about the concrete discovery of scientific facts not philosophy. Its not that philosophy should play no role on this section, but spending that much space to talk about philisophical concepts is pointless on an artcile which needs to focus on facts. If someone does start changing some of the way these sections are written its gonna be time for deletion sooooo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.36.181.171 (talk) 05:54, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

recent changes

i ve decided that the best way to solve the problem with some of the early history of physics. Because most of what is written for indian contribution in philosophy, in particular atomic philosophy, i ve decided to move large sections of it to atomic theory page, for atomic philosophy. It just not appropriate to put all these details about atomic theory in the hisotry of physics, since its philosophy, not to mention that its a bit decieving to be writting about atomic concept and energy, since now one in that era had the faintist clue what atom, ligh and energy really were. as far as the egyptian contributions i just got rid of it since there isnt anything about physics their and there isnt even a link to something about ancient egyptian contributions to science, if they even exist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomasz Prochownik (talk • contribs) 05:01, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

what am planning

Am planning on fusing the section of physics in the early cultures into one coherent piece rather then breaking it up pointlessly into sections, plus in doing so am giving the pre-warnging that certain section will most difenetly not be included in the revised version. This is purely since there has already been many complaints that there is was to much early physics, which is essentially true since, almost none of what is listed in the early cultures is physics but mere astronomy. Pretty much the only thing resembling physics in early cutltures woould be greek theories for center of gravity, archimides principle, and aristotle's ideas of force, yet for some reason those are barely mentiond or not at all. am also going to be fusing the middle ages into one section as well, siince esentially aside from early forms of experimentation and the discovery of law of refration, there isnt much to write about, and the section about islamic mechaincs is going for a major overhaul, especially on the ideas of gravity since they are almost exclusively speculative in nature, even though they have been presented as being scientific discoveries. Am open to all suggestions, questions, or help, please help!!!!!!!!!!lol. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomasz Prochownik (talk • contribs) 08:21, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

no editorialization

"The Book of Optics has been ranked alongside Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica as one of the most influential books in the history of physics,[10] for initiating a scientific revolution in optics[11] and visual perception.[12"

This sentnce has been removed for several reasons. The first being that UNESCO is not an authority on science, and the book of optics does even come close to being one of the most important books in physics, that title is reserved Newtons, Maxwell and others. Lets be blunt here Ibn al-Haytham isnt considered a top physicts even it was a list out of 500, so there is no way he could have written a book thats one of the most important. Secondly, what is considered important is purely relative, so this sentnce is purely expressing and opinion and using some fact to back it up. Thridly, there isnt any point of editorializing here, its like someone wrtiing by Newton's, Einstien, Maxwell etc that there their considered the greatest physicts of all time, it doesnt add any real substance to an article. Lastly, a revolution in optics, really well in order for it to be revoltuion it would have to totally alter previous assumptions and most importantly be followed by a series of equally if not greater findings based upon early ones, while in reality optics remains doormant for another 6 centuries, and one discovery doesnt consistute a revolution. Clearly someone is just putting their own 2 cents in this piece —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.36.181.171 (talk) 09:19, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

recent change

can someone explain to me this calim, " Al-Khazini was also one of the first to clearly differentiate between force, mass, and weight". How can one differentiate between mass and weight if they arent aware of newtons's law of universal gravitation, since that is the only way figuring out that gravity is force that produces a magnitude. Unless this is somehow elaborated on rather then just being thrown in, it will be removed. also oddly someone put force, but force does not necessarily have to be related to mass or weight. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.36.181.171 (talk) 05:17, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

If this Wikipedia article is right, he did. Saros136 (talk) 08:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

combination of ancient physics

i have begun the process of the fusing all the ancient history about physics into one section rather then just breaking it up into meaningless categories. Certain sections were removed simply because they have nothing to that actually pertains to physics. for example sectgions dealing with math have been removed since math is not the same as physics, its employed in physics, but it is definately not the same, its well not even science sooo, there is no point of making references to that. There is also alot of info. about ancient work on astronomy, which well was largley based on obsservation with no actual concepts or laws being discovered, so once again it makes no sense to clutter this page with well lets be blunt trivial work in astronomy. All references to heliocentrism in india are gone simply since it has absolutely nothing to do with physics, not to mention the sources are totally unreliable, and thats been up for a while. Secondly, i think people need to take a minute to remeber that Copernicus's heliocentyric model and any other's that some alledge existed were not in any way accurate descriptions of celestial bodies, all he was mathematically show that it is possible for the earth to circle the sun, his description of why and how those planets revolved around the sun was aboslutely incorrect, it was kepler who provided the first correct laws on planetary motion. Anyways the my next editing will consist of merging the middle ages section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomasz Prochownik (talk • contribs) 06:04, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

