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THE NEW BACKGROUND
OF SCIENCE
BY SIR JAMES JEANS
THE UNIVERSE AROUND US
THE MYSTERIOUS UNIVERSE
ASTRONOMY AND. COSMOGONY
THE DYNAMICAL THEORY OF OASES
THE MATHEMATICAL THEORY OF ELEC-
TRICITY AND MAGNETISM
PROBLEMS OF COSMOGONY AND STELLAR
DYNAMICS
THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES
THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
(1)
G. P. Thomson
ELECTRONS BEHAVING AS (1) Particles, in passing through a gas;
(2) Waves, in passing through a thin metal film (p. 198)
The
New Background of Science
by
SIR JAMES J_EANS
M.A., D.Sc., Sc.D.
LL.D..F.R.S.
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CJOMPANY
CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND: AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1933
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
All ri^its reserved no part of this book may be
reproduced in any form without permission in
writing from the publisher) except by a reviewer
who wishes to quote brief passages in connection
with a review written for inclusion in magazine
or newspaper.
Set up and electrotype*.
Published May, IQ33-
CONTENTS
Preface page vii
Chapter I The Approach to the External World 1
II The Methods of Science 45
III The Framework of the External World
Space and Timfe 70
IV Mechanism 111
V The Texture of the External World
Matter and Radiation 146
VI Wave-Mechanics 193
VII Indeterminacy 230
VIII Events 261
Index 297
PREFACE
After undergoing a succession of kaleidoscopic changes,
theoretical physics appears to have attained a state of
comparative quiescence, in which there is fairly general
agreement about essentials. In the following pages I
have tried to depict the present situation in broad outline
and in the simplest possible terms. I have drawn my
picture against a roughly sketched background of rudi-
mentary philosophy the philosophy of a scientist, not
of a metaphysician because I believe, in common with
most scientific workers, that without a background of this
kind we can neither see our new knowledge as a consistent
whole, nor appreciate its significance to the full. State-
ments made without reference to such a background
as, for instance, that " an electron consists of waves of
probability " or that " the principle of indeterminacy
shews that nature is not deterministic " can convey at
best only a minute fraction of the truth.
I have tried to exhibit the new knowledge in such a way
that every reader can form his own judgment as to its
philosophical implications. There is room for much
legitimate difference of opinion as to what precisely these
are; yet few, I think, will be found to doubt that some
reorientation of scientific thought is called for. I have
not suppressed my own view that the final direction of
change will probably be away from the materialism and
strict determinism which characterised nineteenth-cen-
vii
viu PREFACE
tury physics, towards something which will accord better
with our everyday experience. This part of my work
may be regarded as an amplification and clarification
of parts of my earlier small book, The Mysterious Universe.
I have hoped that the present book may serve a serious
scientific purpose, and prove of interest and value both to
students of physics and to other more general readers.
Unhappily I found it impossible to attain the necessary
precision of thought and statement without occasionally
using a few mathematical symbols and formulae; at the
same time I have tried to arrange that the general purport
of these shall be made clear to the non-mathematical
reader, who will, I hope, find most of the book intelligible.
J. H. JEANS
DORKING
January 19th, 1933
THE NEW BACKGROUND
OF SCIENCE
CHAPTER I
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD
Twentieth-Century Physics
A century which has run less than a third of its course has
already witnessed two great upheavals in physical science.
These are associated with the words Relativity and
Quanta, and have forced the physicist of to-day to view
nature against a background of ideas which is very differ-
ent from that of his nineteenth-century predecessor.
The latter thought of nature as an assemblage of ob-
jects located in space and continually changing with the
passage of time. It was something entirely detached
from, and external to, himself; something which he could
study and explore from a distance as the astronomer
studies the surface of the sun through his telescope, or
the explorer the desert from his aeroplane. He thought
of the apparatus of his laboratory as the astronomer thinks
of his telescope, or the explorer of his field-glass; it
shewed him things which were there whether he looked
at them or not, which had been there before the first man
appeared on earth, and would still be there after the last
man had been frozen to extinction. Finally he accepted
a "common-sense" view of nature, believing that there
was no great difference between appearance and reality;
the possibility that things were not as they seemed might
provide an admirable subject for a debating society of
philosophers, but was of as little practical concern to the
scientist as. to the farm-labourer.
1
2 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
Although he may not have realised it, this complex
of beliefs constituted a philosophical creed in itself. No
attempt was made to justify it by abstract argument; so
long as it worked satisfactorily none seemed to be needed,
the success of the science based upon it providing a suffi-
cient justification. If ever it ceased to work, there would
be time enough to probe its foundations and perhaps look
for a new philosophy.
That time has now come. The old philosophy ceased
to work at the end of the nineteenth century, and the
twentieth-century physicist is hammering out a new phi-
losophy for himself. Its essence is that he no longer sees
nature as something- entirely distinct from himself.
Sometimes it is what he himself creates, or selects or
abstracts; sometimes it is what he destroys.
In certain of its aspects, which are revealed by the new
theory of quanta, nature is something which is destroyed
by observation. It is no longer a desert which we explore
from the detached position of an aeroplane; we can only
explore it by tramping over it, and we raise clouds of
dust at every step. Trying to observe the inner workings
of an atom is like plucking the wings off a butterfly to see
how it flies, or like taking poison to discover the conse-
quences. . Each observation destroys the bit of the uni-
verse observed, and so supplies knowledge only of a
universe which has already become past history.
In certain other aspects, especially its spatio-temporal
aspects as revealed by the theory of relativity, nature is
like a rainbow. The ancient Hebrew the analogue
of the nineteenth-century physicist saw the rainbow
as an objective structure set in the heavens for all men
to behold, the token of a covenant between God and
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 3
man, and as objective as the signature to a cheque. We
now know that the objective rainbow is an illusion.
Raindrops break sunlight up into rays of many colours,
and the coloured rays which enter any man's eyes form
the rainbow he sees; but as the rays which enter one
man's eyes can never enter those of a second man, no two
men can ever see the same rainbow. Each man's rain-
bow is a selection of his own eyes, a subjective selection
from an objective reality which is not a rainbow at all.
And it is the same with the nature which each man sees.
Again, just as a man's rainbow follows him about as he
moves round the country-side, so nature follows us about.
At whatever speed we move, we find nature adjusting
itself to bur motion, so that this motion makes no differ-
ence to its laws.
Yet the analogy fails in one respect. A rainbow will
disclose our own motion to us by the speed with which it
moves against a background of distant forests and hills,
but physical science can find no such background for
nature. The whole of nature appears to follow us about.
Imperfect though these analogies are, they will shew
that the physicist of to-day must needs have some
acquaintance with ideas which used to be considered the
exclusive preserve of metaphysics.
one of the foremost workers in modern theoretical
physics, Professor Heisenberg of Leipzig, has described
the present situation in the following words:*
"With the advent of Einstein's relativity theory it was neces-
sary for the first time to recognize that the physical world
differed from the ideal world conceived in terms of everyday
* The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory (Univ. of Chicago Press,
1930), p. 62.
4 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
experience. . . . The experimental material resulting from
modern refinements in experimental technique necessitated
the revision of old ideas and the acquirement of new ones,
but as the mind is always slow to adjust itself to an extended
range of experience and concepts, the relativity theory seemed
at first repellantly abstract. None the less, the simplicity of
its solution for a vexatious problem has gained it universal
acceptance. As is dear from what has been said, the resolu-
tion of the paradoxes of atomic physics can be accomplished
only by further renunciation of old and cherished ideas. . . .
