1. Already in the preceding pages I have several times tried to show that the principles of geometry are not experimental facts and that in particular Euclid's postulate can not be proven experimentally.
However decisive appear to me the reasons already given, I believe I should emphasize this point because here a false idea is profoundly rooted in many minds.
2. If we construct a material circle, measure its radius and circumference, and see if the ratio of these two lengths is equal to π, what shall we have done? We shall have made an experiment on the properties of the matter with which we constructed thisround thing, and of that of which the measure used was made.
3.Geometry and Astronomy.—The question has also been put in another way. If Lobachevski's geometry is true, the parallax of a very distant star will be finite; if Riemann's is true, it will be negative. These are results which seem within the reach of experiment, and there have been hopes that astronomical observations might enable us to decide between the three geometries.
But in astronomy 'straight line' means simply 'path of a ray of light.'
If therefore negative parallaxes were found, or if it were demonstrated that all parallaxes are superior to a certain limit, two courses would be open to us; we might either renounce Euclidean geometry, or else modify the laws of optics and suppose that light does not travel rigorously in a straight line.
It is needless to add that all the world would regard the latter solution as the more advantageous.
The Euclidean geometry has, therefore, nothing to fear from fresh experiments.
4. Is the position tenable, that certain phenomena, possible in Euclidean space, would be impossible in non-Euclidean space,so that experience, in establishing these phenomena, would directly contradict the non-Euclidean hypothesis? For my part I think no such question can be put. To my mind it is precisely equivalent to the following, whose absurdity is patent to all eyes: are there lengths expressible in meters and centimeters, but which can not be measured in fathoms, feet and inches, so that experience, in ascertaining the existence of these lengths, would directly contradict the hypothesis that there are fathoms divided into six feet?
Examine the question more closely. I suppose that the straight line possesses in Euclidean space any two properties which I shall callAandB; that in non-Euclidean space it still possesses the propertyA, but no longer has the propertyB; finally I suppose that in both Euclidean and non-Euclidean space the straight line is the only line having the propertyA.
If this were so, experience would be capable of deciding between the hypothesis of Euclid and that of Lobachevski. It would be ascertained that a definite concrete object, accessible to experiment, for example, a pencil of rays of light, possesses the propertyA; we should conclude that it is rectilinear, and then investigate whether or not it has the propertyB.
Butthis is not so; no property exists which, like this propertyA, can be an absolute criterion enabling us to recognize the straight line and to distinguish it from every other line.
Shall we say, for instance: "the following is such a property: the straight line is a line such that a figure of which this line forms a part can be moved without the mutual distances of its points varying and so that all points of this line remain fixed"?
This, in fact, is a property which, in Euclidean or non-Euclidean space, belongs to the straight and belongs only to it. But how shall we ascertain experimentally whether it belongs to this or that concrete object? It will be necessary to measure distances, and how shall one know that any concrete magnitude which I have measured with my material instrument really represents the abstract distance?
We have only pushed back the difficulty.
In reality the property just enunciated is not a property of the straight line alone, it is a property of the straight line anddistance. For it to serve as absolute criterion, we should have to be able to establish not only that it does not also belong to a line other than the straight and to distance, but in addition that it does not belong to a line other than the straight and to a magnitude other than distance. Now this is not true.
It is therefore impossible to imagine a concrete experiment which can be interpreted in the Euclidean system and not in the Lobachevskian system, so that I may conclude:
No experience will ever be in contradiction to Euclid's postulate; nor, on the other hand, will any experience ever contradict the postulate of Lobachevski.
5. But it is not enough that the Euclidean (or non-Euclidean) geometry can never be directly contradicted by experience. Might it not happen that it can accord with experience only by violating the principle of sufficient reason or that of the relativity of space?
I will explain myself: consider any material system; we shall have to regard, on the one hand, 'the state' of the various bodies of this system (for instance, their temperature, their electric potential, etc.), and, on the other hand, their position in space; and among the data which enable us to define this position we shall, moreover, distinguish the mutual distances of these bodies, which define their relative positions, from the conditions which define the absolute position of the system and its absolute orientation in space.
The laws of the phenomena which will happen in this system will depend on the state of these bodies and their mutual distances; but, because of the relativity and passivity of space, they will not depend on the absolute position and orientation of the system.
In other words, the state of the bodies and their mutual distances at any instant will depend solely on the state of these same bodies and on their mutual distances at the initial instant, but will not at all depend on the absolute initial position of the system or on its absolute initial orientation. This is what for brevity I shall call thelaw of relativity.
Hitherto I have spoken as a Euclidean geometer. As I have said, an experience, whatever it be, admits of an interpretation on the Euclidean hypothesis; but it admits of one equally onthe non-Euclidean hypothesis. Well, we have made a series of experiments; we have interpreted them on the Euclidean hypothesis, and we have recognized that these experiments thus interpreted do not violate this 'law of relativity.'
We now interpret them on the non-Euclidean hypothesis: this is always possible; only the non-Euclidean distances of our different bodies in this new interpretation will not generally be the same as the Euclidean distances in the primitive interpretation.
Will our experiments, interpreted in this new manner, still be in accord with our 'law of relativity'? And if there were not this accord, should we not have also the right to say experience had proven the falsity of the non-Euclidean geometry?
It is easy to see that this is an idle fear; in fact, to apply the law of relativity in all rigor, it must be applied to the entire universe. For if only a part of this universe were considered, and if the absolute position of this part happened to vary, the distances to the other bodies of the universe would likewise vary, their influence on the part of the universe considered would consequently augment or diminish, which might modify the laws of the phenomena happening there.
But if our system is the entire universe, experience is powerless to give information about its absolute position and orientation in space. All that our instruments, however perfected they may be, can tell us will be the state of the various parts of the universe and their mutual distances.
So our law of relativity may be thus enunciated:
The readings we shall be able to make on our instruments at any instant will depend only on the readings we could have made on these same instruments at the initial instant.
Now such an enunciation is independent of every interpretation of experimental facts. If the law is true in the Euclidean interpretation, it will also be true in the non-Euclidean interpretation.