law of interia:discovery

i have changed the wording of the discovery of the law of inertia being made alhazan. I have yet to see any evidence that he used any experimentation to prove the law of inertia, which Galileo did. Galileo used a series of experiment with objects sliding down inclined planes), realized that the analysis of Aristotle was incorrect because it failed to account properly for a hidden force: the frictional force between the surface and the object. The firctional force is the key discovery in the law of inertia. Therefore without experimentation or any concpets around inertia any early attempts at the law of inertia are philisophical in nature and do not constitute a scientific discovery, but mear speculation, although a very correct guess at it. If there is evidence to the contrary, please provide the proof. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomasz Prochownik (talk • contribs) 02:40, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

The Principia's empirical predictions were not well confirmed

The article currently claims

"In 1687, Newton published the Principia, detailing two comprehensive and successful physical theories: Newton's laws of motion, from which arise classical mechanics; and Newton's law of universal gravitation, which describes the fundamental force of gravity. Both theories agreed well with experiment.[citation needed]"

But this is false positivist hagiography, and I suspect no reliable source will be found to justify this claim, as none has been to date in response to its citation flag.

I propose it be replaced by something of the following ilk in line with more fallibilist and critical modern scholarship.

'But on modern critical evaluations of the empirical record of the Principia at the time,[ref>See, for example, Bernard Cohen's 1999 Guide to Newton's Principia, George Smith's The methodology of the Principia in the 2002 The Cambridge Companion to Newton, Wilson's 1989 The Newtonian achievement in astronomy in Taton & Wilson 1989, and Newton and celestial mechanics in the 2002 The Cambridge Companion to Newton, and Westfall's 1973 Newton and the Fudge-Factor</ref> it seems most or even all of the novel empirical predictions and explanations in celestial mechanics it explicitly made were either refuted [ref>E.G. high-tide times, the lunar orbit. See Wilson's 1989 The Newtonian achievement in astronomy in Taton & Wilson 1989, and Newton and celestial mechanics in the 2002 The Cambridge Companion to Newton</ref>or unconfirmed[ref>e.g.the mutual perturbation of Jupiter and Saturn at their conjunction, the moving aphelia of Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury.</ref>at the time, even by its 1727 third edition, or else in effect forged by concocting parameters just to fit the known facts[ref> E.G. the precession of the equinoxes, the lunar mass. See Westfall's 1973 Newton and the Fudge -Factor.</ref>It was some time afterwards before any novel empirical predictions or explanations by theoretical systems based on its three laws of motion and law of gravity achieved any significant empirical success after their further development by French scientists, most famously in the successfully predicted return of Halley's comet in 1759,[ref>In November 1758 its return to its perihelion was publicly predicted by Clairaut and his assistants by just over 1 month late (15 April) of its perihelion on 13 March on the basis of a dynamical perturbational analysis, whereas the 1713 second edition of the Principia had predicted its return in 1757, and then only on the basis of a kinematical curve-fitting identity of its visible orbit with comets of 1682 and 1607</ref>after which the French Academy of Science withdrew its prize for the refutation of the Newtonian theory. But on the other hand, just as all scientific theories always have many empirical anomalies or counterexamples, as pointed out by fallibilist philosophers of science such as Feyerabend, Kuhn, Lakatos and Laudan, so did the Newtonian system. The most famous of these was Mercury's anomalous perihelion, whose eventual explanation by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity refuted Newton's universal law of gravity.'

--Logicus (talk) 14:30, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't like this proposed addition. It is too long, it reads like an extended attack, and it inappropriately drags 20th century philosophers critical of science into the section on the 17th century. Also, it kind of ignores the impossibility of predicting the exact return times of many comets using just celestial mechanics (the reaction force from outgassing affects their orbits) and the mathematical difficulty of the problem of the motion of the moon Cardamon (talk) 17:03, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Radical Revisions

I'm hesitant to interfere in this page, but I am a professional historian who works for the American Institute of Physics' Center for History of Physics, and this article is nearly unreadable. It is basically an exercise in listing as many discoveries and claims to precedence as the page will hold in an effort to assign credit. I believe it would be more coherent if the article abandoned the effort to assign credit for discoveries of physical principles, and instead made some effort a) to highlight and follow main traditions rather than trying to list all the most important discoveries; and b) to define physics in some historically defensible way, while redirecting "precedents" (such as Archimedes, Copernicus, al-Haytham, etc...) to more appropriate articles. This is not in any way to denigrate their achievements as "not physics", but rather to place them within traditions that they would have recognized, rather than trying to force them into the more modern category of "physics".