"To mold our thoughts and language to agree with the
observed facts of atomic physics is a very difficult task, as it
was in the case of the relativity theory. In the case of the latter,
it proved advantageous to return to the older philosophical
discussions of the problems of space and time. In the same
way it is now profitable to review the fundamental discussions,
so important for epistemology, of the difficulty of separating
the subjective and objective aspects of the world. Many of
the abstractions that are characteristic of modern theoretical
physics are to be found discussed in the philosophy of past
centuries. At that time these abstractions could be dis-
regarded as mere mental exercises by those scientists whose
only concern was with reality, but to-day we are compelled by
the refinements of experimental art to consider them seriously".
This is not meant in any way to suggest that an ob-
jective nature does not exist^ but merely that it is at
present beyond our purview. We can only see nature
blurred by the clouds of dust we ourselves make; we can
still only see the rainbow, but a sun of some sort must
exist to produce the light by which we see it.
Writing in 1899, * F. H. Bradley proposed to define the
nature of metaphysics as
"the bare physical world, that region which forms the object
of purely physical science, and appears to fall outside of all
* Appearance and Reality p. 261.
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 5
mind. Abstract everything psychical, and then the remainder
of existence will be Nature".
A few lines farther on, he brings us to the crux of
the present situation in physical science when he writes:
"We sometimes forget that this world [of nature], in the
mental history of each of us, once had no existence. There
was a time when the separation of the outer world, as a thing
real apart from our feeling, had not even been begun. The
physical world, whether it exists independently or not, is, for
each of us, an abstraction from the entire reality".
A nineteenth-century physicist, reading this, would
have identified the "time when the separation of the
outer world had not even been begun" with a few days
in his extreme infancy, and would little suspect that he, a
scientist of mature years, had not yet effected the sepa-
ration completely. It was left for twentieth-century
physics under the lead of Einstein, Bohr and Heisenberg
to discover how large a subjective tinge entered into the
nineteenth-century description of nature; recognising
this, it tries to discard our human spectacles and study
the objective reality that lies beyond. only in this way
has it proved possible to give a consistent description of
nature. Thus the history of physical science in the
twentieth century is one of a progressive ; emancipation
from the purely human angle of vision.
The physicist who can discard his human spectacles,
and can see clearly in the strange new light which then
assails his eyes, finds himself living in an unfamiliar
world, which even his immediate predecessors would
probably fail to recognise.
We must now try to explain how this change of thought
has come about, examine its implications, and describe,
6 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
in so far as this is possible, the new world of twentieth-
century physics.
The World of Sense-impressions
We may properly approach this world by imagining the
entry into life of a child endowed with consciousness,
with a mind capable of experiencing sensations and
desires, and with a capacity for thought.
At first it has no consciousness except of its own exist-
ence; no knowledge of an outer world of nature, as
something distinct from and clearly separated from itself,
its thoughts and its sensations; no past experiences to
form a background to its thoughts or with which to com-
pare its present sensations. Gradually the passage of
time provides past experiences, which memory fixes in its
mind to form the needed background. It begins to view
its sensations against this background, and discovers that
they continually change. They fall into the two cate-
gories of pleasurable sensations, which it desires to in-
crease, repeat or perpetuate, and painful sensations,
which it desires to diminish or avoid. Soon it makes the
melancholy discovery that it cannot by its own volition
make all its sensations pleasurable; it finds that it has
needs, such as for food and warmth; when these are not
adequately satisfied, its sensations are less pleasurable
than when they were. These needs introduce it to the
hard facts of life, for it finds they can only be satisfied
from outside itself. Definite acts, such as sucking sugar
or running a pin into its hand, produce still more acute
sensations of pleasure or pain; the materials for these
sensations, the sugar or the pin-point, also come to it
from outside.
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 7
From such experiences the child infers the existence of
an environment which is not part of itself in brief, of
an external world. It has every inducement to try to
understand the workings of this external world, in which
it believes all physical pains and pleasures to originate.
It soon learns, when burnt, to dread the fire; once bitten,
it is twice shy. Through such experiences, it finds law
and order in the external world, and discovers the prin-
ciple which it will describe in later years as the "uni-
formity of nature" like causes produce like effects.
Finally, in its efforts to understand the external world,
it begins tentatively to endow this world with certain
qualities, properties and occupants. The inference that
an external world exists obviously stands on a higher
level of probability than the conjecture that any special
qualities, properties or occupants are associated with it.
For the child has definite knowledge only of the sensa-
tions in its own mind. If these originated solely in its
own mind, it could choose to make them all pleasurable;
since it cannot do this, it is on fairly safe ground in sup-
posing that something external must exist to produce and
control these sensations. on the other hand, the nature
of this something can never be more than guessed. The
child will never be able to test the absolute truth of its
conjectures; the most stringent test available is that of
their consistency with one another and with the phe-
nomena which they attribute to the external world.
Such a test may disprove, but can never prove.
Throughout its whole life, the child will assume that
an external world exists, and will make conjectures with
a view to understanding its workings. When it does this
in a logical and systematic manner, we call it a scientist.
8 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
The child's sensations reach its mind through five chan-
nels, which we call the five senses sight, hearing,
smell, taste and touch. These all function in similar
ways. Something external produces an impression on
some part of the body the retina, the ear-drum, the
nostrils, the palate or the skin and this impression is
transmitted along a complicated nervous system to the
brain. Up to this stage the impression has been conveyed
by atomic changes, but it now crosses what we may de-
scribe as the "mind-body" bridge, and when it appears
on the other side, it is as a mental sensation, accompanied
by such mental attributes as pleasure or pain, satisfac-
tion or irritation, ecstasy or despair.
The nerves may be compared to a number of tele-
phone wires transmitting electric currents into a prison-
cell, which suitable instruments subsequently metamor-
phose into messages of sound, television, etc. The child
is a prisoner inside the cell, and is doomed to remain a
prisoner all its life. It can have no knowledge of the
outer world except through the messages received over
the wires. These may give truthful reports of the events
occurring outside the prison cell, but its occupant will
only be able to interpret them in terms of the contents of
its cell, which consist of thoughts and sensations. A
mind which is directly acquainted only with thoughts and
sensations may be as little able to form a true picture of
an outer world as a blind man is able to understand the
beauty of a sunset or a deaf man to grasp the meaning of
a symphony. Even a superior being coming direct from
the outer world might still be unable to explain its
nature to the prisoner, for the simple reason that they
would have no common language in which to converse.
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 9
Nevertheless, from the fragmentary messages which his
senses send to him over his nerves, the prisoner may
attempt to form a consistent picture of the external world
for himself, in terms of the concepts with which his mind
is familiar. Science merely attempts to build up such a
picture in a systematic, organised way.
The External World
The first messages which the child receives from its senses
teach it to regard the external world as a collection of
objects, each possessing a certain degree of persistence or
continuity in time. It soon finds that these fall into dis-
tinct categories. First come other human beings, simi-
lar to itself except for differences in age, size and other
characteristics. There are also animals, birds, fishes and
insects, then plants and trees, and finally objects which
consist of inanimate matter.
The child's mind is not only occupied by its sensations
but also by its volitions, which are desires to increase or
diminish particular sensations according as it finds them
pleasurable or the reverse. Having discovered that its
sensations come to it from the disposition of the objects
of the external world, it would like to alter this dis-
position, so as to avoid pain and increase pleasure. It
finds, or thinks it finds, that it is possessed of a will-power,
through which it may at least try to effect the changes it
desires.
It soon discovers an essential difference between ani-
mate and inanimate objects. After a little experience,
it can catch a rolling marble without difficulty, because
this has no will-power to set in opposition to its own, but
as soon as it tries to catch a crawling fly or a crawling
10 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
wasp, it becomes conscious of an opposing will-power;
the fly tries to avoid capture, the wasp resents capture.
Finally it finds that other children have a will-power of
the same kind as its own. As it believes its will-power to
emanate from its mind, it infers that the external world is
controlled in part by minds other than its own, but simi-
lar to its own; it concludes that it is not the only mind in
the universe.