Allow me here a short digression. I have spoken above of the data which define the position of the various bodies of the system; I should likewise have spoken of those which define their velocities; I should then have had to distinguish the velocities with which the mutual distances of the different bodies vary;and, on the other hand, the velocities of translation and rotation of the system, that is to say, the velocities with which its absolute position and orientation vary.
To fully satisfy the mind, the law of relativity should be expressible thus:
The state of bodies and their mutual distances at any instant, as well as the velocities with which these distances vary at this same instant, will depend only on the state of those bodies and their mutual distances at the initial instant, and the velocities with which these distances vary at this initial instant, but they will not depend either upon the absolute initial position of the system, or upon its absolute orientation, or upon the velocities with which this absolute position and orientation varied at the initial instant.
Unhappily the law thus enunciated is not in accord with experiments, at least as they are ordinarily interpreted.
Suppose a man be transported to a planet whose heavens were always covered with a thick curtain of clouds, so that he could never see the other stars; on that planet he would live as if it were isolated in space. Yet this man could become aware that it turned, either by measuring its oblateness (done ordinarily by the aid of astronomic observations, but capable of being done by purely geodetic means), or by repeating the experiment of Foucault's pendulum. The absolute rotation of this planet could therefore be made evident.
That is a fact which shocks the philosopher, but which the physicist is compelled to accept.
We know that from this fact Newton inferred the existence of absolute space; I myself am quite unable to adopt this view. I shall explain why in Part III. For the moment it is not my intention to enter upon this difficulty.
Therefore I must resign myself, in the enunciation of the law of relativity, to including velocities of every kind among the data which define the state of the bodies.
However that may be, this difficulty is the same for Euclid's geometry as for Lobachevski's; I therefore need not trouble myself with it, and have only mentioned it incidentally.
What is important is the conclusion: experiment can not decide between Euclid and Lobachevski.
To sum up, whichever way we look at it, it is impossible to discover in geometric empiricism a rational meaning.
6. Experiments only teach us the relations of bodies to one another; none of them bears or can bear on the relations of bodies with space, or on the mutual relations of different parts of space.
"Yes," you reply, "a single experiment is insufficient, because it gives me only a single equation with several unknowns; but when I shall have made enough experiments I shall have equations enough to calculate all my unknowns."
To know the height of the mainmast does not suffice for calculating the age of the captain. When you have measured every bit of wood in the ship you will have many equations, but you will know his age no better. All your measurements bearing only on your bits of wood can reveal to you nothing except concerning these bits of wood. Just so your experiments, however numerous they may be, bearing only on the relations of bodies to one another, will reveal to us nothing about the mutual relations of the various parts of space.
7. Will you say that if the experiments bear on the bodies, they bear at least upon the geometric properties of the bodies? But, first, what do you understand by geometric properties of the bodies? I assume that it is a question of the relations of the bodies with space; these properties are therefore inaccessible to experiments which bear only on the relations of the bodies to one another. This alone would suffice to show that there can be no question of these properties.
Still let us begin by coming to an understanding about the sense of the phrase: geometric properties of bodies. When I say a body is composed of several parts, I assume that I do not enunciate therein a geometric property, and this would remain true even if I agreed to give the improper name of points to the smallest parts I consider.
When I say that such a part of such a body is in contact with such a part of such another body, I enunciate a proposition which concerns the mutual relations of these two bodies and not their relations with space.
I suppose you will grant me these are not geometric properties; at least I am sure you will grant me these properties are independent of all knowledge of metric geometry.
This presupposed, I imagine that we have a solid body formed of eight slender iron rods,OA,OB,OC,OD,OE,OF,OG,OH, united at one of their extremitiesO. Let us besides have a second solid body, for example a bit of wood, to be marked with three little flecks of ink which I shall call α, β, γ. I further suppose it ascertained that αβγ may be brought into contact withAGO(I mean α withA, and at the same time β withGand γ withO), then that we may bring successively into contact αβγ withBGO,CGO,DGO,EGO,FGO, then withAHO,BHO,CHO,DHO,EHO,FHO, then αγ successively withAB,BC,CD,DE,EF,FA.
These are determinations we may make without having in advance any notion about form or about the metric properties of space. They in no wise bear on the 'geometric properties of bodies.' And these determinations will not be possible if the bodies experimented upon move in accordance with a group having the same structure as the Lobachevskian group (I mean according to the same laws as solid bodies in Lobachevski's geometry). They suffice therefore to prove that these bodies move in accordance with the Euclidean group, or at least that they do not move according to the Lobachevskian group.
That they are compatible with the Euclidean group is easy to see. For they could be made if the body αβγ was a rigid solid of our ordinary geometry presenting the form of a right-angled triangle, and if the pointsABCDEFGHwere the summits of a polyhedron formed of two regular hexagonal pyramids of our ordinary geometry, having for common baseABCDEFand for apices the oneGand the otherH.
Suppose now that in place of the preceding determination it is observed that as above αβγ can be successively applied toAGO,BGO,CGO,DGO,EGO,AHO,BHO,CHO,DHO,EHO,FHO, then that αβ (and no longer αγ) can be successively applied toAB,BC,CD,DE,EFandFA.
These are determinations which could be made if non-Euclidean geometry were true, if the bodies αβγ andOABCDEFGHwere rigid solids, and if the first were a right-angled triangleand the second a double regular hexagonal pyramid of suitable dimensions.
Therefore these new determinations are not possible if the bodies move according to the Euclidean group; but they become so if it be supposed that the bodies move according to the Lobachevskian group. They would suffice, therefore (if one made them), to prove that the bodies in question do not move according to the Euclidean group.
Thus, without making any hypothesis about form, about the nature of space, about the relations of bodies to space, and without attributing to bodies any geometric property, I have made observations which have enabled me to show in one case that the bodies experimented upon move according to a group whose structure is Euclidean, in the other case that they move according to a group whose structure is Lobachevskian.
And one may not say that the first aggregate of determinations would constitute an experiment proving that space is Euclidean, and the second an experiment proving that space is non-Euclidean.
In fact one could imagine (I say imagine) bodies moving so as to render possible the second series of determinations. And the proof is that the first mechanician met could construct such bodies if he cared to take the pains and make the outlay. You will not conclude from that, however, that space is non-Euclidean.
Nay, since the ordinary solid bodies would continue to exist when the mechanician had constructed the strange bodies of which I have just spoken, it would be necessary to conclude that space is at the same time Euclidean and non-Euclidean.
