The New Physics and Its Evolution | Page 5

belief that the undulation theory, which, since the works of Newton seemed irretrievably condemned, was, on the contrary, beginning quite a new life. A little later--in 1808--he might have witnessed the discovery made by Malus of polarization by reflexion, and would have been able to note, no doubt with stupefaction, that under certain conditions a ray of light loses the property of being reflected.
He might also have heard of one Rumford, who was then promulgating very singular ideas on the nature of heat, who thought that the then classical notions might be false, that caloric does not exist as a fluid, and who, in 1804, even demonstrated that heat is created by friction. A few years later he would learn that Charles had enunciated a capital law on the dilatation of gases; that Pierre Prevost, in 1809, was making a study, full of original ideas, on radiant heat. In the meantime he would not have failed to read volumes iii. and iv. of the Mecanique celeste of Laplace, published in 1804 and 1805, and he might, no doubt, have thought that before long mathematics would enable physical science to develop with unforeseen safety.
All these results may doubtless be compared in importance with the present discoveries. When strange metals like potassium and sodium were isolated by an entirely new method, the astonishment must have been on a par with that caused in our time by the magnificent discovery of radium. The polarization of light is a phenomenon as undoubtedly singular as the existence of the X rays; and the upheaval produced in natural philosophy by the theories of the disintegration of matter and the ideas concerning electrons is probably not more considerable than that produced in the theories of light and heat by the works of Young and Rumford.
If we now disentangle ourselves from contingencies, it will be understood that in reality physical science progresses by evolution rather than by revolution. Its march is continuous. The facts which our theories enable us to discover, subsist and are linked together long after these theories have disappeared. Out of the materials of former edifices overthrown, new dwellings are constantly being reconstructed.
The labour of our forerunners never wholly perishes. The ideas of yesterday prepare for those of to-morrow; they contain them, so to speak, in potentia. Science is in some sort a living organism, which gives birth to an indefinite series of new beings taking the places of the old, and which evolves according to the nature of its environment, adapting itself to external conditions, and healing at every step the wounds which contact with reality may have occasioned.
Sometimes this evolution is rapid, sometimes it is slow enough; but it obeys the ordinary laws. The wants imposed by its surroundings create certain organs in science. The problems set to physicists by the engineer who wishes to facilitate transport or to produce better illumination, or by the doctor who seeks to know how such and such a remedy acts, or, again, by the physiologist desirous of understanding the mechanism of the gaseous and liquid exchanges between the cell and the outer medium, cause new chapters in physics to appear, and suggest researches adapted to the necessities of actual life.
The evolution of the different parts of physics does not, however, take place with equal speed, because the circumstances in which they are placed are not equally favourable. Sometimes a whole series of questions will appear forgotten, and will live only with a languishing existence; and then some accidental circumstance suddenly brings them new life, and they become the object of manifold labours, engross public attention, and invade nearly the whole domain of science.
We have in our own day witnessed such a spectacle. The discovery of the X rays--a discovery which physicists no doubt consider as the logical outcome of researches long pursued by a few scholars working in silence and obscurity on an otherwise much neglected subject-- seemed to the public eye to have inaugurated a new era in the history of physics. If, as is the case, however, the extraordinary scientific movement provoked by R?ntgen's sensational experiments has a very remote origin, it has, at least, been singularly quickened by the favourable conditions created by the interest aroused in its astonishing applications to radiography.
A lucky chance has thus hastened an evolution already taking place, and theories previously outlined have received a singular development. Without wishing to yield too much to what may be considered a whim of fashion, we cannot, if we are to note in this book the stage actually reached in the continuous march of physics, refrain from giving a clearly preponderant place to the questions suggested by the study of the new radiations. At the present time it is these questions which move us the most; they have shown us unknown horizons,