When it establishes contact with these other minds, it
learns that they experience sensations and desires similar
to its own; not only are they endowed with similar senses
but also, most important of all, they perceive objects
similar to those which it perceives.
Not only are these objects similar in kind; often they
are obviously identical. If I count that there are six
chairs in my room, the normal event will be for my com-
panion also to count six chairs. Repeated experiences
such as these suggest that the chairs he sees are identical
with those which I see. The knowledge that a chair can
be perceived by a mind is extended to the knowledge that
the same chair can be perceived by two minds, and we
conclude that the chairs have what we may call an
"objective" existence an existence outside our indi-
vidual minds. Something outside both of us, which we
loosely describe as a chair, can produce in both of us the
sense-impression we describe as seeing a chair. At this
stage we naturally begin to inquire "What is this
object which we call a chair?" We turn to the physicist
for an answer, because he has devoted his life to investi-
gating such problems.
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 11
Matter
He tells us in the first place that all sense-impressions
which come to us from the external world originate in
what he calls "matter". This cannot of itself make a
direct impression on our senses; such impressions are
only made by physical "events" occurring in matter.
Strictly speaking, we do not see the sun; we see events
taking place in the sun. The sun only affects our senses
because a continuous re-arrangement of electrons in the
solar atoms results in the emission of light. In the same
way, we do not see a chair, but the event of daylight or
electric light falling on a chair. If we stumble against the
chair in the dark, we do not feel the chair, but the event
of a transfer of energy and momentum between the chair
and our bodies.
Both chronologically and causally the act of percep-
tion starts at the end of the chain remote from the per-
cipient in the sun, the electric light, or the chair. We
must not, for instance, compare the act of vision, as
Descartes did, to a poking about in space, as a blind man
pokes about with a stick; the object is the starting-point,
not the terminus, of an act of perception.
A mental impression may be produced either by the
activities of the mind itself, as when I dream, or by
external events which originate in matter and subse-
quently operate on my mind through my senses. When
many of us experience the same, or very similar, mental
impressions, we usually attribute them to external events.
When only one person receives an impression, although
others were equally in a position to do so if it had origi-
nated in external events, we may safely attribute it to
12 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
the activities of the percipient's own mind, stimulated
possibly by events in his body, as with the nightmares of
the man who has dined too well, or the waking illusions
of the man who has drunk too well.
Thus matter may be defined as that which is capable
of originating objective sensations sensations which
can be perceived by anyone who is suitably conditioned
to receive them as, for instance, by sending rays of
light into our eyes. The chairs in my room are material
because my companion and I can both see them if we look
in the proper direction with our eyes open. But if he
claims to see red snakes or pink rats which I cannot see
when I look where he directs me to look, I shall conclude
that his sensations are peculiar to himself; the supposed
snakes and rats are creations solely of his imagination,
and do not consist of matter. For practical purposes, the
test of the photographic plate is usually taken to be final.
A hundred people may say they see an Indian climbing
up a rope into heaven, but if a suitably exposed photo-
graphic plate shews no image of the Indian and his rope,
we refuse to classify these as material.
In our less reflecting moments we are apt to claim
a very intimate acquaintance with matter. Reflection
shews through how many intervening stages our knowl-
edge of it must come matter, events, effect on our
senses, travel along our nerves, passage over the mind-
body bridge before it reaches our minds. For this
reason the matter in which events originate may often be
very different from the matter we think we see or hear or
feel all magic, conjuring and unconscious self-decep-
tion rest on the possibility of this distinction. We may see
or photograph a rainbow, but the light by which we do
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 13
this does not originate in the rainbow we think we see; it
originates in the sun, whose rays are reflected into our
eyes or our camera by the drops of rain which make
the rainbow. We could photograph a ghost if this con-
sisted of moonlight reflected from a white curtain, but
the light which affected our photographic film would not
come from a disembodied spirit, but from the sun.
Primary and Secondary Qualities of Matter
Even when my companion and myself both see an un-
mistakably objective chair, the sensations which this pro-
duces in him will never be quite identical with those it
produces in me. This may be due in part to our looking at
the chair from different positions, but even if we look at it
|ja succession from the same position, there will still be
differences. My perception of the chair owes something
to the chair, but something also to myself.
The philosophers, who took this question in hand be-
fore there was much exact scientific knowledge to guide
them, proceeded by discussing all objects and material
substances in terms of certain characteristic qualities or
properties with which they were supposed to be endowed.
A chair, for instance, was supposed to be possessed of
hardness, brownness, squareness, and so on; sugar of
hardness, sweetness and whiteness. They divided these
Dualities into two categories which they labelled as
primary and secondary, or sometimes with a different
shade of meaning as substantive and adjective. In
brief, the secondary or adjective qualities were "sense-
qualities", which made, or could make, a direct appeal
to our senses. Such qualities might vary with the con-
ditions of perception, or with the state of the senses of the
14 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
percipient; sugar might look white on one occasion, but
yellowish or greyish on another, when it was viewed
in a different light, or by a sick man. These secondary
or adjective qualities were supposed to result from certain
primary or substantive qualities, which were not directly
perceived in themselves, but persisted independently of
the perceiver, and so also of his idiosyncrasies. These
existed in their own right, even when the object was not
perceived at all; they were the residue after all the sec-
ondary qualities had been stripped away, the bedrock
underlying the ever-shifting sands of appearance. These
primary qualities could only exist attached to some sub-
stratum or foundation of real substance.
There is no obvious a priori justification for dividing
qualities into two sharply defined categories in this way,
and neither does science know of any. And as no clear-
cut division can be found in practise, there has been no
general agreement as to which qualities were primary
and which were secondary.
Descartes, for instance, maintained that the only
primary qualities were extension in space and motion
"Give me extension and motion and I will construct the
Universe". Locke, relying on Newton's teaching that
an unchangeable mass was associated with every object,
added mass to the list. Others have maintained that ex-
tension in space is the only primary quality, and that all
the observed qualities of objects emanate from this. In
a later chapter we shall see how the theory of relativity
has shewn that neither mass nor motion nor extension in
space can qualify as true primary qualities. They de-
pend one and all on the special circumstances of the per-
cipient, so that the mass, motion and size of a body are as
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 15
much secondary qualities as the brownness of a chair or
the whiteness of sugar. Thus the theory of relativity
makes it clear that if primary qualities exist, we must
commence the search for them afresh.
Long before the days of relativity, Bishop Berkeley
(1685-1753) and his school of thought held that there
were no primary qualities at all, or, more precisely, that
there was no real distinction between primary and
secondary qualities. They maintained that an object
was nothing more than the sum of the impressions it
made in our minds, so that it had no existence at all ex-
cept in so far as it was perceived by a mind or existed in a
mind; nothing had more substance than the things we
see in a dream. This led to a philosophy of idealism or
mentalism, to use a more modern term according to
which all matter, as ordinarily understood, is an illusion;
nothing exists in reality except mind.
Atomism
Let us now start the search for primary qualities anew,
rnaVi'ngr use o f our scientific knowledge of the physical
structure and properties of matter.
Many Greek philosophers, from Democritus onward,
had imagined matter to consist, in the last resort, of hard
indivisible pellets, each of which possessed in itself all the
characteristic properties of the substance. These pellets
were at first called atoms (d-r^im?, incapable of being
divided), but are now known as molecules. Gold, for
instance, was supposed to be hard and yellow because it
consisted of hard yellow atoms; it appeared yellow, not
because our eyes saw it yellow, but because it was yellow
in itself. Yellowness was a primary quality of gold. .
16 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
The atomic hypothesis remained little more than a
philosophic speculation until the eighteenth century,
when John Dalton shewed how it illuminated and ex-
plained Lavoisier's work on the foundations of chemistry.
It gained still further in vigour in the second half of the
nineteenth century, when Maxwell and others shewed
how it gave a simple and natural explanation of many of
the known properties of gases. It has now become an
essential ingredient of physical science.