Suppose, for example, that we have a great sphere of radiusRand that the temperature decreases from the center to the surface of this sphere according to the law of which I have spoken in describing the non-Euclidean world.
We might have bodies whose expansion would be negligible and which would act like ordinary rigid solids; and, on the other hand, bodies very dilatable and which would act like non-Euclidean solids. We might have two double pyramidsOABCDEFGHandO´A´B´C´D´E´F´G´H´and two triangles αβγ and α´β´γ´. The first double pyramid might be rectilinear and the secondcurvilinear; the triangle αβγ might be made of inexpansible matter and the other of a very dilatable matter.
It would then be possible to make the first observations with the double pyramidOAHand the triangle αβγ, and the second with the double pyramidO´A´H´and the triangle α´β´γ´. And then experiment would seem to prove first that the Euclidean geometry is true and then that it is false.
Experiments therefore have a bearing, not on space, but on bodies.
Supplement
8. To complete the matter, I ought to speak of a very delicate question, which would require long development; I shall confine myself to summarizing here what I have expounded in theRevue de Métaphysique et de Moraleand inThe Monist. When we say space has three dimensions, what do we mean?
We have seen the importance of those 'internal changes' revealed to us by our muscular sensations. They may serve to characterize the variousattitudesof our body. Take arbitrarily as origin one of these attitudesA. When we pass from this initial attitude to any other attitudeB, we feel a series of muscular sensations, and this seriesSwill defineB. Observe, however, that we shall often regard two seriesSandS´as defining the same attitudeB(since the initial and final attitudesAandBremaining the same, the intermediary attitudes and the corresponding sensations may differ). How then shall we recognize the equivalence of these two series? Because they may serve to compensate the same external change, or more generally because, when it is a question of compensating an external change, one of the series can be replaced by the other. Among these series, we have distinguished those which of themselves alone can compensate an external change, and which we have called 'displacements.' As we can not discriminate between two displacements which are too close together, the totality of these displacements presents the characteristics of a physical continuum; experience teaches us that they are those of a physical continuum of six dimensions; but we do not yet know how many dimensions space itself has, we must first solve another question.
What is a point of space? Everybody thinks he knows, butthat is an illusion. What we see when we try to represent to ourselves a point of space is a black speck on white paper, a speck of chalk on a blackboard, always an object. The question should therefore be understood as follows:
What do I mean when I say the objectBis at the same point that the objectAoccupied just now? Or further, what criterion will enable me to apprehend this?
I mean that,although I have not budged(which my muscular sense tells me), my first finger which just now touched the objectAtouches at present the objectB. I could have used other criteria; for instance another finger or the sense of sight. But the first criterion is sufficient; I know that if it answers yes, all the other criteria will give the same response. I know itby experience, I can not know ita priori. For the same reason I say that touch can not be exercised at a distance; this is another way of enunciating the same experimental fact. And if, on the contrary, I say that sight acts at a distance, it means that the criterion furnished by sight may respond yes while the others reply no.
And in fact, the object, although moved away, may form its image at the same point of the retina. Sight responds yes, the object has remained at the same point and touch answers no, because my finger which just now touched the object, at present touches it no longer. If experience had shown us that one finger may respond no when the other says yes, we should likewise say that touch acts at a distance.
In short, for each attitude of my body, my first finger determines a point, and this it is, and this alone, which defines a point of space.
To each attitude corresponds thus a point; but it often happens that the same point corresponds to several different attitudes (in this case we say our finger has not budged, but the rest of the body has moved). We distinguish, therefore, among the changes of attitude those where the finger does not budge. How are we led thereto? It is because often we notice that in these changes the object which is in contact with the finger remains in contact with it.
Range, therefore, in the same class all the attitudes obtainable from each other by one of the changes we have thus distinguished.To all the attitudes of the class will correspond the same point of space. Therefore to each class will correspond a point and to each point a class. But one may say that what experience arrives at is not the point, it is this class of changes or, better, the corresponding class of muscular sensations.
And when we say space has three dimensions, we simply mean that the totality of these classes appears to us with the characteristics of a physical continuum of three dimensions.
One might be tempted to conclude that it is experience which has taught us how many dimensions space has. But in reality here also our experiences have bearing, not on space, but on our body and its relations with the neighboring objects. Moreover they are excessively crude.
In our mind pre-existed the latent idea of a certain number of groups—those whose theory Lie has developed. Which group shall we choose, to make of it a sort of standard with which to compare natural phenomena? And, this group chosen, which of its sub-groups shall we take to characterize a point of space? Experience has guided us by showing us which choice best adapts itself to the properties of our body. But its rôle is limited to that.
It has often been said that if individual experience could not create geometry the same is not true of ancestral experience. But what does that mean? Is it meant that we could not experimentally demonstrate Euclid's postulate, but that our ancestors have been able to do it? Not in the least. It is meant that by natural selection our mind hasadapteditself to the conditions of the external world, that it has adopted the geometrymost advantageousto the species: or in other wordsthe most convenient. This is entirely in conformity with our conclusions; geometry is not true, it is advantageous.
The English teach mechanics as an experimental science; on the continent it is always expounded as more or less a deductive anda prioriscience. The English are right, that goes without saying; but how could the other method have been persisted in so long? Why have the continental savants who have sought to get out of the ruts of their predecessors been usually unable to free themselves completely?
On the other hand, if the principles of mechanics are only of experimental origin, are they not therefore only approximate and provisional? Might not new experiments some day lead us to modify or even to abandon them?
Such are the questions which naturally obtrude themselves, and the difficulty of solution comes principally from the fact that the treatises on mechanics do not clearly distinguish between what is experiment, what is mathematical reasoning, what is convention, what is hypothesis.
That is not all:
1º There is no absolute space and we can conceive only of relative motions; yet usually the mechanical facts are enunciated as if there were an absolute space to which to refer them.
2º There is no absolute time; to say two durations are equal is an assertion which has by itself no meaning and which can acquire one only by convention.
