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CRC Press eBooks

Modern Physics Concepts

J. Kenneth Shultis, Richard E. Faw

Published Jul 24, 2002• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

During the first three decades of the twentieth century, our understanding of the\nphysical universe underwent tremendous changes. The classical physics of Newton\nand the other scientists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was shown to be\ninadequate to describe completely our universe. The results of this revolution in\nphysics are now called "modern" physics, although they are now almost a century\nold.

DOI
10.1201/9780203910351-3

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During the first three decades of the twentieth century, our understanding of the\nphysical universe underwent tremendous changes. The classical physics of Newton\nand the other scientists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was shown to be\ninadequate to describe completely our universe. The results of this revolution in\nphysics are now called "modern" physics, although they are now almost a century\nold.
The twentieth century has seen two major revolutions in our theories of physics concerning nature, and these have made us change many of our concepts about the terms in which nature can be described. The new theories born in these revolutions are the theory of relativity and of quantum mechanics. The biological sciences had their revolutions in the nineteenth century, and while remarkable progress has been made since, nothing comparable to that upheaval has occurred in this century. Of the two massive changes in the concepts of the physical sciences, we can discuss but one here. [excerpt]
The first decades of the twentieth century were marked by two revolutionary scientific accomplishments, the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, with repercussions still felt today. Relativity theory and quantum mechanics became the two most important branches of “Modern Physics” that emerged as an alternative to “Classical Physics” (a term often used interchangeably with that of “Newtonian” or “Galilean” physics). No field of science (from astronomy to the life sciences), no field of knowledge (from philosophy to sociology), and no artistic practice (from architecture to the fine arts) was left untouched by these investigations into the nature of our physical universe.
Twentieth-century physics has had a profound influence on general philosophical thought, because it has revealed an unsuspected limitation of classical ideas and has necessitated a radical revision of many of our basic concepts. The concept of matter in subatomic physics, for example, is totally different from the traditional material substance of classical physics, and the same is true for concepts like space, time, or causality. These concepts, however, are fundamental to our outlook on the world around us, and with their radical transformation our whole world view has begun to change.
‘God’, said Albert Einstein, ‘does not play dice’. This famous remark by the author of the theory of relativity was not intended as an analysis of the recreational habits of a supreme being but expressed his reaction to the new scientific ideas, developed in the first quarter of the twentieth century, which are now known as quantum physics. Before we can fully appreciate why one of the greatest scientists of modern times should have been led to make such a comment, we must first try to understand the context of scientific and philosophical thought that had become established by the end of the nineteenth century and what it was about the ‘new physics’ that presented such a radical challenge to this consensus. What is often thought of as the modern scientific age began in the sixteenth century, when Nicholas Copernicus proposed that the motion of the stars and planets should be described on the assumption that it is the sun, rather than the earth, which is the centre of the solar system. The opposition, not to say persecution, that this idea encountered from much of the establishment of that time is well known, but this was unable to prevent a revolution in thinking whose influence has continued to the present day. From that time on, the accepted test of scientific truth has increasingly been observation and experiment rather than religious or philosophical dogma.