PHYSICS FOUNDATIONS SOCIETY THE FINNISH SOCIETY FOR NATURAL PHILOSOPHY PHYSICS FOUNDATIONS SOCIETY THE FINNISH SOCIETY FOR www.physicsfoundations.org NATURAL PHILOSOPHY www.lfs.fi Dr. Suntola’s “The Short History of Science” shows fascinating competence in its constructively critical in-depth exploration of the long path that the pioneers of metaphysics and empirical science have followed in building up our present understanding of physical reality. The book is made unique by the author’s perspective. He reflects the historical path to his Dynamic Universe theory that opens an unparalleled perspective to a deeper understanding of the harmony in nature – to click the pieces of the puzzle into their places. The book opens a unique possibility for the reader to make his own evaluation of the postulates behind our present understanding of reality. – Tarja Kallio-Tamminen, PhD, theoretical philosophy, MSc, high energy physics The book gives an exceptionally interesting perspective on the history of science and the development paths that have led to our scientific picture of physical reality. As a philosophical question, the reader may conclude how much the development has been directed by coincidences, and whether the picture of reality would have been different if another path had been chosen. – Heikki Sipilä, PhD, nuclear physics Would other routes have been chosen, if all modern experiments had been available to the early scientists? This is an excellent book for a guided scientific tour challenging the reader to an in-depth consideration of the choices made. – Ari Lehto, PhD, physics Tuomo Suntola, PhD in Electron Physics at Helsinki University of Technology (1971). Dr. Suntola has a far-reaching academic and industrial career comprising pioneering work from fundamental theoretical findings to successful applications like the Atomic Layer Deposition method, a key technology in the semiconductor industry. THE SHORT HISTORY OF SCIENCE “Nature is built on a few fundamental principles of conservation and harmony – or the long path to the union of metaphysics and empiricism which, at a philosophical level, were discovered by the thinkers of antiquity. This book is a search for these same principles behind present theories and the related picture of physical reality”. Third, complemented edition ISBN 978-952-68101-6-4 (hardcover) TUOMO SUNTOLA ISBN 978-952-68101-7-1 (PDF) PHYSICS FOUNDATIONS SOCIETY THE FINNISH SOCIETY FOR NATURAL PHILOSOPHY THE SHORT HISTORY OF SCIENCE – or the long path to the union of metaphysics and empiricism Third, complemented edition TUOMO SUNTOLA PHYSICS FOUNDATIONS SOCIETY THE FINNISH SOCIETY FOR NATURAL PHILOSOPHY www.physicsfoundations.org / www.lfs.fi E-BOOK (PDF) Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License Cover: Thales (ca. 625–546 BC, Wikimedia Commons) Pictures in Biography Gallery, Wikimedia Commons Copyright © 2018 Tuomo Suntola. ISBN 978-952-68101-6-4 (hardcover) ISBN 978-952-68101-7-1 (PDF) To the great thinkers … through times. Contents 5 Contents PREFACE 11 INTRODUCTION 13 1. FROM ANTIQUE METAPHYSICS TO EMPIRICAL SCIENCE 17 Antique inheritance 17 The structure of the universe 19 The structure of matter 24 Toward the modern era 27 From Copernicus’s solar system to Newton’s mechanics 29 Newton and Principia 43 The velocity of light 48 From Newtonian space to Einsteinian space 50 Analytical mechanics 51 Thermodynamics and statistical mechanics 55 Electromagnetism and the theory of light 57 From Maxwell’s equations to the theory of relativity 65 From radiation quantum to quantum mechanics 78 From special relativity to general relativity and cosmology 87 2. BASIC CONCEPTS 97 Postulates and definitions 109 Open questions 111 3. DYNAMIC UNIVERSE 113 Unified expression of energy 113 The concept of quantum 125 Observations and the picture of reality 129 Buildup of energy in Dynamic Universe 129 Expanding and non-expanding objects and systems 130 Development of the length of a day and a year 131 Observations of distant space 133 Local mass centers in space 138 Celestial mechanics, the perihelion advance 141 The frequency of atomic clocks on the Earth and in near space 144 4. EVALUATION OF THEORIES ON NATURAL SCIENCES 147 Theory structures 148 The principle of economy 151 6 The short history of science APPENDIX I. BIOGRAPHY GALLERY 153 Thales (c. 625–546 BC) 153 Anaksimander (c. 610–546 BC) 153 Anaximenes (c. 585–528 BC) 154 Pythagoras (c. 570–490 BC) 154 Heraclitus (c. 535–475 BC) 155 Parmenides (c. 510 BC) 156 Anaxagoras (c. 500–428 BC) 156 Empedocles (c. 492–432 BC) 157 Philolaus (c. 470–385 BC) 157 Leucippus (400s BC) 158 Democritus (c. 460–370 BC) 158 Plato (424–348 BC) 159 Eudoxus (c. 408–355 BC) 160 Heraclides (c. 387–312 BC) 160 Aristotle (384–322 BC) 161 Euclid (c. 350–280 BC) 162 Epicurus (341–270 BC) 162 Aristarchus (310–230 BC) 163 Archimedes (c. 287–212 BC) 164 Eratosthenes (276–194 BC) 164 Apollonius (noin 262–190 eKr.) 165 Hipparchus (c. 190–120 BC) 165 Seleukos (noin 190–150 eKr.) 166 Klaudios Ptolemaios (noin 85–165 jKr.) 166 John Philoponus (490–570) 167 Jean Buridan (c. 1300–1360) 167 Ibn al-Shatir (1304–1375) 168 Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) 169 Sir Thomas Digges (1546–1595) 171 Tyko Brahe (1546–1601) 172 Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) 173 Francis Bacon (1561–1626) 173 Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) 174 Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) 175 Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) 177 René Descartes (1596–1650) 177 Pierre de Fermat (1601–1665) 178 Ismael Boulliau (1605–1694) 179 John Wallis (1616–1703) 179 Contents 7 Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) 180 Giovanni Cassini (1625–1712) 181 Robert Boyle (1627-1691) 181 Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) 182 Christopher Wren (1632–1723) 183 Robert Hooke (1635–1703) 184 Isaac Newton (1643–1727) 186 Ole Römer (1644–1710) 188 Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) 188 Edmond Halley (1656–1742) 191 James Bradley (1693–1762) 192 Pierre Louis Maupertuis (1698–1759) 192 Daniel Bernoulli (1700–1782) 193 Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) 193 Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) 194 Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1717–1783) 195 Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) 195 Henry Cavendish (1731–1810) 196 Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) 197 Joseph Louis Lagrange (1736–1813) 197 Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1736–1806) 198 William Herschel (1738–1822) 199 Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794) 199 Alessandro Volta (1745–1827) 200 Jean Delambre (1749–1822) 200 Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–182) 201 Adrien-Marie Legendre (1752–1833) 202 John Dalton (1766–1844) 203 Joseph Fourier (1768–1830) 204 Thomas Young (1773–1829) 204 André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836) 205 Amedeo Avogadro (1776–1856) 206 Hans Christian Örsted (1777–1851) 207 Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) 207 Siméon Denis Poisson (1781–1840) 208 François Arago (1786–1853) 209 Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827) 209 Georg Simon Ohm (1789–1854) 211 Michael Faraday (1791–1867) 211 Gustave Coriolis (1792–1843) 213 8 The short history of science Sadi Carnot (1796–1832) 214 Benoît Paul Émile Clapeyron (1799–1864) 214 Christian Doppler (1803–1853) 215 Wilhelm Eduard Weber (1804–1891) 215 William Hamilton (1805–1865) 217 Julius von Mayer (1814–1878) 217 James Joule (1818–1889) 218 Léon Foucault (1819–1868) 219 Hippolyte Fizeau (1819–1896) 220 George Stokes (1819–1903) 220 Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) 221 Rudolf Clausius (1822–1888) 222 William Thomson (1824–1907) 223 George Stoney (1826–1911) 224 James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) 225 Ernst Mach (1838–1916) 227 Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839–1903) 227 Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906) 228 Woldemar Voigt (1850–1919) 229 Oliver Heaviside (1850–1925) 229 George FitzGerald (1851–1901) 230 John Henry Poynting (1852–1914) 230 Albert Abraham Michelson (1852–1931) 231 Hendrik Lorentz (1853–1928) 232 Henri Poincaré (1854–1912) 233 Johannes Robert Rydberg (1854–1919), 234 Joseph John Thomson (1856–1940) 235 Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1857–1894) 236 Joseph Larmor (1857–1942) 236 Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (1858 –1947) 237 Philipp Lenard (1862–1947) 238 Wilhelm Wien (1864–1928) 238 Hermann Minkowski (1864–1909) 239 Robert Millikan (1868–1953) 239 Arnold Sommerfeld (1868–1951) 240 Ernest Rutherford (1871–1937) 241 Walter Kaufmann (1871–1947) 241 Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) 242 Karl Schwarzschild (1873–1916) 243 Albert Einstein (1879–1955) 244 Contents 9 Richard Tolman (1881–1948) 246 Max Born (1882–1970) 247 Niels Henrik David Bohr (1885–1962) 248 Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) 248 Alexander Friedmann (1888–1925) 249 Edwin Powell Hubble (1889–1953) 249 Louis de Broglie (1892–1987) 250 Arthur Compton (1892–1962) 251 Georges Lemaître (1894–1966) 251 Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) 252 Paul Dirac (1902–1984) 253 Howard Robertson (1903–1961) 253 George Gamov (1904–1968) 254 Arthur Geoffrey Walker (1909–2001) 254 David Bohm (1917–1992) 255 Richard Feynman (1918–1988) 255 10 The short history of science Preface 11 Preface This book reviews the development of the natural sciences and the picture of reality produced by science from the philosophical conceptions in antique metaphysics to the picture outlined from the mathematical models produced by empirical research in modern physics. Also, the book studies the possibility of a re-evaluation of the picture of reality from a holistic perspective with a closer connection between phil- osophical and empirical aspects. The perspective and background of the review evolve from the writer’s several dec- ades of work on the Dynamic Universe. The work emphasizes the philosophical and metaphysical aspects with simple postulates, a holistic view of observations, and clear logic and mathematical description with precise correspondence to observa- tions. The history of science shows that most part of the development has occurred in small steps. Typically, geniuses behind major steps or revolutions in science have been able to combine observations and ideas made in different areas of physics. Newtonian mechanics, which give the directions to the development of physical sci- ences in the modern era, combined the idea of the Copernican solar system, Kepler’s planetary orbits based on Tycho Brahe’s precise observations, Galileo Galilei’s ex- perimental results, the concepts of momentum by René Descartes and Christiaan Huygens and the conceptions of calculus by Pierre de Fermat and John Wallis.