3º Not only have we no direct intuition of the equality of two durations, but we have not even direct intuition of thesimultaneity of two events occurring in different places: this I have explained in an article entitledLa mesure du temps.[3]
4º Finally, our Euclidean geometry is itself only a sort of convention of language; mechanical facts might be enunciated with reference to a non-Euclidean space which would be a guide less convenient than, but just as legitimate as, our ordinary space; the enunciation would thus become much more complicated, but it would remain possible.
Thus absolute space, absolute time, geometry itself, are not conditions which impose themselves on mechanics; all these things are no more antecedent to mechanics than the French language is logically antecedent to the verities one expresses in French.
We might try to enunciate the fundamental laws of mechanics in a language independent of all these conventions; we should thus without doubt get a better idea of what these laws are in themselves; this is what M. Andrade has attempted to do, at least in part, in hisLeçons de mécanique physique.
The enunciation of these laws would become of course much more complicated, because all these conventions have been devised expressly to abridge and simplify this enunciation.
As for me, save in what concerns absolute space, I shall ignore all these difficulties; not that I fail to appreciate them, far from that; but we have sufficiently examined them in the first two parts of the book.
I shall therefore admit,provisionally, absolute time and Euclidean geometry.
The Principle of Inertia.—A body acted on by no force can only move uniformly in a straight line.
Is this a truth imposeda prioriupon the mind? If it were so, how should the Greeks have failed to recognize it? How could they have believed that motion stops when the cause which gave birth to it ceases? Or again that every body if nothing prevents, will move in a circle, the noblest of motions?
If it is said that the velocity of a body can not change if there is no reason for it to change, could it not be maintained just as well that the position of this body can not change, or that thecurvature of its trajectory can not change, if no external cause intervenes to modify them?
Is the principle of inertia, which is not ana prioritruth, therefore an experimental fact? But has any one ever experimented on bodies withdrawn from the action of every force? and, if so, how was it known that these bodies were subjected to no force? The example ordinarily cited is that of a ball rolling a very long time on a marble table; but why do we say it is subjected to no force? Is this because it is too remote from all other bodies to experience any appreciable action from them? Yet it is not farther from the earth than if it were thrown freely into the air; and every one knows that in this case it would experience the influence of gravity due to the attraction of the earth.
Teachers of mechanics usually pass rapidly over the example of the ball; but they add that the principle of inertia is verified indirectly by its consequences. They express themselves badly; they evidently mean it is possible to verify various consequences of a more general principle, of which that of inertia is only a particular case.
I shall propose for this general principle the following enunciation:
The acceleration of a body depends only upon the position of this body and of the neighboring bodies and upon their velocities.
Mathematicians would say the movements of all the material molecules of the universe depend on differential equations of the second order.
To make it clear that this is really the natural generalization of the law of inertia, I shall beg you to permit me a bit of fiction. The law of inertia, as I have said above, is not imposed upon usa priori; other laws would be quite as compatible with the principle of sufficient reason. If a body is subjected to no force, in lieu of supposing its velocity not to change, it might be supposed that it is its position or else its acceleration which is not to change.
Well, imagine for an instant that one of these two hypothetical laws is a law of nature and replaces our law of inertia. What would be its natural generalization? A moment's thought will show us.
In the first case, we must suppose that the velocity of a body depends only upon its position and upon that of the neighboring bodies; in the second case that the change of acceleration of a body depends only upon the position of this body and of the neighboring bodies, upon their velocities and upon their accelerations.
Or to speak the language of mathematics, the differential equations of motion would be of the first order in the first case, and of the third order in the second case.
Let us slightly modify our fiction. Suppose a world analogous to our solar system, but where, by a strange chance, the orbits of all the planets are without eccentricity and without inclination. Suppose further that the masses of these planets are too slight for their mutual perturbations to be sensible. Astronomers inhabiting one of these planets could not fail to conclude that the orbit of a star can only be circular and parallel to a certain plane; the position of a star at a given instant would then suffice to determine its velocity and its whole path. The law of inertia which they would adopt would be the first of the two hypothetical laws I have mentioned.
Imagine now that this system is some day traversed with great velocity by a body of vast mass, coming from distant constellations. All the orbits would be profoundly disturbed. Still our astronomers would not be too greatly astonished; they would very well divine that this new star was alone to blame for all the mischief. "But," they would say, "when it is gone, order will of itself be reestablished; no doubt the distances of the planets from the sun will not revert to what they were before the cataclysm, but when the perturbing star is gone, the orbits will again become circular."
It would only be when the disturbing body was gone and when nevertheless the orbits, in lieu of again becoming circular, became elliptic, that these astronomers would become conscious of their error and the necessity of remaking all their mechanics.
I have dwelt somewhat upon these hypotheses because it seems to me one can clearly comprehend what our generalized law of inertia really is only in contrasting it with a contrary hypothesis.
Well, now, has this generalized law of inertia been verified byexperiment, or can it be? When Newton wrote thePrincipiahe quite regarded this truth as experimentally acquired and demonstrated. It was so in his eyes, not only through the anthropomorphism of which we shall speak further on, but through the work of Galileo. It was so even from Kepler's laws themselves; in accordance with these laws, in fact, the path of a planet is completely determined by its initial position and initial velocity; this is just what our generalized law of inertia requires.
For this principle to be only in appearance true, for one to have cause to dread having some day to replace it by one of the analogous principles I have just now contrasted with it, would be necessary our having been misled by some amazing chance, like that which, in the fiction above developed, led into error our imaginary astronomers.
Such a hypothesis is too unlikely to delay over. No one will believe that such coincidences can happen; no doubt the probability of two eccentricities being both precisely null, to within errors of observation, is not less than the probability of one being precisely equal to 0.1, for instance, and the other to 0.2, to within errors of observation. The probability of a simple event is not less than that of a complicated event; and yet, if the first happens, we shall not consent to attribute it to chance; we should not believe that nature had acted expressly to deceive us. The hypothesis of an error of this sort being discarded, it may therefore be admitted that in so far as astronomy is concerned, our law has been verified by experiment.
But astronomy is not the whole of physics.
May we not fear lest some day a new experiment should come to falsify the law in some domain of physics? An experimental law is always subject to revision; one should always expect to see it replaced by a more precise law.
Yet no one seriously thinks that the law we are speaking of will ever be abandoned or amended. Why? Precisely because it can never be subjected to a decisive test.