It is known that an object may be either a homogene-
ous mass of a single substance, such as water, or a com-
bination or mixture of different substances, as for instance
a cup of tea. Here the cup may consist of a single sub-
stance known to the public as china, and to science as
kaolinite, while the tea inside it is a mixture of water and
tea, with perhaps sugar and milk. It is found that every
ample substance, such as water or china, is formed of
exactly similar molecules, each of which possesses the
same chemical properties as the substance as a whole.
Even a small amount of the substance consists of a vast
number of molecules; a china tea-cup will consist of
about a hundred thousand million million million mole-
cules of kaolinite, and can contain an even greater
number of molecules of water.
Each molecule is built up of still simpler units, to which
the name "atom** has now been transferred. Chem-
istry, which has methods for resolving all known sub-
stances into their constituent atoms, finds that all mole-
cules are combinations of only 90 kinds of atoms, al-
though reasons of an abstract kind suggest that two others
will probably be found in time, and possibly even a few
more*
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 17
The atoms themselves are in turn built up of still
simpler units. There are believed to be only two kinds
of these, known as protons and electrons. Both are
charged with electricity, the charge on each electron
being the same in amount as that on each proton but of
the opposite sign; it is conventionally agreed to describe
the charge on the proton as positive, and that on the
electron as negative. The protons stay permanently at
the centre of the atom, where, in combination with a
certain number of electrons, they form the compact
structure we describe as the "nucleus" of the atom.
Outside this are more electrons, most of which are kept
near to the nucleus by the attraction of opposite kinds of
electricity for one another, although the outermost are
gripped so loosely that they may easily become detached
from the atom to which they belong.
Wherever an atom contains more protons than elec-
trons, its total charge is positive, and it attracts further
negative electricity to itself from outside, in the form of
electrons, until the excess charge is neutralised. only
when this has occurred is the atom in its normal per-
manent state. Thus the normal atom must always con-
tain just as many electrons as protons. The simplest
atom of all, that of hydrogen, contains only one proton
and one electron; the next simplest, that of helium, con-
tains four electrons and four protons; the atom of oxygen
contains sixteen of each, and so on.
These electrified protons and electrons form the basic
units of which all material objects are built. The
' physical properties of a particular substance are deter-
mined by the way in which these units, or their combi-
nations the atoms or molecules are arranged.
18 THE NEW BACKGROUND TO SCIENCE
If, for instance, these are spaced widely apart, it is easy
to crush them closer together, and we say that the sub-
stance is soft or yielding. If they are already so close to-
gether that a great deal of pressure is needed to get them
still closer, we say the substance is hard. Thus diamond
is hard, but carbon and lamp-black, which consist of sim-
ilar atoms in more open spacing, are relatively soft.
Again, the 18 protons and 18 electrons which form a
molecule of water are so arranged that they do not ob-
struct the passage of light; hence water is colourless and
transparent. on the other hand, the 258 electrons and
258 protons which form a molecule of kaolinite are
arranged in such a way that very little light can pass
through. As a consequence light which falls on a
kaolinite surface is merely turned back not regularly,
like light reflected from a mirror, but irregularly and in
all directions, like the water splashed from a wall on
which a fire-hose is playing. If we look in the right direc-
tion, it is as certain that some of this light will enter our
eyes, as it is that we shall get wet if we stand near the
wall. White light, such as sunlight, is a mixture of lights
of all colours, so that when sunlight falls on kaolinite, a
mixture of lights of all colours is reflected back into our
eyes, and we say that the kaolinite looks white. on the
other hand, when kaolinite is illuminated by blue light,
it can only reflect blue light because there is no light
of other colours for it to reflect and so looks blue. We
see that the whiteness of china in sunlight is a property of
the illumination rather than of the substance itself. The
same is true of other substances, such as paper and linen,
which look white in sunlight; all these merely assume the
colour of the light by which they are illuminated.
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 19
Other substances have distinctive colours of their own.
For instance, the redness of a rose is not a mere quality
of the illumination by which we see it. Its petals absorb
light of all colours except red, but any red light which
falls on them is splashed back and may enter our eyes.
When we see the rose in ordinary sunlight, nothing enters
our eyes but red light, and we say that the rose looks red.
on the other hand^ if it is illuminated by blue light, there
is no red light to be turned back into our eyes, so that it
looks colourless or black. In the same way a man who is
colour-blind to red will see and describe a red rose as
colourless or black, in all lights. For the rose can send no
light into his eyes except red light, and this can make no
impression on his mind. Thus the redness of a rose de-
pends on three factors a redness in the rose itself,
a redness in the light by which it is illuminated, and
a capacity for seeing redness on the part of the per-
cipient.
This may seem to suggest that colour is a secondary
quality of objects, because it depends on the senses of the
percipient. Science is, however, possessed of a colour-
scale which is entirely independent of the imperfections
of human perceptions. We shall see later how light con-
sists of waves of different lengths. In normal eyes the
longest waves produce the colour-impressions we describe
as various shades of red and orange, the shortest produce
shades of indigo, violet and blue, while those of inter-
mediate lengths produce shades of yellow and green; in
abnormal eyes they may of course produce other im-
pressions. Thus, although our sense-estimation of colours
may be partly subjective, we can measure the exact
lengths of the waves which constitute light, and so obtain
20 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
a perfectly definite, perfectly precise and perfectly ob-
jective scale of colour.
A succession of waves in which crests and troughs
occur at perfectly regular intervals is described as a uni-
form train of waves, and the distance between any two
successive crests, or any two successive troughs, is known
as its "wave-length". The scientist describes light as
being of a perfectly pure colour, or "monochromatic 35 ,
when it consists entirely of waves of one uniform wave-
length. In general he will not say that light is red, jxcept
as a brief and convenient way of making a rough state-
ment; in his more scientific moments he will speak of light
of wave-length say .00006562 cm., and in so doing will
specify a precise shade of colour in a way which is per-
fectly objective, and is limited only in precision by the
number of decimals he uses. The lights by which we
ordinarily see things sunlight, electric light, candle-
light are all mixtures of waves of different lengths.
They may be specified as made up of various pure colours
of light, each specified by its wave-length, combined in
stated proportions. The instrument known as the spec-
troscope actually effects the analysis for us, dividing up
any kind of light into its constituent pure colours. The
simplest spectroscope of all is a drop of water; a more
powerful spectroscope is formed by a multitude of drops
of water, such as the dew on the grass or the shower,
which break up sunlight into the many-coloured light of
the rainbow. In this we see all the pure colours arranged
in the order of their wave-lengths red, orange, yellow,
green, blue, violet, indigo.
These two examples shew that if we still wish to divide
the qualities of an object into primary and secondary, the
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 21
existence and mode of arrangement of its protons and
electrons must be held responsible for, and indeed consti-
tute, the primary qualities of an object; such qualities as
colour result from these in conjunction with die special
circumstances under which the object is perceived. Yet,
underlying every red we perceive, there is a true ob-
jective red associated with either the object we perceive
or its illuminant.
Mechanism of Sense-perception
Before we can study the properties which objects possess
in their own right, we must learn how to allow for the
special circumstances of the perceiver and the act of
perception. This makes it important to understand how
external objects act on our five senses.
The senses of smell and taste are affected by direct
contact. When I say I smell ammonia, I mean that mole-
cules of ammonia are entering my nose and being ab-
sorbed by its membranes, thereby affecting certain nerves
which transmit a message to my brain. This message
produces the sensation I describe as smelling ammonia.
The process of tasting is similar; to taste sugar I must
place particles of sugar in contact with my palate; the
absorption of these particles sends a message to my brain
which produces the sensation I describe as a sweet taste.
