Descripción
First edition, very rare offprint. "Heisenberg's September 1934 address to the Society of German Scientists and Physicians, titled 'Transformations in the foundations of science in recent times' [the offered paper] was a pivotal moment of intellectual coalescence . . . In the 1934 address he suggested that modern physics called into question the entire construction originating at the end of the Renaissance and culminating in 'the scientific world picture of the nineteenth century', which built on classical physics' model of objective, certain knowledge. Yet while clearly marking the radicality of the break, Heisenberg for the first time focused attention on the connections that linked the modern back to the classical. That was because he now told the story historically. He suggested that classical restrictions had been loosened in a coherent multistep process, from special to general relativity to quantum mechanics . . . In short, the meaning of 'classical' - the science that sought objective description in space and time - was actually fixed retroactively in terms of its difference from a coherently defined 'modern.' And yet, throughout, Heisenberg stressed the ways in which the ideas of classical physics were not overthrown, but preserved within a realm whose bounds were now better defined. 'The edifice of classical physics,' he now said, was ''closed' on itself,' meaning 'it reaches as far as the concepts that make up its foundations can be applied.' The trouble came only when scientists assumed that classical concepts were indefinitely applicable before the empirical evidence was in . . . What modern physics did was not refute old concepts but expand them, offering what Heisenberg labeled new Denkmoglichkeiten, new possibilities for thought . . . As he now told the story, modern physics 'did not arise from revolutionary ideas that were brought, so to speak, from the outside into natural science; rather, they were forced upon it in the attempt to carry the program of classical physics consistently to its completion.' Classical physics carried within itself the seeds of its own surpassing. In particular, the transition to modern physics was driven by the interplay of theory with experiment, which had fundamentally marked the natural sciences since the Renaissance. And contrary to the usual idealizing interpretation, in modern physics experiment had forved the theorists' hand . . . When it was published in Die Nauturwissenschaften, his address was rushed into print - so quickly that he did not even get the proofs back to the publisher before the issue went to press" (Carson, Heisenberg in the Atomic Age: Science and the Public Sphere (2010), pp. 48-50). 4to, pp. 669-675. Self-wrappers (folded once horizontally for posting, small tear in fore-edge margin at the fold). N° de ref. del artículo ABE-1677693926588
Contactar al vendedor
Denunciar este artículo