All this would require really radical revisions; basically a do-over on the whole article. I would be glad to write a first draft, but I don't want to imperiously wipe out other peoples' work, and I am not really willing to get into disputes over whether "physics" is some category of knowledge that remains coherent over all time. Therefore, I propose the following article introduction, and if there are no objections to its general tenor (I've tried to keep the professional jargon to a minimum), I would like to refurbish the article later this summer.

I totally agree with your approach herem couldn't have put it better myself. There is alot of fake history on wikipedia about discoveries being made by indivduals in the past, i.e. the law of inertia. This is largely becuase many of the writers on this page seem to think that a mere sentence that is somewhat correct constitues a discovery when it clearly does not, and of course physics did not emerge as a science until the 17th century.Tomasz Prochownik (talk) 08:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

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This article concerns the development of the modern discipline of physics out of traditions established primarily by 17th-century natural philosophers Galileo Galilei, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton. Prior to their work, “physics” cannot be said to have existed in the way it is currently understood. For recognizable precedents to the modern physics discipline, see articles in the History of Astronomy, the History of Geometry, and the History of Philosophy (see especially Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics, and Inertia). For a broader perspective on these precedents, see the History of Science in Classical Antiquity and the History of Science in the Middle Ages. For a brief description of these precedents, see the introduction to this article.

Introduction to the History of Physics

Physics concerns the study of force and movement. Elements of contemporary physics are recognizable in the work of scholars living in many parts of the Earth through recorded history. For example, the work of the Ancient scholar and geometer Archimedes clearly contains concepts that are now taught as physics. However, in the pre-modern world, “physics” referred to a more philosophical field of inquiry, concerned with uncovering the underlying explanatory “causes” of motion, while descriptive fields such as astronomy and optics were considered more closely related to the technical practice of geometry.

Prior to the work and advocacy of Galileo Galilei and his supporters, explanation was a high philosophical enterprise, where description and quantitative prediction were considered lower technical arts. In this earlier period, philosophers considered the earth to be at the center of the universe, with the moon circling just above, and the sun, planets, and stars circling beyond. They explained the “physics” of the geometrically predictable motions that occurred above the moon (in the “superlunary” region) in terms of the perfection inherent to that region. However, the actual task of prediction was considered to be the technical art of the astronomers.

Below the moon (in the “sublunary” region), geometric analysis of motion and force was limited to artificially constrained situations, as in optics or architecture. Being artificial, geometrically analyzable sublunary motion was not considered of fundamental philosophical importance, because philosophy pertained only to the natural and eternal. Meanwhile, philosophers held that natural sublunary motions (while generally occurring in a straight line) were irregular, and thus their geometrical description was also not pertinent to philosophy. According to them, the “physics” of sublunary substances should be analyzed in terms of the fundamental natural tendencies of different kinds of substances. For instance, philosophical physics held that humans, being thinking animals, tended to think. Similarly, rocks, being earthy substances, tended to drop toward the earth.

Galileo Galilei, a mathematician and philosopher, argued that motion was universally analyzable through geometry and mathematics, regardless of whether it occurred above or below the moon, and of whether it was natural or artificial. He urged that this analytical knowledge should be regarded as capable of subverting the authority of the knowledge established in Classical and Scholastic philosophy. Continuing in the Galilean tradition of mathematical and geometric analysis, the natural philosopher René Descartes conceptually unified motion by supposing that all physical events could be analyzed in terms of the movement of a plenum of unchanging “corpuscles”. Eschewing the requirement that all mathematical analysis requires a firm ontological foundation (such as in the motion of Descartes’ corpuscles), Isaac Newton formulated a means of mathematical analysis of motion in accordance with his three laws of motion and his law of gravitation.

Following Newton, the modern discipline of physics developed out of the twin traditions of experiment, on the one hand, and mathematical analysis according to fundamental principles, on the other. These twin traditions have been constantly bridged and abetted through the development of (frequently controversial) metaphysical concepts, such as theories of the nature of electricity, the idea of the atom, and the nature of gravity. Occasionally, analysis according to these metaphysical concepts has proven so robust that they have been fully accepted as descriptions of fundamentally real entities, providing physics with a reputation as a foundational science. This article will follow the major trends in the history of the experimental and analytical traditions, as well as the theorization and establishment of some major fundamental entities.