Touch also operates through direct contact; I do not feel
an object until there is actual contact between part of it
and my skin.
on the other hand, we hear distant objects without
their coming into contact with our sense-organs. When I
hear a bell, it is not through bits of the bell striking my
car-drums; it is through waves of sound, which the bell
22 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
initiates, striking against my ear-drums. The vibrations
of the bell set up vibrations in the surrounding air, and
these set my ear-drums also into vibration. This produces
the sensation which I describe as hearing the sound of a
bell, although actually it is feeling the effect of waves of
condensation and rarefaction of the air inside my ears.
All sounds are heard by a similar process.
Thus three of our senses smell, touch and taste
perceive an object by direct contact, while a fourth, hear-
ing, perceives an object by means of the waves it excites in
a medium of communication, which is usually the air.
Howdoes the fifth sense of sight operate? The obvious but
superficial answer is that it operates through light falling
upon a part of our bodies, the retina, which is sensitive to
light; but this merely raises the further question: What
is light? The story of efforts to answer this question forms
a very long chapter in the history of science.
The Nature of Light
The outstanding and most superficially obvious property
of light is its tendency to travel in straight lines we all
are familiar with the straight outline of the beam of a
searchlight, and the straight shafts of light which the sun
shoots through a hole in the clouds, and we all shield our
eyes from a strong light by interposing an opaque object.
This led the early scientists to suppose that light consisted
of a shower of small particles, emitted from a luminous
object like shot from a gun. Newton adopted this view
and elaborated it in his Corpuscular Theory of Light; he sup-
posed that we see the sun because it is continually throw-
ing off little bits of itself, some of which enter our eyes
just as we smell ammonia through its continually throw-
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 23
ing off little bits of ammonia, some of which enter our
noses.
Yet it proved exceedingly hard to fit all the facts of
observation into such a theory. It is found that a big
object casts a shadow, inside which everything is pro-
tected from the light, just as though rays of light were like
gun-shot. on the other hand, a very small object affords
no such protection; the rays of light bend round it and
re-unite behind, so that there is no region of perfect
shadow to which the light does not penetrate at all. Now
this property of bending round an obstacle is one which
we associated with waves, rather than with projectiles.
When a gun is fired, an intervening obstacle may save us
from being hit by the shot, but it will not save us from
hearing the noise of the gun. This is because sound
travels in the form of waves, and waves can bend round
an obstacle.
This similarity between light and sound led scientists to
suppose that light, like sound, must consist of waves.
Just as we hear a bell because it sends out waves of sound,
so, it was thought, we see the sun and a candle-flame be-
cause they send out waves of light. This concept formed
the basis of the Undulatory Theory of Light, which regarded
light as consisting of waves. Newton, who had consist-
ently maintained that light was of the nature of particles,
opposed this theory, but after Fresnel had disposed of his
objections, the theory was developed in great detail, and
was found to explain all the facts which the corpuscular
theory had failed to explain, as well as many other known
properties of light. Throughout the greater part of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, no single fact was
known to be in opposition to the Undulatory Theory, and
24 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
it was regarded as providing a final and complete expla-
nation of the nature of light.
It has since become clear that the explanation was
neither final nor complete. We now know that there was
a great amount of truth in the old corpuscular theory of
light, and the corpuscular and undulatory concepts of
light must be regarded as complementary rather than
antithetical. Viewed in one aspect, light has all the
appearance of waves; but viewed in another aspect, it has
the appearance of particles somewhat as a comb may
look like either a row of points or a solid bar, when viewed
from different directions.
We shall see below (pp. 162, 189) that there is a single
self-consistent mathematical description of light which
accounts for all its known qualities, both wave-like and
particle-like. But for the moment we can only describe
the nature of light by analogies.
A partial although only partial, and in many ways
misleading analogy is provided by an ordinary swell
at sea. In a sense this consists of waves, but in another
sense of particles the molecules of the sea. The
analogy is misleading because sea-waves admit of an
objective description which shews that, quite apart from
our observation of them, they consist of waves and of
particles at the same time. This is not so with light. It
can be viewed so as to look like either particles or waves,
but never like both. In so far as we make it assume the
properties of particles, we make it shed those of waves, and
vice-versa. And when we discard our human spectacles
entirely, we find that light is neither waves nor particles.
In another respect, however, the analogy is a good one.
We may regard the water of the sea either from a sta-
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 25
tistical, or from an individual, aspect. Statistically it
consists of waves, but individually of molecules. In the
same way, when light is viewed statistically, it exhibits
many of the properties of waves; when viewed individ-
ually, of particles. A very intense light may be treated
as consisting of waves, but we find it necessary to think
of a minute amount of light as consisting of separate
particles. Because nineteenth-century science did not
concern itself with such minute amounts, it found the
undulatory theory satisfactory; it could treat light as a
continuous stream. But the minute amounts which are
so important to twentieth-century science may more
properly be compared to shot fired from a gun, almost
exactly as the old corpuscular theory supposed. We shall
discuss all this more fully in a later chapter (p. 215).
If, then, we regard light as consisting of particles, we
may say we see the sun because it is firing shot at us. We
have seen how the material structure of the sun consists
of atoms, which are in turn built up of protons and
electrons. It is, however, neither atoms nor protons nor
electrons which the sun shoots off; there is a further con-
stituent to all matter, which we call energy, without
knowing in the least what it is. It may exist either asso-
ciated with matter, or as "free" energy not attached to
matter. Energy may pass from one piece of matter to
another, but it may also break loose from matter entirely,
and travel through space as free energy, when we describe
it as radiation.
Photons
If we regard light as consisting of particles, we must
regard the particles as consisting of energy. These parti-
cles of freely travelling energy, or bullets of radiation,
26 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
are known as "photons 95 . Each photon has associated
with it a definite mathematical quantity of the nature of
a length, and when this quantity has the same value for
every member of a swarm of photons, the swarm as a
whole is found to shew many of the properties which
would be shewn by waves having this as the distance from
crest to crest of successive waves. For this reason this
quantity is usually described as the "wave-length" of the
photons. We shall see what it means if we think of ordi-
nary radio waves, which are of course merely a special
kind of radiation, characterised by having a specially long
wave-length. An average transmitting aerial sends out
about 10 32 photons* every second, each having a "wave-
length" of, say, 500 metres. only a minute fraction of
this torrent of photons falls on a distant receiving aerial,
and yet even this fraction consists of so many individual
photons that it may be treated as a continuous stream;
this stream behaves like a succession of waves of wave-
length 500 metres.
Like all other forms of energy, photons possess the
property of inertia or mass. For this reason they exert
pressure on anything they strike, here again behaving like
shot from a gun. A regiment of men could be mown
down by a sufficiently strong light just as surely as by the
stream of shot from a machine gun. The sun discharges
about 250 million tons of energy every minute. on die
corpuscuia*view this consists of tiny massive bullets
travelling at 1 86,000 miles a second. Some of these enter
our eyes, and, impinging on our retinas, transfer their
*10 3 * means the number 10000..., in which 32 zeros follow the
initial digit 1. Also 10-'* means unity divided by 10. Thus
10~ 0-000001..
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 27
energy to our optic nerve, and give us the sensation we
describe as seeing the sun. The filament in an electric
light bulb discharges somewhat similar photons, although
in this case only at the rate of a fraction of an ounce per
million years. Some of these, entering our eyes directly,
strike our retinas, and we see the filament; others falling
on our tables and chairs are turned back from these to
pass on to our retinas, and we say we see our tables and
chairs by electric light. Thus seeing is similar to smelling,
except that the distance is traversed by photons, which
are bullets of energy, instead of by molecules, which are
bullets of matter.
Yet the mechanism of sight is far more intricate, and
gives us far more detailed knowledge, than that of smell.