First of all, in order that this trial should be complete, it would be necessary that after a certain time all the bodies in the universe should revert to their initial positions with their initialvelocities. It might then be seen whether, starting from this moment, they would resume their original paths.
But this test is impossible, it can be only partially applied, and, however well it is made, there will always be some bodies which will not revert to their initial positions; thus every derogation of the law will easily find its explanation.
This is not all; in astronomy weseethe bodies whose motions we study and we usually assume that they are not subjected to the action of other invisible bodies. Under these conditions our law must indeed be either verified or not verified.
But it is not the same in physics; if the physical phenomena are due to motions, it is to the motions of molecules which we do not see. If then the acceleration of one of the bodies we see appears to us to depend onsomething elsebesides the positions or velocities of other visible bodies or of invisible molecules whose existence we have been previously led to admit, nothing prevents our supposing that thissomething elseis the position or the velocity of other molecules whose presence we have not before suspected. The law will find itself safeguarded.
Permit me to employ mathematical language a moment to express the same thought under another form. Suppose we observenmolecules and ascertain that their 3ncoordinates satisfy a system of 3ndifferential equations of the fourth order (and not of the second order as the law of inertia would require). We know that by introducing 3nauxiliary variables, a system of 3nequations of the fourth order can be reduced to a system of 6nequations of the second order. If then we suppose these 3nauxiliary variables represent the coordinates ofninvisible molecules, the result is again in conformity with the law of inertia.
To sum up, this law, verified experimentally in some particular cases, may unhesitatingly be extended to the most general cases, since we know that in these general cases experiment no longer is able either to confirm or to contradict it.
The Law of Acceleration.—The acceleration of a body is equal to the force acting on it divided by its mass. Can this law be verified by experiment? For that it would be necessary tomeasure the three magnitudes which figure in the enunciation: acceleration, force and mass.
I assume that acceleration can be measured, for I pass over the difficulty arising from the measurement of time. But how measure force, or mass? We do not even know what they are.
What ismass? According to Newton, it is the product of the volume by the density. According to Thomson and Tait, it would be better to say that density is the quotient of the mass by the volume. What isforce? It is, replies Lagrange, that which moves or tends to move a body. It is, Kirchhoff will say, the product of the mass by theacceleration. But then, why not say the mass is the quotient of the force by the acceleration?
These difficulties are inextricable.
When we say force is the cause of motion, we talk metaphysics, and this definition, if one were content with it, would be absolutely sterile. For a definition to be of any use, it must teach us tomeasureforce; moreover that suffices; it is not at all necessary that it teach us what force isin itself, nor whether it is the cause or the effect of motion.
We must therefore first define the equality of two forces. When shall we say two forces are equal? It is, we are told, when, applied to the same mass, they impress upon it the same acceleration, or when, opposed directly one to the other, they produce equilibrium. This definition is only a sham. A force applied to a body can not be uncoupled to hook it up to another body, as one uncouples a locomotive to attach it to another train. It is therefore impossible to know what acceleration such a force, applied to such a body, would impress upon such another body,ifit were applied to it. It is impossible to know how two forces which are not directly opposed would act,ifthey were directly opposed.
It is this definition we try to materialize, so to speak, when we measure a force with a dynamometer, or in balancing it with a weight. Two forcesFandF´, which for simplicity I will suppose vertical and directed upward, are applied respectively to two bodiesCandC´; I suspend the same heavy bodyPfirst to the bodyC, then to the bodyC´; if equilibrium is produced in both cases, I shall conclude that the two forcesFandF´are equal toone another, since they are each equal to the weight of the bodyP.
But am I sure the bodyPhas retained the same weight when I have transported it from the first body to the second? Far from it;I am sure of the contrary; I know the intensity of gravity varies from one point to another, and that it is stronger, for instance, at the pole than at the equator. No doubt the difference is very slight and, in practise, I shall take no account of it; but a properly constructed definition should have mathematical rigor; this rigor is lacking. What I say of weight would evidently apply to the force of the resiliency of a dynamometer, which the temperature and a multitude of circumstances may cause to vary.
This is not all; we can not say the weight of the bodyPmay be applied to the bodyCand directly balance the forceF. What is applied to the bodyCis the actionAof the bodyPon the bodyC; the bodyPis submitted on its part, on the one hand, to its weight; on the other hand, to the reactionRof the bodyConP. Finally, the forceFis equal to the forceA, since it balances it; the forceAis equal toR, in virtue of the principle of the equality of action and reaction; lastly, the forceRis equal to the weight ofP, since it balances it. It is from these three equalities we deduce as consequence the equality ofFand the weight ofP.
We are therefore obliged in the definition of the equality of the two forces to bring in the principle of the equality of action and reaction;on this account, this principle must no longer be regarded as an experimental law, but as a definition.
For recognizing the equality of two forces here, we are then in possession of two rules: equality of two forces which balance; equality of action and reaction. But, as we have seen above, these two rules are insufficient; we are obliged to have recourse to a third rule and to assume that certain forces, as, for instance, the weight of a body, are constant in magnitude and direction. But this third rule, as I have said, is an experimental law; it is only approximately true;it is a bad definition.
We are therefore reduced to Kirchhoff's definition;force is equal to the mass multiplied by the acceleration. This 'law of Newton' in its turn ceases to be regarded as an experimental law, it is now only a definition. But this definition is still insufficient,for we do not know what mass is. It enables us doubtless to calculate the relation of two forces applied to the same body at different instants; it teaches us nothing about the relation of two forces applied to two different bodies.
To complete it, it is necessary to go back anew to Newton's third law (equality of action and reaction), regarded again, not as an experimental law, but as a definition. Two bodiesAandBact one upon the other; the acceleration ofAmultiplied by the mass ofAis equal to the action ofBuponA; in the same way, the product of the acceleration ofBby its mass is equal to the reaction ofAuponB. As, by definition, action is equal to reaction, the masses ofAandBare in the inverse ratio of their accelerations. Here we have the ratio of these two masses defined, and it is for experiment to verify that this ratio is constant.
That would be all very well if the two bodiesAandBalone were present and removed from the action of the rest of the world. This is not at all the case; the acceleration ofAis not due merely to the action ofB, but to that of a multitude of other bodiesC,D,... To apply the preceding rule, it is therefore necessary to separate the acceleration ofAinto many components, and discern which of these components is due to the action ofB.
