History 181B - Class 8

History 181B: Modern Physics

Class 8 (2/7/03)
Classical world pictures (1)

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Outline

Stepping back
    Consolidating "physics"
    Unification
    The mechanical philosophy
    The status of modeling

What does a scientific theory aim for?
    Duhem
        Predicting vs. explaining
        Uniqueness and testing theories
    Mach

Where does this leave late 19th-century physics?

Names and terms

Primary	Secondary
metaphysics Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906) Pierre Duhem (1861-1916) "to save the phenomena" Ernst Mach (1838-1916) economy of thought antimetaphysics, conventionalism	underdetermination Duhem-Quine thesis

Assignment

Ernst Mach, "The Economy of Science" (1883), in The Science of Mechanics: A Critical and Historical Account of its Development, trans. Thomas J. McCormmack, 3rd ed. (Chicago: Open Court, 1907), 481-494.

    What did Mach say the world was made up of?
    What did he mean by the economical nature of science?
    In Mach's view of things, when would a scientist be satisfied that he had gone as far as possible in understanding nature?