Will Thomas (talk) 19:35, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Overhaul made on 8/1; which was detected as vandalism by ClueBot. I have reported the false positive. New citations and images to be added as soon as opportunity permits. The new version has a more coherent organization, and attempt to stick to the broad picture. Pre-1600 material was deleted. I welcome the content, but argue that it should be divided between history of philosophy, history of science, and history of optics/astronomy/mechanics/geometry articles. A united and recognizable physics discipline did not emerge until the 17th century. Further discussion is welcome. Will Thomas (talk) 01:17, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Until the references, images, and whatever's missing are added, I'm reverting the article to what it was. Please work on drafts in your sandbox. Also, before suppressing such a large amount of information, please try to gauge what the feeling about the deletion is first. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 05:39, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, I will set to work on images and references, but I think we should discuss the "whatever's missing" bit. The object of the overhaul is to streamline the article into a coherent narrative about the development of physics. As it stands, it reads more like a laundry-list of disconnected "firsts" and discoveries, many of which could probably be cut or relegated to sub-articles (such as history of thermodynamics or history of quantum mechanics) without detracting from the overall meaning of the article. The history of physics is so vast, this page should serve as an organizing force for the history of physics as well as a portal to other areas of Wikipedia, rather than an opportunity to commemorate whatever works the editors happen to deem noteworthy. I solicited comments on the desirability of this stylistic change last spring, and only received one. Other editors: please have a look at my proposed text and offer comments. Will Thomas (talk) 14:18, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion: Try working with Tomasz Prochownik from above, altought that might be hard as he doesn't seem to be very active. He seems like a knowledgeable fellow. That might make things easier. I'm not historian, so I'm pretty useless here. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 15:07, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

There has been no activity here for several weeks. I now have a version with ample illustrations and references, and so am going to try again given the lack of protest on this discussion page. As before, many existing items have been trimmed out for the sake of clarity, and, as before, I am entirely open to conversation.Will Thomas (talk) 17:56, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I generally like the idea of rewriting the article, but I think more emphasis needs to be given to the emergence of experimental method in the Middle Ages. Since this was a fundamental development in the history of physics, I've included a section on it in the article. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 08:11, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree on the need for a set-up to the Galileo section; it jumps too quickly in. The emphasis on experiment from W. Gilbert and F. Bacon also needs to be included somewhere (but elsewhere, since they were not in the mechanical tradition). So, I like the specific references to experimental mechanics and experimental optics, so long as we can keep it fairly brief (since this is pre-physics "mechanics" and "optics" rather than "physics" per se), and as long as we can depict the traditions accurately. However, I do advocate sticking to the words "experiment" or "trial" or "test" rather than "scientific method" since the latter is a more modern notion that we read backward onto prior emphasis for the need for first-hand experience and tests.Will Thomas (talk) 13:23, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Like you suggested, I've included a seperate paragraph on Francis Bacon and William Gilbert in the Experimental Method section, and replaced the term "scientific method" with the more specific "experimental method". I've also mentioned the Babylonians, Chinese, Indians, and theory of impetus, connecting them to the two strands pointed out in the article, but kept it very brief. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 00:51, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Exaggerations!

The Al Haytham/Middle Ages/Experimental Method virus has now reached the History of Physics article! I know that this first sentence is provocative and it is meant to provoke. Over a period of time I have become more and more unhappy about the claims made in numerous articles concerning the Experimental Method, Al Haytham and The Middle Ages although in principle not totally wrong these claims are often wrong in detail and are also so stated as to create a totally false impression that is not supported by the facts of the history of science. At the moment I will not change these claims in any of the articles but I will state those things that in my opinion are wrong and give those making these claims the chance to consider their statements.

1) The statement that the Middle Ages and in particular Al Haytham invented/discovered/first used the empirical experimental method is historically simply false. Various Greek researchers such as Euclid, Archimedes, Ptolemaeus and others used experiments of the type carried out in the Middle Ages and their work was known to and read by the mediaeval researches such as Al Haytham, Grosseteste etc.

2) The claim that Al Haytham “proved” his version of the intromission theory of vision experimentally is false, he didn’t. Al Haytham used philosophical and analogy arguments to support his standpoint and to discredit the standpoint of his opponents but he did no experiments on this subject and produced no experimental proof for his point of view. He did do experiments to prove the linear propagation of light but as this was not in dispute and had been assumed by all serious researchers in the field, this proof although interesting is of little consequence.

