Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ON THE METHODS
OF THEORETICAL
on
[A lecture of Boltzmann's
was
Theoretical
translated
Physics"
pp. 226-257).
An
exhibition
mathematics
"The Recent
in The Monist
PHYSICS.
Development
for January,
and instruments
of models,
apparatus,
and mathematical
planned
physics was
used
of mathematicians
(Deutsche
Mathematiker-Vereinigung)
an exhibition
in 1892.
had been
Such
in 1876, and since then the question
of models
Nuremburg
in London
greatly
moment
in
of Method
1901 (Vol. XI,
in practical,
the planned
theoretical
exhibition
the catalogue
of this
die Methoden
"Ueber
had
and pedagogical
importance.
was
till September,
postponed
increased
very
the last
At
1893, when
it
one
by
is here
Boltzmann
translated.
for
has served as a basis
and it is this translation
which
sophical Magazine?
one.
use of it I am
to the
to make
indebted
the present
For
permission
of the Philosophical
in the
The
omissions
and errors
publishers
Magazine.
The
also verified and completed
the references.
are given
in the Philosophical
lation
Magazine
the essay
itself.?P.
E. B. Jourdain.]
following
I have
in the trans
made
additions
in the Supplementary
Note
were
not perhaps
somewhat
too presumptuous.
1
Katalog mathematischer und mathematisch-physikalischer
Modelle, Ap
parate und Instrumente, edited byWalther Dyck, Munich, 1892; Nachtrag,
Munich, 1893. This essay was reprinted in Boltzmann's Popul?re Schriften,
Leipsic, 1905,pp. 1-10.
2
Katalog,
9
Phil. Mag., 5th series,Vol. XXXVI,
1893,pp. 37-44.
ON THE
METHODS
OF THEORETICAL
PHYSICS.
20I
what
we
denote
as
an
object
and
what
are
the
existence.
But
say characteristically
enough
"Uebersehen."
[In English
an
"Ueber
202
THE
MONIST.
and
an egg,
a napkin
ring, or a saddle
was
sufficient
ON THE
METHODS
OF THEORETICAL
PHYSICS.
2O3
204
THE
MONIST.
ON THE
METHODS
OF THEORETICAL
PHYSICS.
20
2 6
THE
MONIST.
tures, which
is of
almost
ethereal
delicacy,
or glue,
or with
Maxwell's
clear
as
crystal
but
colorless,
with that given by Thomson in the third volume of his Mathematical and
Physical Papers, a sturdy realistic one, not of an ideal elastic body but of
steel,
india-rubber,
language,
often
almost
child
ON THE
METHODS
PHYSICS.
OF THEORETICAL
20J
.*
+ b2/bz2
+ b2/by2
b2/bx2
*
Maxwell, Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, Oxford, 1873,Vol. I,
29,
"Nature
of
the
operator
and
v'.
This
was
also
afterwards
ob
Vol.
I.
?
Maxwell, "On Faraday's Lines of Force," Cambridge Phil. Trans., Vol.
X; ScientificPapers, Vol. I, p. 157.
2 8
THE
MONIST.
It is only inMaxwell's
ON THE
METHODS
OF THEORETICAL
PHYSICS.
20?
the
2IO
monist.
August,
1892.
SUPPLEMENTARY
One
Ludwig
Boltzmann.
NOTE.
2, and
runs
though
we may
trace
to be explained
lose sighf of the phenomena
entirely
and,
out the consequences
of given
laws, we can never obtain
more extended views of the connections of the subject. If, on the other
hand, we adopt a physical hypothesis,we see the phenomena only through a
medium, and are liable to that blindness to facts and rashness in assumption
ON THE
a partial
which
METHODS
OF THEORETICAL
must
We
encourages.
explanation
211
PHYSICS.
some
discover
therefore
ical
"
hypothesis/
other
The
is a reference,
addition
in note
3, to B. Riemann's
und Magnetismus.
In the Munich
were:
models
Boltzmann's
mechanical
exhibition,
for demonstration
of the laws of uniformly
Apparatus
Electricit?t
accelerated
(1)
rotation;1
(2) Machine for the demonstrationof the superpositionof waves;2 (3) two
to show
apparatus
for the mechanical
of
pieces
Apparatus
currents*
The
exhibition
also
dynamical
phenomena,
of the ether according
certain
electrical
the
over-tones
and
(4)
strings;8
plucked
of two electric
the behavior
of
of
illustration
models
of electro
the mechanical
among
contained,
to illustrate certain properties
F. Fitzgerald's
model
to illustrate
to Maxwell's
two models
theory;5 Lodge's
G.
C. A.
phenomena;8
model
Bjerknes's
thers models
of electrical
lines
and magnetic
vibrations
placement
mechanical
fourth model
Boltzmann's
referred
was
to above
apparatus
made
at Cambridge.
laboratory
Lord
which
Rayleigh's
Boltzmann's
serves
of,
independently
in the Cavendish
is described,
another
of
with
in his Vorlesungen
?ber
model
same
the
for the
purpose,
Maxwell's Theorie der Electricit?t und des Lichtes}1 Boltzmann also pub
lished the following papers on mechanical models of physical phenomena:
"Ueber
die
der Thermo
des zweiten Hauptsatzes
Analogien
auf die
ein Medium,
dessen mechanische
Eigenschaften
f?r den Elektromagnetismus
f?hren;
aufgestellten
Gleichungen
zur Versinnlichung
Teil
Modell
der Lagrange'schen
Be
i";18 "Mechanisches
des W?rmegleich
"Ueber
die mechanische
Analogie
wegungsgleichungen";14
dynamik";18
von Maxwell
mechanischen
Ueber
sich ber?hrender
zweier
gewichtes
K?rper";"
tenth edition of the Encyclop
dia Britannica.
1
Katalog,
'Ibid.,
p. 309.
pp. 405-408.
and
?P.
'Ibid.,
p. 360.
*Ibid..
pp. 400-401.
"Models"
the article
.
J.]
in the
E.
Ibid.,
pp.
361-362.
Ibid..
do.
401-404.
*
Ibid., pp. 404-405 (with references to the literature on Bjerknes's
in
vestigations).
cf. Boltzmann's
Nachtrag,
Katalog,
fourth model
referred
1893, p. 116.
to above.
der Deutsch.
Vol.
I, 1892, pp.
Math.-Ver.,
18
IVien.Ber., Vol. CIII, 1895, pp. 1125-1134.
"Vol. XXX, 1902,pp. 788-791.
53-55.