This separation would still be possible, if weshould assumethat the action ofCuponAis simply adjoined to that ofBuponA, without the presence of the bodyCmodifying the action ofBuponA; or the presence ofBmodifying the action ofCuponA; if we should assume, consequently, that any two bodies attract each other, that their mutual action is along their join and depends only upon their distance apart; if, in a word, we assumethe hypothesis of central forces.
You know that to determine the masses of the celestial bodies we use a wholly different principle. The law of gravitation teaches us that the attraction of two bodies is proportional to their masses; ifris their distance apart,mandm´their masses,ka constant, their attraction will bekmm´/r2.
What we are measuring then is not mass, the ratio of force to acceleration, but the attracting mass; it is not the inertia of the body, but its attracting force.
This is an indirect procedure, whose employment is nottheoretically indispensable. It might very well have been that attraction was inversely proportional to the square of the distance without being proportional to the product of the masses, that it was equal tof/r2, but without our havingf = kmm´.
If it were so, we could nevertheless, by observation of therelativemotions of the heavenly bodies, measure the masses of these bodies.
But have we the right to admit the hypothesis of central forces? Is this hypothesis rigorously exact? Is it certain it will never be contradicted by experiment? Who would dare affirm that? And if we must abandon this hypothesis, the whole edifice so laboriously erected will crumble.
We have no longer the right to speak of the component of the acceleration ofAdue to the action ofB. We have no means of distinguishing it from that due to the action ofCor of another body. The rule for the measurement of masses becomes inapplicable.
What remains then of the principle of the equality of action and reaction? If the hypothesis of central forces is rejected, this principle should evidently be enunciated thus: the geometric resultant of all the forces applied to the various bodies of a system isolated from all external action will be null. Or, in other words,the motion of the center of gravity of this system will be rectilinear and uniform.
There it seems we have a means of defining mass; the position of the center of gravity evidently depends on the values attributed to the masses; it will be necessary to dispose of these values in such a way that the motion of the center of gravity may be rectilinear and uniform; this will always be possible if Newton's third law is true, and possible in general only in a single way.
But there exists no system isolated from all external action; all the parts of the universe are subject more or less to the action of all the other parts.The law of the motion of the center of gravity is rigorously true only if applied to the entire universe.
But then, to get from it the values of the masses, it would be necessary to observe the motion of the center of gravity of the universe. The absurdity of this consequence is manifest; we know only relative motions; the motion of the center of gravity of the universe will remain for us eternally unknown.
Therefore nothing remains and our efforts have been fruitless; we are driven to the following definition, which is only an avowal of powerlessness:masses are coefficients it is convenient to introduce into calculations.
We could reconstruct all mechanics by attributing different values to all the masses. This new mechanics would not be in contradiction either with experience or with the general principles of dynamics (principle of inertia, proportionality of forces to masses and to accelerations, equality of action and reaction, rectilinear and uniform motion of the center of gravity, principle of areas).
Only the equations of this new mechanics would beless simple. Let us understand clearly: it would only be the first terms which would be less simple, that is those experience has already made us acquainted with; perhaps one could alter the masses by small quantities without thecompleteequations gaining or losing in simplicity.
Hertz has raised the question whether the principles of mechanics are rigorously true. "In the opinion of many physicists," he says, "it is inconceivable that the remotest experience should ever change anything in the immovable principles of mechanics; and yet, what comes from experience may always be rectified by experience." After what we have just said, these fears will appear groundless.
The principles of dynamics at first appeared to us as experimental truths; but we have been obliged to use them as definitions. It isby definitionthat force is equal to the product of mass by acceleration; here, then, is a principle which is henceforth beyond the reach of any further experiment. It is in the same way by definition that action is equal to reaction.
But then, it will be said, these unverifiable principles are absolutely devoid of any significance; experiment can not contradict them; but they can teach us nothing useful; then what is the use of studying dynamics?
This over-hasty condemnation would be unjust. There is not in nature any systemperfectlyisolated, perfectly removed from all external action; but there are systemsalmostisolated.
If such a system be observed, one may study not only therelative motion of its various parts one in reference to another, but also the motion of its center of gravity in reference to the other parts of the universe. We ascertain then that the motion of this center of gravity isalmostrectilinear and uniform, in conformity with Newton's third law.
That is an experimental truth, but it can not be invalidated by experience; in fact, what would a more precise experiment teach us? It would teach us that the law was only almost true; but that we knew already.
We can now understand how experience has been able to serve as basis for the principles of mechanics and yet will never be able to contradict them.
Anthropomorphic Mechanics.—"Kirchhoff," it will be said, "has only acted in obedience to the general tendency of mathematicians toward nominalism; from this his ability as a physicist has not saved him. He wanted a definition of force, and he took for it the first proposition that presented itself; but we need no definition of force: the idea of force is primitive, irreducible, indefinable; we all know what it is, we have a direct intuition of it. This direct intuition comes from the notion of effort, which is familiar to us from infancy."
But first, even though this direct intuition made known to us the real nature of force in itself, it would be insufficient as a foundation for mechanics; it would besides be wholly useless. What is of importance is not to know what force is, but to know how to measure it.
Whatever does not teach us to measure it is as useless to mechanics as is, for instance, the subjective notion of warmth and cold to the physicist who is studying heat. This subjective notion can not be translated into numbers, therefore it is of no use; a scientist whose skin was an absolutely bad conductor of heat and who, consequently, would never have felt either sensations of cold or sensations of warmth, could read a thermometer just as well as any one else, and that would suffice him for constructing the whole theory of heat.
Now this immediate notion of effort is of no use to us for measuring force; it is clear, for instance, that I should feel morefatigue in lifting a weight of fifty kilos than a man accustomed to carry burdens.
But more than that: this notion of effort does not teach us the real nature of force; it reduces itself finally to a remembrance of muscular sensations, and it will hardly be maintained that the sun feels a muscular sensation when it draws the earth.
All that can there be sought is a symbol, less precise and less convenient than the arrows the geometers use, but just as remote from the reality.
Anthropomorphism has played a considerable historic rôle in the genesis of mechanics; perhaps it will still at times furnish a symbol which will appear convenient to some minds; but it can not serve as foundation for anything of a truly scientific or philosophic character.