3) The use of the empirical experimental method in the Middle Ages was in some sense a great breakthrough or a historical moment of great significance is false, it wasn’t. Although various writers, such as Grosseteste and Bacon wrote enthusiastically about the experimental method neither they nor anybody else used it extensively. If fact the number of occurrences of the use of the experimental method in the Middle Ages both in Islamic and European science is very small and of very little significance in the evolution of science. There is also no tradition of experimental methodology connecting the few scattered occurrences in the Middle Ages with the much more widespread and consequent usage in the 17th century as is indirectly implied here in the History of Physics article. It could also be noted that both Grosseteste and Bacon wrote enthusiastically about the use of mathematics in scientific enquiry but did not do so in their own work.

4) The literature that is mostly quoted to justify the exaggerated and false claims on this subject are not reputable history of science sources but pop books on the history of science. The use of such books should be approached with great scepticism as the authors deliberately exaggerate and distort the claims they make in order to make their books more attractive on the popular market. “Al Haytham First Modern Scientist!!!!” Al Haytham is a fascinating figure and a highly significant actor in the history of optics but he is a very, very long way from being a modern scientist

What I have written should provoke but in a positive sense provoke to a better level of historiography of science here at Wikipedia. It is not my intension to insult anybody or denigrate their contributions and should anybody feel that I have ruffled their feathers I apologies; my interest is merely the best possible standard for the history of science articles here.Thony C. (talk) 16:06, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Thony, thanks for your concerns regarding this article. In response to the objections you raised regarding the Middle Ages section:

1. I am aware that there were some experiments carried out in Hellenistic times, but the difference was that there was very little emphasis on experimentation at the time, hence why the emission theory of vision was dominant at the time despite there being no experimental evidence to support such a hypothesis. Even Ibn al-Haytham's direct predecessors like Al-Kindi and other early medieval Arabic scholars conducted experiments similar to what Ptolemy and other Hellenistic scholars did, but many academic sources still credit Ibn al-Haytham for the experimental/scientific method rather than his Hellenistic/Arabic predecessors. That is largely because Ibn al-Haytham and his medieval successors often relied almost enitirely on experimentation to support nearly all of their hypotheses in optics, not too far from what Galileo was later doing for mechanics. There is also no evidence that anything resembling the scientific method was known in ancient times, but there is plenty of evidence that medieval scholars came very close to developing the experimental/scientific method, including most of the steps involved in the modern scientific method. Furthermore, Ibn al-Haytham was very critical of Ptolemy's methods, often because Ptolemy discarded any empirical data that did not agree with his theories. It wouldn't make any sense to say that Ibn al-Haytham's method was the same as the very methods he was criticizing. With that said, I wouldn't mind extending the scope of the article to the earlier experiments carried out by Archimedes, Ptolemy, Al-Kindi, etc.
2. Ibn al-Haytham did not just carry out experiments on light travelling in straight lines, but he conducted numerous experiments to support nearly all of his optical theories in the Book of Optics, including the intromission theory of vision. Whenever a hypothesis did not have any experiments to support it, he would consider it a useless hypothesis, a principle known as Ockam's Razor. The only exceptions to this general rule of his was his work on the anatomy of the eye (which was largely based on Galen's work) and his hypothesis on the rainbow in a later supplemental treatise, his reason being that his limited apparatus did not allow for a possible experimental verfication, although his successors Al-Farisi and Theodoric proved otherwise in the 14th century.
3. As far as I know, the use of the experimental method in the Middle Ages was largely limited to optics, and to a lesser extent, the mechanical tradition. Ibn al-Haytham, Grosseteste, Al-Farisi, Theodoric, etc. made extensive use of the experimental method for their work in optics, but they made very little, if any, use of it for the other subjects they wrote about. However, Bacon did also carry out experiments in the mechanical tradition, or the 'science of weights'. Also, the article does not actually claim that this was a "great breakthrough" or "historical moment of great significance", but is simply stating the fact that the experimental method emerged during the Middle Ages, contrary to the outdated but popular myth that the Middle Ages made no scientific progress for a thousand years.
4. Not a single "pop book" has been used in the Middle Ages section, but all of the references for that section are from scholarly academic books and journals. There are even some academic sources which consider Ibn al-Haytham to be the founder of modern physics, but I only included one such claim as a quote in a footnote, since this is obviously a minority opinion, the majority opinion of course being that Galileo is the founder of modern physics. However, the fact that some scholars would even consider giving Ibn al-Haytham that title should be reason enough to include him in the article, as this obviously means that he came a lot closer to modern physics than any of his predecessors and is therefore relevant to this article.

Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 12:20, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Jagged 85, the section is getting awfully long. I don't know if you're concerned that the material is going to be of a lower profile by putting it in "history of optics" and elsewhere, or what, but we clearly link to that article and others, and detailed exposition seems more appropriate in that space. I propose that it is not "experimental method" that makes physics out of mechanics and optics, but an explicit and self-conscious re-ordering of disciplines so that mechanical and optical knowledge are thought to say something fundamental about the way the natural world works. As I mentioned, I think a little lead-in to Galileo is appropriate, but your section is now much bigger than, say, the section on rational mechanics, which I do not propose to expand (as this could be used as an excuse to expand all sections, thus making the entire article as unwieldy as it was before). Your contributions to the sections on electromagnetism and the standard model were to the point, and thus valuable. Will Thomas (talk) 21:45, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the section could be shortened so it isn't any longer than the other sections, but I disagree that optics did not say anything fundamental about the way the natural world works. The physical optics of medieval times was a unification of physics with optics and its intent was to explain the physical reality of light and vision mathematically. In some ways, this was a precursor to the physico-mathematics that emerged in the 17th century but limited in scope to optics, which is why I think it is relevant to this article. However, you're right that the section has taken up too much space, so I'll try to trim it down and keep it concise. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 14:02, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

1729

Logicus's claim that most in Europe were "geoheliocentric" before 1729 seems to be untrue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.167.246.75 (talk) 09:31, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Logicus comments: Why ? What is the evidence to the contrary ? For example, eminent scientists such as Bacon, Gassendi, Scheiner, Riccioli, Morin and Roemer were geoheliocentrics, Roemer unil his death in 1710. And Christine Schofield's article The Tychonic and Semi-Tychonic World Systems in Taton & Wilson (eds) 1989 'The General History of Astronomy Volume 2' reports on p41

"In 1691 Ignace Gaston Pardies declared that the Tychonic was still the commonly accepted system, while Francesco Blanchinus reiterated this as late as 1728."

What proportion of astronomers or of the scientific community does 86.167.246.75 think were geoheliocentrics between 1610 and 1729 ?

--Logicus (talk) 14:51, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Proportions are hard to estimate. Galileo applied the word "massimi" to the Copernican and

Ptolemaic systems. He seems to have been aware of the system of Tycho. Arthur Berry, in 1898,

said that Tycho's system, like many compromises, had few supporters. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.55.83 (talk) 12:44, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Bradley's abberation was very difficult to reconcile with Young's wave theory of light, puzzling the 19th. century severely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.167.246.75 (talk) 10:07, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Logicus comments: But Young's wave theory of light was in the century after Bradley's 1728 aberration, which was easily explained by the dominant corpuscular theory of light. And moreover, as Young himself suggested in his 1804 Experiments and Calculations relative to Physical Optics, the aberration is explicable by the posit that 'the earth moves freely through the ether', as John Worrall reports in his 1976 paper Thomas Young and the 'refutation' of Newtonian optics: a case study in the interaction of philosophy of science and history of science in Method and appraisal in the physical sciences, Howson (Ed), Cambridge University Press 1976

--Logicus (talk) 14:51, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Aristotelian Physics vs. Mechanics vs. Physics

Concerning Logicus' claims that we need citations for claiming that "physics" is a modern discipline, the Dear citation is meant to cover the entire opening section (at least until its recent expansion). As the opening section should make clear, Aristotelian physics has no resemblance to later physics. Physics, as we know it, emerged when enthusiasts for mathematical arguments and mechanical explanations (cf. Galileo and Descartes as the central figures) mounted a sustained attack on university philosophy (Aristotelians, aka Scholastics, aka Peripatetics) as offering fundamental knowledge about nature. Suddenly, in the mid-1600s, you start seeing terms like "physico-mathematical-experimental learning" or Robert Boyle's 1660 "New Experiments Physico-Mechanical".

Mechanics is an extremely important and longstanding tradition, and some discussion of the pre-Galilean tradition in mechanics does benefit this article. However, there should be no mistake that mechanics had nothing whatsoever to do with what was known as "Physics". And we have perfectly good spaces for extended discussion of these issues in the History of Mechanics and Aristotelian Physics, to which this article points. The point is really so well-accepted among historians that it needs no citation, but Peter Dear is as clear on the subject as anyone. Check out his book from the Further Reading section.Will Thomas (talk) 13:34, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

For a short clear definition of the difference between Aristotle's concept of physics and mathematical physics see David C. Lindberg, "The Beginnings of Western Science", 2nd. Ed. PB, Chcago 2007 pp.82-83.

"But Aristotle was convinced that there was a difference between mathematics and natural philosophy or physics. The latter, by his definition, considers natural things in their entirety, as sensible, changeable bodies. The mathematician, by contrast, strips away all of the sensible quantities of bodies and concentrates on the mathematical remainder. So the mathematician is concerned only with the geometrical properties of things, but these by no means exhaust reality. Reintroduce weight, hardness, color, and the other qualities that exist in the real world, and you have moved out of the mathematical realm and back into the subject matter of physics which has its own practitioners."

