On the Co-Creation of Classical and Modern Physics
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3280981 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Richard Staley (0000-0002-8200-7446, University of Wisconsin–Madison, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2005 |
| Volume | 96 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 530-558 |
| Publication date | 2005-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Isis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/498592 |
| PMID | 16536154 |
| OpenAlex | W1485029643 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 15 |
| References cited | 41 |
While the concept of "classical physics" has long framed our understanding of the environment from which modern physics emerged, it has consistently been read back into a period in which the physicists concerned initially considered their work in quite other terms. This essay explores the shifting currency of the rich cultural image of the classical/ modern divide by tracing empirically different uses of "classical" within the physics community from the 1890s to 1911. A study of fin-de-siècle addresses shows that the earliest general uses of the concept proved controversial. Our present understanding of the term was in large part shaped by its incorporation (in different ways) within the emerging theories of relativity and quantum theory--where the content of "classical" physics was defined by proponents of the new. Studying the diverse ways in which Boltzmann, Larmor, Poincaré, Einstein, Minkowski, and Planck invoked the term "classical" will help clarify the critical relations between physicists' research programs and their use of worldview arguments in fashioning modern physics
Classical mechanics · Classical physics · Einstein · Epistemology · General relativity · History Of Physics · Modern physics · Physics · Quantum · Quantum mechanics · Theoretical physics · Theory of relativity · History and Theory of Mathematics · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Philosophy, Science, and History
Conservative attitudes to old-established organs
‘The border problems of science and philosophy’
The Fin de Siècle Thesis
Die Konstituierung eines Netzwerkes reaktionärer Physiker in der Weimarer Republik
Quantum Cultures
Worldviews and physicists’ experience of disciplinary change
The pulse of modernism
Killed by its own obituaries
Rewriting the Quantum “Revolution
L'électron, la modernité et les ingénieurs d'état
On vibrations
Voices of the People
Changeable Ears
Science's Imagined Pasts
Paul Ehrenfest and the Dilemmas of Modernity
Weimar Culture, Causality, and Quantum Theory, 1918-1927
Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper
On the Histories of Relativity
Henri Poincare and the Quantum Theory
Exploring the limits of classical physics
Henri Poincaré's criticism of Fin De Siècle electrodynamics
Classical Physics and Early Quantum Theory
Planck's principle and jeans's conversion
James Jeans and radiation theory
Masters of Theory
H. A. Lorentz and the Electromagnetic View of Nature
The Witches' Sabbath
Boltzmann and Hertz on the Bild-Conception of Physical Theory
The Mystery of the Einstein-Poincaré Connection
| Unique citing works | 15 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,83 |
| Citation span | 2008 - 2025 (18) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 14 |