The molecules which affect our sense of smell travel over
zig-zag paths as they are buffeted about by other mole-
cules, and so reach our noses from all directions; we
cannot usually say that a smell comes from a certain
direction, but merely that the air is pervaded by a smell,
or, at best, that the air which reaches us from a certain
vague direction is so pervaded. Photons differ from
molecules in that they do not interact with one another;
nothing but matter can stop a photon, or deflect it from
its course. Thus photons travel through empty space in
straight lines, and we know the direction from which
light reaches us with the utmost precision. Just as the
lens of a camera arranges that all photons which come
from the same direction shall be thrown on to the same
point of a photographic plate, and so produce a picture
of the world outside the camera, so the crystalline lens
of the eye arranges that all photons which arrive in the
same direction, and so come from the same object, shall
28 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
fall on the same spot of the retina. In this way the light
falling on our retina constitutes a sort of picture of all the
objects which are affecting our vision at any instant, and
we see these objects arranged in the right order relative to
one another.
When we smell several objects at the same time, we are
conscious of little more than an unassorted medley of
smells; we speak of the smell of the East, or the smell of
a ship, without being able to enumerate the separate con-
stituent smells. It is much the same with our palates; we
taste the dish rather than its separate ingredients, which
are known only to the cook. Our ears do somewhat
better for us. When we hear a number of sounds simul-
taneously, our ears analyse the resultant sound into its
constituent tones of different pitch; it is in this way that
we recognise individual voices and separate musical
instruments, that the ordinary ear can concentrate on the
voice of a companion to the exclusion of much louder
sounds, and that the trained musical ear can analyse a
chord into its constituent notes. But our eyes form
enormously less effective analysing instruments than any
of these. They can only inform us as to the direction
from which light arrives, and have no capacity at all for
analysing a beam of mixed light into its constituent
colours. .
Just as there are sounds too deep or too acute for us to
hear, so there are photons which we cannot see. Some
are of too short a wave-length to be seen; none of our
sense-organs apprehends theSe directly, although they
may make painfiil burns on our skin. Others are of too
long a wave-length to be seen; many of these represent
heat rather than light, and their impact on our skin tells
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 29
us of the warmth of the sun or the heat of a fire. We
see, then, that our sense of touch can perceive photons
as well as material objects.
The Outer World
Thus all our five senses act in essentially the same way;
something ponderable from the outer world something
of which we can say that its weight is so-and-so comes
into contact with our sense-organs. We feel, taste and
smell sugar by the direct contact of our skin and mem-
branes with small particles of sugar. We hear a bell when
particles of air, set into rhythmic motion by the bell,
strike upon our ear-drums. We see the sun by certain of
the photons which it emits striking our retina. We feel its
heat by certain other of its photons impinging on our skin.
In general, then, we may say that we experience the
outer world through small samples of it coming into con-
tact with our sense-organs. The outer world consists of
matter and energy; samples of this outer world consist
of molecules and photons.
Yet not all samples of the outer world affect our sense-
organs. Our ear-drums are affected by ten octaves, at
most, out of the endless range of sounds which occur in
nature; by far the greater number of air-vibrations make
no effect on them. Our eyes are even more selective;
speaking in terms of the Undulatory Theory of Light,
these are sensitive to only about one octave out of the
almost infinite number which occur in nature.
It is often maintained that, as we cannot experience the
whole of nature, we can never hope to understand it.
Animals exist whose senses are very different from our
own; bats and cats are said to hear and see different
SO THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
things from ourselves, while dogs obviously smell different
things. The world must seem very different to them. In
the same way, if the sensitiveness of our organs were
shifted to different ranges, or if we were endowed with
other senses in place of these we now possess, or if our
present meagre channels of communication with the outer
world were opened wider, this world would seem very
different to us. We can at best, so the argument runs,
view the world through coloured spectacles which shut
off all light except of those colours to which our senses are
attuned beings which could experience the full light of
day would give a very different account.
Laboratory Data
Science has of course provided us with methods of ex-
tending our senses both in respect of quality and quantity.
We can only see one octave of light, but it is easy to
imagine light-vibrations some thirty octaves deeper than
any our eyes can see. While philosophy is reflecting how
different the world would appear to beings with eyes
which could see these vibrations, science sets to work to
devise such eyes they are our ordinary wireless sets.
We also have means for studying vibrations far above
any our eyes can see. Actually a range of vibrations
extending over about 63 octaves can be detected and has
been explored 63 times the range of the unaided eye.
And even this limit is not one of the resources of science,
but of what nature provides for us to see. In the same
way, the spectroscope makes good the deficiency of our
eyes for analysing a beam of light into its constituent
colours, and further enables us to measure the wave-
length of each colour of light to a high degree of accuracy .
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 31
Science has extended the range and amplified the
powers of our other senses in similar ways, in quality as
well as in quantity. We cannot touch the sun to feel how
hot it is, but our thermocouples estimate its temperature
for us with great accuracy. We cannot taste or smell the
sun, but our spectroscopes do both for us or at any rate
give us a better acquaintance with the substance of the
sun than any amount of smelling or tasting could do. We
are entirely wanting in an electric sense, but our galva-
nometers and electroscopes make good the deficiency.
Nevertheless, no one would claim to be able to imagine
all the kinds of senses that we might possibly possess, or
maintain that science has provided us with substitutes for
them all. We can imagine beings who could neither see,
hear, smell, taste nor touch,' and yet were endowed with
other senses, of kinds not only unknown to us but totally
unimagined by us. Would their world be at all like ours?
The reply is that the instruments of research provided
by physical science disclose a fairly self-contained region
of phenomena. We may properly suppose that a reality,
which we may describe as the physical universe, underlies
it. Whether this is the whole of reality is a matter for
debate. Some biologists, for instance, believe that this
domain includes the whole domain of biology; others
prefer to think that a connecting passage-way leads from
this domain of physics to a whole new domain of life.
Again, those of a purely materialistic outlook maintain
that the domain of physics comprises the whole of reality,
while those who believe in the reality of a world of the
spirit the poet, the artist, the mystic are at one
in believing that there are other domains than that of
physics.
32 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
In their more irrational moments, these latter may feel
inclined to maintain that these other domains are entirely
distinct from that of physics; that there are no connecting
ways between them, so that the universe is not one but
many. Such a contention can hardly survive serious
reflection. The artist may often claim that his creations
are on a higher plane" than the purely physical, but he
can hardly claim they are totally disconnected from it;
no one knows better than he how much his imaginings
depend on the state of his physical health and the con-
dition of his physical tools and instruments. No poet will
write quite the same "Ode to Joy" when he has a cold
in his head as when he has not. And the preacher who
has just told us how hard it is for the rich man to enter the
Kingdom of God must not, at any rate in the same sermon,
tell us that worldly riches are on a different plane from,
and entirely unconnected with, the Kingdom of God.
For the moment let us merely remark that physical
science is competent to discuss these questions. If pas-
sage-ways connect the domain of physics with the domains
of life or of spirit, physics ought in time to discover these
passage-ways, for they start from her own territory.
When physicists are urged to investigate the claims of
psychical science to produce ectoplasm, to speak with a
"direct voice", to agitate tables and produce other ma-
terial phenomena by non-material means, they are in
effect being invited to decide as to the reality or not of
alleged channels of communication of precisely this kind.
The Study of Nature
It will be convenient to conclude the present chapter by
reviewing, very briefly, the history of man's efforts to
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 33
understand the workings of the external world. We may
distinguish three broad epochs, the nature of which may
be suggested by the words animistic, mechanical and
mathematical.
The animistic period was characterised by the error of
supposing that the course of nature was governed by the
whims and passions of living beings more or less like man
himself. Before our infant can distinguish between ani-
mate and inanimate objects, he is destined to pass through
a stage of confusing the two. He will fail to catch the
rolling marble just as he failed to catch the crawling fly,
and will assign the same reason like the fly the marble
was anxious not to be caught. He will trap his finger in
the door, and attribute his sorrows to the naughtiness of
the door. Because personality is the concept of which he
has most immediate and direct experience, he begins by
personifying everything.