See also the Wikipedia article Physics(Aristotle) Thony C. (talk) 16:53, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Logicus to Thony C: Contrary to what you claim, this quotation from Lindberg is not a short clear definition of the difference between Aristotle's concept of physics and mathematical physics. Rather it is a (fairish) statement of Aristotle's conception of the difference between physics and mathematics. But it does not mention Aristotle's mathematical physics, whose main innovation was to apply the new Eudoxan theory of proportions to physics. As the immediately preceding sentence to the passage from p82 of Lindberg's book that you quote says on Aristotle's mathematical physics:

"[Aristotle] modeled his theory of knowledge on mathematical demonstration, utilised geometry in his theory of the rainbow, ...and employed theory of proportion in his analysis of motion."

It seems once again you have misread Lindberg's book, just as you did in Talk:Science in the Middle Ages in July in falsely claiming it maintains Philoponus held that all unequal weights would fall with the same speed in free-fall. Please see my correction of your claim on 8 August.

Further to Lindberg's examples of Aristotle’s mathematical physics, as I recall Heath's Mathematics in Aristotle provides a more exhaustive albeit still incomplete collection of examples of it.

The Wikipedia article on Aristotle's Physics is surely too dreadful to contemplate ?

--Logicus (talk) 17:36, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

All this said, it seems strange to maintain that the explanatory schemes employed in Aristotelian/Scholastic physics has [have]anything to do with the analytical schemes employed in mechanics. I mean, Aristotelian metaphysics and physics is [are] precisely what everyone was arguing against throughout the 17th century and beyond. Are you claiming that it was a massive misinterpretation?Will Thomas (talk) 22:14, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Logicus flagged citations needed to the opening claims because no definition of 'modern physics' is provided to justify the claims of some radical total discontinuity in the concept of physics in the 17th century, and so I suggest some direct quotation from Dear or a.n. other needs providing to justify this dubious and no doubt unjustifiable claim. I also point out the claims made here seem to conflict with opening claims and conceptions of Physics stated in the Wiki Physics article. More later. --Logicus (talk) 18:25, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I have reflagged the first two sentences to denote some justification is still needed for these claims of a 17th century significant historical discontinuity in the conception of physics, since at present no definition of ‘modern physics’ is given that substantiates this alleged contrast posited by Enlightenment-positivist ideological fairy tale history of science.

--Logicus (talk) 16:03, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Aristotle's Physics was modeled on geometry insofar as deductive logical syllogism had kinship to geometric demonstration. That Aristotle had regard for geometry is not in question; what is in question is the assertion that mathematical relationships represent a form of fundamental knowledge. This was not a sudden rupture but a development over the course of the 17th century, which is basically the point of Dear's 1995 book, which takes 250 pages to lay out. I could quote, but won't since you didn't take the perfectly fine quote from Lindberg seriously. I have no desire to get into a pointless text fight.

Also, to allay your concerns about "Enlightenment-positivist ideological fairy tales", qualitative natural philosophy by no means disappears in the 17th-century, and this article could do with a short discussion of natural philosophy. But you're not talking about natural philosophy, you're talking about mathematical analysis as an Aristotelian tradition, and you're never going to find a better quote saying that it wasn't, because while everyone recognizes that Aristotle had a keen regard for geometric analysis, nobody thinks that geometric analysis was more than marginal to logic-based Aristotelian analytics, and so nobody is going to ever feel the need to outright refute the position.

Will Thomas (talk) 22:08, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Eudoxan theory of proportions, dear boy ! Absolutely central to all Aristotle's analyses, from proportionate theory of justice of Nicomachean Ethics to his proportionalist physics. And both Kuhn and Cohen accepted Newton restored Aristotelian scholastic physics. More later if I can find time for your re-education. But I think your new section from the beginning of the article to 18th century is even worse than the old one was. The latter at least had a nice anti-positivist fallibilist introduction.