'The School of the Thread.'—M. Andrade, in hisLeçons de mécanique physique, has rejuvenated anthropomorphic mechanics. To the school of mechanics to which Kirchhoff belongs, he opposes that which he bizarrely calls the school of the thread.
This school tries to reduce everything to "the consideration of certain material systems of negligible mass, envisaged in the state of tension and capable of transmitting considerable efforts to distant bodies, systems of which the ideal type is thethread."
A thread which transmits any force is slightly elongated under the action of this force; the direction of the thread tells us the direction of the force, whose magnitude is measured by the elongation of the thread.
One may then conceive an experiment such as this. A bodyAis attached to a thread; at the other extremity of the thread any force acts which varies until the thread takes an elongation α; the acceleration of the bodyAis noted;Ais detached and the bodyBattached to the same thread; the same force or another force acts anew, and is made to vary until the thread takes again the elongation α; the acceleration of the bodyBis noted. The experiment is then renewed with bothAandB, but so that the thread takes the elongation ßβ. The four observed accelerations should be proportional. We have thus an experimental verification of the law of acceleration above enunciated.
Or still better, a body is submitted to the simultaneous actionof several identical threads in equal tension, and by experiment it is sought what must be the orientations of all these threads that the body may remain in equilibrium. We have then an experimental verification of the law of the composition of forces.
But, after all, what have we done? We have defined the force to which the thread is subjected by the deformation undergone by this thread, which is reasonable enough; we have further assumed that if a body is attached to this thread, the effort transmitted to it by the thread is equal to the action this body exercises on this thread; after all, we have therefore used the principle of the equality of action and reaction, in considering it, not as an experimental truth, but as the very definition of force.
This definition is just as conventional as Kirchhoff's, but far less general.
All forces are not transmitted by threads (besides, to be able to compare them, they would all have to be transmitted by identical threads). Even if it should be conceded that the earth is attached to the sun by some invisible thread, at least it would be admitted that we have no means of measuring its elongation.
Nine times out of ten, consequently, our definition would be at fault; no sort of sense could be attributed to it, and it would be necessary to fall back on Kirchhoff's.
Why then take this détour? You admit a certain definition of force which has a meaning only in certain particular cases. In these cases you verify by experiment that it leads to the law of acceleration. On the strength of this experiment, you then take the law of acceleration as a definition of force in all the other cases.
Would it not be simpler to consider the law of acceleration as a definition in all cases, and to regard the experiments in question, not as verifications of this law, but as verifications of the principle of reaction, or as demonstrating that the deformations of an elastic body depend only on the forces to which this body is subjected?
And this is without taking into account that the conditions under which your definition could be accepted are never fulfilled except imperfectly, that a thread is never without mass, that it is never removed from every force except the reaction of the bodies attached to its extremities.
Andrade's ideas are nevertheless very interesting; if they do not satisfy our logical craving, they make us understand better the historic genesis of the fundamental ideas of mechanics. The reflections they suggest show us how the human mind has raised itself from a naïve anthropomorphism to the present conceptions of science.
We see at the start a very particular and in sum rather crude experiment; at the finish, a law perfectly general, perfectly precise, the certainty of which we regard as absolute. This certainty we ourselves have bestowed upon it voluntarily, so to speak, by looking upon it as a convention.
Are the law of acceleration, the rule of the composition of forces then only arbitrary conventions? Conventions, yes; arbitrary, no; they would be if we lost sight of the experiments which led the creators of the science to adopt them, and which, imperfect as they may be, suffice to justify them. It is well that from time to time our attention is carried back to the experimental origin of these conventions.
The Principle of Relative Motion.—The attempt has sometimes been made to attach the law of acceleration to a more general principle. The motion of any system must obey the same laws, whether it be referred to fixed axes, or to movable axes carried along in a rectilinear and uniform motion. This is the principle of relative motion, which forces itself upon us for two reasons: first, the commonest experience confirms it, and second, the contrary hypothesis is singularly repugnant to the mind.
Assume it then, and consider a body subjected to a force; the relative motion of this body, in reference to an observer moving with a uniform velocity equal to the initial velocity of the body, must be identical to what its absolute motion would be if it started from rest. We conclude hence that its acceleration can not depend upon its absolute velocity; the attempt has even been made to derive from this a demonstration of the law of acceleration.
There long were traces of this demonstration in the regulations for the degree B. ès Sc. It is evident that this attempt is idle. The obstacle which prevented our demonstrating the law of acceleration is that we had no definition of force; this obstacle subsists in its entirety, since the principle invoked has not furnished us the definition we lacked.
The principle of relative motion is none the less highly interesting and deserves study for its own sake. Let us first try to enunciate it in a precise manner.
We have said above that the accelerations of the different bodies forming part of an isolated system depend only on their relative velocities and positions, and not on their absolute velocities and positions, provided the movable axes to which the relative motion is referred move uniformly in a straight line. Or, ifwe prefer, their accelerations depend only on the differences of their velocities and the differences of their coordinates, and not on the absolute values of these velocities and coordinates.
If this principle is true for relative accelerations, or rather for differences of acceleration, in combining it with the law of reaction we shall thence deduce that it is still true of absolute accelerations.
It then remains to be seen how we may demonstrate that the differences of the accelerations depend only on the differences of the velocities and of the coordinates, or, to speak in mathematical language, that these differences of coordinates satisfy differential equations of the second order.
Can this demonstration be deduced from experiments or froma prioriconsiderations?
Recalling what we have said above, the reader can answer for himself.
Thus enunciated, in fact, the principle of relative motion singularly resembles what I called above the generalized principle of inertia; it is not altogether the same thing, since it is a question of the differences of coordinates and not of the coordinates themselves. The new principle teaches us therefore something more than the old, but the same discussion is applicable and would lead to the same conclusions; it is unnecessary to return to it.
Newton's Argument.—Here we encounter a very important and even somewhat disconcerting question. I have said the principle of relative motion was for us not solely a result of experiment and thata priorievery contrary hypothesis would be repugnant to the mind.