As the history of the individual is merely the history
of the race writ small, our race did much the same in its
infancy as its individuals still do in theirs. Sometimes
they endowed the inanimate objects of nature with wills
of their own, sometimes they supposed them governed
by the caprices of gods, goddesses, wood-nymphs and
demons. A storm at sea was not the result of a depression
moving eastward from the Atlantic, but of Poseidon and
Boreas playing schoolboy jokes on their fellow-Immortals,
or possibly even interfering in human affairs. As Mene-
laos is dragging the naturally reluctant Paris to slaughter
by his helmet, the chin-strap gives way not because its
tensile strength was unequal to the pull of the indignant
husband, but because (or so Homer tells us) Aphrodite
herself loosens the strap as a return for favours previously
34 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
conferred on her in the shape of a golden apple. This
anthropomorphic fallacy permeated man's whole view of
nature, as it still does in primitive races until scientific
knowledge supersedes it. Such views of nature were un-
reflecting and almost instinctive, arising in part from
man's projecting his own personality on to nature, with a
resultant confusion between man and nature, and in part
from a mere fixation of infantile ideas.
Then in Ionian Greece, six centimes before Christ, the
human intelligence began consciously to apply itself to
the study of nature. It felt very little desire to increase its
factual knowledge of nature, so that Greek science con-
sisted in the main of mere vague questionings and specu-
lations as to why things came to be as they were rather
than otherwise.
It was not until the time of Galileo that science turned
from cosmology to mechanics, and from speculation to
experiment. The simplest way of affecting inanimate
matter was to push it or pull it by means of muscular
effort. So long as men could only experiment with
objects which were comparable in size with their own
bodies, they found inanimate nature behaving as though
its constituent pieces exerted pushes and pulls on one
another, like those we exert on them by the action of our
muscles. In this way the science of mechanics came into
being. Pieces of matter were supposed to exert "forces"
on one another, and these forces were the causes of the
motions of the bodies in question, or rather, the changes
in their motions. And it was found that the behaviour of
every object was determined, entirely and completely, by
the pushes and pulls to which it was subjected; there was
no longer any room for the intervention either of gods or
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 35
of demons. A chin-strap broke as soon as the pull on it
exceeded its tensile strength; no number of golden apples
given to Aphrodite could have made it break sooner or
later. The wind became high and the sea rough as soon
as the barometric gradient exceeded a certain intensity
and so on. Bodies moved just as they were pushed or
pulled by other bodies; nothing else mattered.
Science, having established these laws for objects of
tangible size, went on to imagine that they governed the
whole of nature. Thus when Newton (1687) had ex-
plained the motions of comets by mechanical concepts, he
expressed a wish that the whole of nature might in time
be explained on similar lines. Three years later, Huygens
described the principle which was to guide physical
science wrongly as we now know for the next two
centuries, in the words:*
" In true philosophy, the causes of all natural phenomena
are conceived in mechanical terms. We must do this, in my
opinion, or else give up all hope of ever understanding any-
thing in physics ".
Closely connected with this view of the workings of
nature was the principle described as "The uniformity of
nature". This asserted that, when the same experiment
was performed any number of times on exactly similar
objects in exactly similar circumstances, the result was
necessarily always the same. The simple explanation was
of course that the bodies under observation were sub-
jected to the same pushes and pulls on the various
occasions, and so behaved in the same way. Science ad-
mitted no exceptions to this uniformity; alleged violations
* Traiti de la Lumiere (Leyden, 1690), Chapter 1.
36 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
of it were adjudged to be miracles, frauds or self-decep-
tions according to circumstances and the mentality of
the judge. And just because observation and everyday
experience seemed to establish this principle so firmly,
scientists were wholly convinced that their simple me-
chanical explanation of it was the true one bodies
moved just as they were pushed or pulled by other bodies.
Causality ', Determinism and Free-Will
This view of nature was soon seen to have far-reaching
implications, and to raise far-reaching questions. When
one object pushed or pulled another, the conditions pre-
vailing at the moment determined the intensity of the
push or pull. Science had now discovered that the inten-
sity of this push or pull, and this alone, determines the
ensuing motion of the affected object, which in turn
determines the conditions that will prevail at the next
moment, and so on. Thus conditions at one moment de-
termine those at the next, these determine the conditions
at the succeeding moment, and so on ad infnitum. The
universe appears as a mere machine, wound up to go like
a machine and destined to run down like a machine. Its
whole future is inherent in its state at any moment, just
as this state must have been inherent in its state at its
creation.
This of course supposes that there is no intervention
from outside, as, for instance, by the will-power of living
things. Is it, however, conceivable that will-power should
intervene? If the closed system of nature provides no
opening for the activities of gods and goddesses, is it likely
to leave a loophole for the similar activities of animals and
men? The physiologists tell us that the brain is part of,
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 37
and continuous with, the body; apart from reflexes, the
atoms of our brains direct the motions of our bodies. on
the mechanical view of nature, these atoms must move
precisely as they are pushed and pulled about like the
atoms of a motor car. The butcher kills a lamb, and im-
mediately the brain which had just been directing the
creature's leaps and bounds, becomes mere mechanical
matter sheep's brains, to be thrown on the scales and
sold by the pound. The metamorphosis has been accom-
plished without the loss or gain of a single atom. Why,
then, should the quality of the pushes and pulls on the
atoms of the brain change so abruptly just at the moment
when the mind leaves the body?
The obvious suggestion is that these atoms experience
pushes and pulls from mental as well as from material
sources in brief that our volitions can affect the atoms
of our brains, and through them the atoms of our bodies.
The plain man accepts this without even pausing to con-
sider any alternative. He is quite sure that his mind is,
within limits, free to guide his body, so that he can keep
his appointments, and put a X where he pleases on his
ballot-paper. He beats his dog for not coming when he
whistles for it, and sends the forger to gaol because his
fingers have written someone else's name at the foot of a
cheque. All this provides him with a self-consistent
scheme which is agreeable not only to his intuitions, but
also to his moral sense.
The challenge to this scheme did not come, in the first
place, from science but from philosophy; it originated
with Descartes (1596-1650). His philosophy regarded
mind and matter as entirely independent "substances",
each existing in its own right apart from the other, and of
38 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
such essentially different natures that they could not
possibly interact the one, for instance, existed in space,
the other out of space. He accordingly thought of mind
and matter as moving, so to speak, on parallel yet entirely
different sets of rails, completely without interaction, and
yet synchronised after the manner of a cinematograph
film and its "talkie" accompaniment, so that the appro-
priate mental thoughts, moods and emotions always
come at the right moment to suit the prevailing arrange-
ment of atoms and the associated events.
A child seeing a speaking film for the first time might
well think the words were the natural outcome of the
events occurring before its eyes; it would be hard to
believe that words which seemed to fit the events so natu-
rally had been planned to match long in advance. So it
is with our thoughts and the atoms of our world; they not
only seem to match, but to. emanate one from the other.
Descartes, however, insisted, as in a different way did
Leibnitz at a later date, that at the first morning of
creation, a supremely benevolent God had miraculously
arranged for a perfect and continuous synchronisation
between bodily and mental events. Faith cannot really
move mountains, because one is imponderable and the
other so very ponderable, but the good God lets us think
it can.
Descartes accordingly compared the body to "an
earthly machine" actuated by a sort of reflex mechanism:
"You may have seen in the grottoes and fountains which are
in our royal gardens, that the force with which the water moves
when issuing from its source is of itself enough to set various
machines in motion, and to make various instruments play or
utter words, according to the different arrangements of the
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 39
tubes which convey the water. We may compare the nerves
of the machine which I am describing with the tubes of the ma-
chines of these fountains, the muscles and tendons with the
other engines and springs which move the machines, and the
animal spirits, the source of which is the heart and of which
the cavities of the brain are the reservoirs, with the water which
sets them in motion. Moreover, breathing and similar acts,
which are natural and usual to the machine, and depend on
the flow of the spirits, are like the movements of a water-clock
or mill, which the ordinary flow of water keeps continually in
motion. External objects, which by their presence act on the
sense-organs of the machine and so determine it to move in
different ways according to the disposition of the parts of the
brain, are like strangers who enter one of the grottoes and are
themselves the unwitting cause of the movements they witness.