By the way, it is a courtesy part of Wikipedia:Verifiability policy to provide a direct verifying quotation when requested, see footnotes 1 & 2--Logicus (talk) 18:11, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

It's quickly becoming clear that you're an origin-seeking philosopher of the logical foundations of physics, which is a historical project that is at loggerheads with the work of a historian of practice like myself. Our standards of evidence and what we find to be satisfying historical accounts will thus likely continue to be unsatisfying to the other. Nevertheless, I submit the following for your disapproval:

"Aristotelian physics (also called "natural philosophy") was the qualitative science of the natural world that explained why things happen in terms of the essential natures of bodies; it became increasingly denigrated in the seventeenth century on the grounds that it was usually capable only of yielding probable accounts. The mathematical sciences, by contrast, were allegedly capable of certain demonstration of quantitative relations, and were on that head held to be superior to merely probable physics. This new evaluation was justified by arguments that relied on Aristotelian commonplaces--as was the earlier, and opposite, evaluation that held physics superior to mathematics on account of its superior subject matter. The view that physics was more important than the mathematical sciences depended on the Aristotelian observation that it concerned the natures of things rather than merely their quantitative characteristics, and was therefore more noble. The inverted view, by contrast, depended on the Aristotelian position that the highest form of knowledge, scientia (episteme in Greek), demanded certain demonstration, at the provision of which the mathematical sciences were uncontroversially acknowledge to be supreme." Dear (1995), p. 3.

Will Thomas (talk) 20:37, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Father of...

I propose the removal of the following paragraph from the text:

Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy", the "father of modern physics", the "father of science", and "the Father of Modern Science". Stephen Hawking says, "Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science."

These "father of" statements are empty hagiographic phrases devoid of meaning. They are also peacock terms and POV both of which should be avoided in Wikipedia articles. In each case the attribution is highly disputed within the history of science and there are several rival candidates for the given accolade. The term "father of" is best avoided in any serious article on the history of science. Unless somebody can produce a serious historiographical reason for their retention I will remove the paragraph in 14 daysThony C. (talk) 18:03, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

It appears that whoever added the claim has an RS for this. Per wp:ver, if you are asserting there are rival claimants for each of these titles, it seems you have an obligation to bring counter sources demonstrating this assertion. Regards, Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 18:47, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I looked up 'father of modern science' and at least 90 percent of the refs say Galileo, followed by Bacon, Newton, Aristotle and Democritus. 'father of modern physics' is usually Einstein, while 'father of modern observational astronomy' is ALWAYS Galileo. So I see most of the terms have other claimants but at least if it is attributed it doesn't seem pov or peacock any more than observing Herodotus is often regarded the father of history or James Brown as the Godfather of Soul is 'peacock' Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 20:31, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

More recent physics required

According to this article, it seems there has been no advances in any area except particle physics since 1950. We all know that high-energy physics is the flavour of the month, what with CERN and the first hints of the existence of the Higgs boson, but in spite of so-called "theories of everything", it's not the be-all and end-all. But, for example, there is nothing on condensed matter physics, cosmology, chaos theory, self-organised criticality... all huge fields (in fact, in terms of the number of physicists working in the field, condensed matter is FAR bigger than particles). Also this article gives the impression that every field mentioned becomes a closed book from one era to the next. Not true at all! Mankind has been looking for a complete theory of turbulence for maybe 250 years now for starters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.27.55.215 (talk) 10:29, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Reverted edits

There's been a number of uncommented edits in a suspicous context recently, some of which I reverted:

• Replacement of a picture of Bohr by one of Heisenberg in the Quantum mechanics section: not reverted, seems reasonable.
• Addition of a long text on "an indian-american scientist called Sudarshan" in the Standard Model section: reverted. The text is a direct copy & paste from George Sudarshan, which without comment is most likely a copyright violation. The weight represented by the extent of this text, as well as its neutrality are at least questionable.
• Removal of mention of Lise Meitner in the Influential physicists section: reverted.
• Attempted de-emphasizing of Einstein's role (changed the "Father of Modern Physics" to the one of the Fathers of Modern Physics): reverted. Old version is in line with what's quoted and referenced in Albert Einstein.

— HHHIPPO 20:39, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

In the quantum mechanics paragraph

you have in the quantum mechanics section a picture with subtitle saying that it is Max Planck - but in the text and in the article about max planck there are other years of birth and death - please check whether it's Planck's picture and correct accordingly. 79.179.19.168 (talk) 16:09, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks for noticing! — HHHIPPO 16:34, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Women in physics

There are women in physics besides Marie Curie. An editor had replaced Lise Meitner in the section Influential physicists with Otto Hahn. He's a chemist. I took him out and put her back. It's ironic because her contribution was overlooked when Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize. StarryGrandma (talk) 18:40, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:History of physics/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

I think it deserves a GA nomination, but it has not been nominated yet. I also think it is a topic of much importance within the field of physics! Snailwalker | talk 16:00, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Last edited at 16:00, 15 October 2006 (UTC). Substituted at 20:31, 3 May 2016 (UTC)