But then, why is the principle true only if the motion of the movable axes is rectilinear and uniform? It seems that it ought to impose itself upon us with the same force, if this motion is varied, or at any rate if it reduces to a uniform rotation. Now, in these two cases, the principle is not true. I will not dwell long on the case where the motion of the axes is rectilinear without being uniform; the paradox does not bear a moment's examination. If I am on board, and if the train, striking anyobstacle, stops suddenly, I shall be thrown against the seat in front of me, although I have not been directly subjected to any force. There is nothing mysterious in that; if I have undergone the action of no external force, the train itself has experienced an external impact. There can be nothing paradoxical in the relative motion of two bodies being disturbed when the motion of one or the other is modified by an external cause.
I will pause longer on the case of relative motions referred to axes which rotate uniformly. If the heavens were always covered with clouds, if we had no means of observing the stars, we nevertheless might conclude that the earth turns round; we could learn this from its flattening or again by the Foucault pendulum experiment.
And yet, in this case, would it have any meaning, to say the earth turns round? If there is no absolute space, can one turn without turning in reference to something else? and, on the other hand, how could we admit Newton's conclusion and believe in absolute space?
But it does not suffice to ascertain that all possible solutions are equally repugnant to us; we must analyze, in each case, the reasons for our repugnance, so as to make our choice intelligently. The long discussion which follows will therefore be excused.
Let us resume our fiction: thick clouds hide the stars from men, who can not observe them and are ignorant even of their existence; how shall these men know the earth turns round?
Even more than our ancestors, no doubt, they will regard the ground which bears them as fixed and immovable; they will await much longer the advent of a Copernicus. But in the end the Copernicus would come—how?
The students of mechanics in this world would not at first be confronted with an absolute contradiction. In the theory of relative motion, besides real forces, two fictitious forces are met which are called ordinary and compound centrifugal force. Our imaginary scientists could therefore explain everything by regarding these two forces as real, and they would not see therein any contradiction of the generalized principle of inertia, for these forces would depend, the one on the relative positions ofthe various parts of the system, as real attractions do, the other on their relative velocities, as real frictions do.
Many difficulties, however, would soon awaken their attention; if they succeeded in realizing an isolated system, the center of gravity of this system would not have an almost rectilinear path. They would invoke, to explain this fact, the centrifugal forces which they would regard as real, and which they would attribute no doubt to the mutual actions of the bodies. Only they would not see these forces become null at great distances, that is to say in proportion as the isolation was better realized; far from it; centrifugal force increases indefinitely with the distance.
This difficulty would seem to them already sufficiently great; and yet it would not stop them long; they would soon imagine some very subtile medium, analogous to our ether, in which all bodies would be immersed and which would exert a repellent action upon them.
But this is not all. Space is symmetric, and yet the laws of motion would not show any symmetry; they would have to distinguish between right and left. It would be seen for instance that cyclones turn always in the same sense, whereas by reason of symmetry these winds should turn indifferently in one sense and in the other. If our scientists by their labor had succeeded in rendering their universe perfectly symmetric, this symmetry would not remain, even though there was no apparent reason why it should be disturbed in one sense rather than in the other.
They would get themselves out of the difficulty doubtless, they would invent something which would be no more extraordinary than the glass spheres of Ptolemy, and so it would go on, complications accumulating, until the long-expected Copernicus sweeps them all away at a single stroke, saying: It is much simpler to assume the earth turns round.
And just as our Copernicus said to us: It is more convenient to suppose the earth turns round, since thus the laws of astronomy are expressible in a much simpler language; this one would say: It is more convenient to suppose the earth turns round, since thus the laws of mechanics are expressible in a much simpler language.
This does not preclude maintaining that absolute space, thatis to say the mark to which it would be necessary to refer the earth to know whether it really moves, has no objective existence. Hence, this affirmation: 'the earth turns round' has no meaning, since it can be verified by no experiment; since such an experiment, not only could not be either realized or dreamed by the boldest Jules Verne, but can not be conceived of without contradiction; or rather these two propositions: 'the earth turns round,' and, 'it is more convenient to suppose the earth turns round' have the same meaning; there is nothing more in the one than in the other.
Perhaps one will not be content even with that, and will find it already shocking that among all the hypotheses, or rather all the conventions we can make on this subject, there is one more convenient than the others.
But if it has been admitted without difficulty when it was a question of the laws of astronomy, why should it be shocking in that which concerns mechanics?
We have seen that the coordinates of bodies are determined by differential equations of the second order, and that so are the differences of these coordinates. This is what we have called the generalized principle of inertia and the principle of relative motion. If the distances of these bodies were determined likewise by equations of the second order, it seems that the mind ought to be entirely satisfied. In what measure does the mind get this satisfaction and why is it not content with it?
To account for this, we had better take a simple example. I suppose a system analogous to our solar system, but where one can not perceive fixed stars foreign to this system, so that astronomers can observe only the mutual distances of the planets and the sun, and not the absolute longitudes of the planets. If we deduce directly from Newton's law the differential equations which define the variation of these distances, these equations will not be of the second order. I mean that if, besides Newton's law, one knew the initial values of these distances and of their derivatives with respect to the time, that would not suffice to determine the values of these same distances at a subsequent instant. There would still be lacking one datum, and this datum might be for instance what astronomers call the area-constant.
But here two different points of view may be taken; we may distinguish two sorts of constants. To the eyes of the physicist the world reduces to a series of phenomena, depending, on the one hand, solely upon the initial phenomena; on the other hand, upon the laws which bind the consequents to the antecedents. If then observation teaches us that a certain quantity is a constant, we shall have the choice between two conceptions.
Either we shall assume that there is a law requiring this quantity not to vary, but that by chance, at the beginning of the ages, it had, rather than another, this value it has been forced to keep ever since. This quantity might then be called anaccidentalconstant.
Or else we shall assume, on the contrary, that there is a law of nature which imposes upon this quantity such a value and not such another.
We shall then have what we may call anessentialconstant.
For example, in virtue of Newton's laws, the duration of the revolution of the earth must be constant. But if it is 366 sidereal days and something over, and not 300 or 400, this is in consequence of I know not what initial chance. This is an accidental constant. If, on the contrary, the exponent of the distance which figures in the expression of the attractive force is equal to −2 and not to −3, this is not by chance, but because Newton's law requires it. This is an essential constant.