Taking the position that scientific hypotheses explain the world and do not merely classify data, the author describes the decline of the Newtonian world picture and the development of a new, "ether-theoretical" view. The nineteenth century founders of electromagnetism—Faraday, Maxwell, Hertz, Lorentz—all tendered theories of a medium, usually called the "ether," which filled the space between any two noncontiguous bodies and transported electromagnetic actions from one to the other. After Einstein profoundly reinterpreted the concept of medium, it came to be (...) called the "field." In giving this history, William Berkson explains what problems each scientist faced and how the process of solving them led to new discoveries. He also draws out the philosophical consequences of the history, especially for the positions of Popper, Meyerson, Agassi and Kuhn. (shrink)

This volume "contains eight articles dealing with the intellectual and institutional developments in physics from the mid-1840’s to the mid-1920’s. The primary focus is on the quantum and relativity theories and Einstein’s contributions to these theories. The secondary focus is on thermodynamics and its kinetic theory basis in the nineteenth century." Slightly more than one third of the book is devoted to various aspects of Einstein’s work: M. J. Klein analyzes his difference with Bohr in 1923-1925; R. McCormmach traces the (...) problem area which he extracted from Lorentz’ electron theory in about the first decade of this century; and S. Goldberg considers the British response to his special theory of relativity in 1905-1911. In the editor’s foreword, McCormmach illustrates from the current investigation of Einstein a general thesis about "the limitations of contemporary writing in the history of science." Thus, this anthology may well become a standard secondary source for Einstein scholarship. A fourth of the book has to do with thermodynamics: Y. Elkana follows Helmholtz’ formulation of its first law ; E. E. Daub looks at the evolution of concepts essential to its second law ; and E. W. Garber delineates Clausius’ contribution to its underpinnings. Just two articles are unrelated to these two foci: P. Forman, in the longest paper in the volume, considers Lande’s search for a theory of the anomalous Zooman effect in 1919-1921; and R. Sviedrys, in an exchange with A. Thackray, examines the rise of physical science at Cambridge University during the Victorian era. (shrink)

The primary purpose of this book "is to analyze and clarify certain fundamental concepts, principles, and procedures in both classical and relativistic mechanics." At the same time, it attempts to provide a grounding in the theory for the philosopher of science who must deal with the sometimes technical literature on the philosophical implications of relativistic mechanics. "This book, then, is an attempt at fundamental philosophic clarification embedded in the format of an introductory work." Its first six chapters deal with the (...) methodological foundations of classical mechanics and electrodynamics, as conceived prior to Einstein. Thus, the next six chapters introduce special relativity in such a way that it is connected with the tradition from which it arose. Although the book is not primarily a historical treatment of the theory, this added perspective is welcome because almost invariably philosophers of relativity portray the theory as if it arose without the intermediary of electrodynamics. (shrink)

This massive, expensive tome comprises all the proceedings of the 1970 biennial meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Beyond the selection of the papers to be presented at the meeting, there has been no winnowing of the good from the bad. Further, there is no indexing. Thus, the technical philosopher of science, to whose interest the contributed papers in this anthology will appeal, faces the prospect of doing these jobs himself. The symposium papers, which account for a relatively small (...) fraction of this volume, will interest readers of this journal the most. These papers investigate three topics: theoretical entities in statistical explanation; capacities and natures; history of science and its rational reconstruction. (shrink)