For on entering they tread on certain tiles or plates which are
so arranged that if they approach a bathing Diana they cause
her to hide in the rose bushes, and if they try to follow her they
cause a Neptune to come towards them threatening them with
his trident. Or if they pass in another direction they make a
sea-monster spring forward and spout water in their faces, or
things of a like kind according to the caprice of the engineers
who constructed them".
He further, and quite inconsistently, compared the mind
to an engineer in a control tower, who, by manipulating
taps, could change the course of the water from one
pipe to another with a minimum of effort, and went
dangerously near to repudiating his own philosophy when
he conjectured that the whole mechanism of our bodies
was worked by "animal spirits 9 ' which were, he said, like
"a very subtle air 5 *, the subtlety being so marked that they
were on the verge of ceasing to be material. Later and
more scientific writers have remarked that even in a
completely mechanical world, large amounts of energy
can have their courses changed by the expenditure of a
40 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
minimum of energy, as, for instance, in moving railway
points or turning over an electric switch.
These and many other elaborate fabrications arose out
of a natural desire to avoid the implications of a me-
chanical view of nature. So long as his science appeared
to tell him that his intuitive beliefs were erroneous, and
the actions he based on them irrational, even the scientist
himself could not but feel that his studies were divorced
from reality, or at best were concerned only with a small
corner of reality which had but little connection with his
everyday life. Bradley, writing in 1899, summed up the
current feeling in the words:*
"Nature to the common man is not the Nature of the
physicist; and the physicist himself, outside his science, still
habitually views the world as what he must believe it cannot
be".
And, even as late as 1926, we find Whitehead writing: f
"The Western people exhibit on a colossal scale a pecu-
liarity which is popularly supposed to be more especially
characteristic of the Chinese. Surprise is often expressed that
a Chinaman can be of two religions, a Confucian for some
occasions and a Buddhist for other occasions. Whether this is
true of China I do not know; nor do I know whether, if true,
these two attitudes are really inconsistent. But there can be
no doubt that an analogous fact is true of the West, and that the
two attitudes involved are inconsistent. A scientific realism,
based on mechanism, is conjoined with an unwavering belief
in the world of men and of the higher animals as being com-
posed of self-determining organisms. This radical inconsist-
ency at the basis of modern thought accounts for much that is
half-hearted and wavering in our civilisation. It would be
* Appearance and Reality, p. 262.
t Science and the Modern World, p. 94.
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 41
going too far to say that it distracts thought. It enfeebles it,
by reason of the inconsistency lurking in the background.
After all, the men of the Middle Ages were in pursuit of an
excellency of which we have nearly forgotten the existence.
They set before themselves the ideal of the attainment of a
harmony of the understanding. We are content with super-
ficial orderings from diverse arbitrary starting-points. For
instance, the enterprises produced by the individualistic energy
of the European peoples presupposes physical actions directed
to final causes. But the science which is employed in their
development is based on a philosophy which asserts that
physical causation is supreme, and which disjoins the physical
cause from the final end. It is not popular to dwell in the
absolute contradiction here involved. It is the fact, however
you gloze it over with phrases".
Clearly a science which involved such implications
and entailed such consequences was in need of a new
background, such as should reconcile the nature of the
laboratory and the text-books with the nature of every-
day experience. Happily it has acquired such a new
background within recent years.
The New Physics
Throughout the mechanical age of science, scientists had
proceeded on the same general lines as the child and the
unreflective savage. Out of the impressions registered
through their senses, they had built an inferential world
of objects which they believed to be real, and affected by
events of much the same kind as occurred in their every-
day experience. They described this as the "common-
sense" view of science; and defined science as "organised
common-sense". Any scientific theory which could not
be explained in terms of the familiar concepts of everyday
life was said to be contrary to common-sense, and could
42 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
hope for but a cold and unsympathetic reception, either
from laymen or scientists. Then new refinements of
experimental technique brought new observational
knowledge, which shewed that the workings of nature
could not be explained in terms of the familiar concepts of
everyday life. New and unfamiliar concepts were found to
be necessary; the age of common-sense science had passed.
Had science continued to pursue its old methods, it
might have tried to draw concrete pictures of these new
concepts. Some scientists indeed tried, by introducing a
multitude of small changes here and there, to modify the
old view of nature so that it could meet the new demands
upon it. But they were trying to confine new wine in old
bottles; their efforts met with no success, and the main
stream of scientific thought followed a very different
course. For it was just about this time that science,
mainly under the guidance of Poincare, Einstein and
Heisenberg, came to recognise that its primary, and
possibly its only proper, objects of study were the sensa-
tions that the objects of the external universe produced
in our minds; before we could study objective nature, we
must study the relation between nature and ourselves.
The new policy was not adopted of set purpose or choice,
but rather by a process of exhaustion. Those who did not
adopt it were simply left behind, and the torch of knowl-
edge was carried onward by those who did.
This new line of advance has led us to a science which
is no longer in flat contradiction with our intuitions and
the experiences of everyday life; the physicist need no
longer feel that his laboratory door divides his life into
two watertight compartments as scientist and as
human being. In particular, mechanism, with its im-
THE APPROACH TO THE EXTERNAL WORLD 43
plications, has dropped out of the scheme of science. The
mechanical universe in which objects push one another
about like players in a football scrimmage has proved to
be as illusory as the earlier animistic universe in which
gods and goddesses pushed objects about to gratify their
own caprices and whims. We are beginning to see that
man had freed himself from the anthropomorphic error of
imagining that the workings of nature could be compared
to those of his own whims and caprices, only to fall head-
long into the second anthropomorphic error of imagining
that they could be compared to the workings of his own
muscles and sinews. Nature no more models her be-
haviour on the muscles and sinews of our bodies than on
the desires and caprices of our minds.
Whether determinism has also been banished from
nature is still a question for debate. We shall see later
that the answer is probably something more subtle than a
mere "Yes" or "No"; possibly we could make either
answer true by suitable definitions of determinism and
nature. But that those particular causes which seemed
until recently to compel determinism have gone this is
hardly open to question.
We shall see the fundamental contrast between the old
science and the new very clearly if we compare the begin-
ning of Newton's Principia, in which the mechanistic view
of nature was first put in perfect logical form, with the
beginning of Dirac's Quantum Mechanics, which represents
the most complete exposition of the new theory of Quanta
at present in existence.
Newton wrote in 1687:
"Every body perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform
motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that
44 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
state by forces impressed thereon. The alteration of motion
is ever proportional to the motive force impressed . . .";
and Dirac in 1930:
"Whetf an observation is made on any atomic system that
has been prepared in a given way and is thus in a given state,
the result will not in general be determinate, i.e. if the experi-
ment is repeated several times under identical conditions
several different results may be obtained. If the experiment
is repeated a large number of times it will be found that each
particular result will be obtained a definite fraction of the total
number of times, so that one can say there is a definite proba-
bility of its being obtained any time the experiment is per-
formed".
CHAPTER II
THE METHODS OF SCIENCE
We have already noticed the inadequacy of the definition
which describes science as organised common-sense. We
ought perhaps rather to define it as organised knowledge.
Such a definition makes it clear that the first stage in the
development of any science must necessarily be the accu-
mulation of facts. The facts may be either particular or
universal. Some sciences, such as botany and pathology,
still find it important to record exceptional and unusual
occurrences which at first sight appear to form exceptions
to the general scheme of nature. In the more exact and
more highly developed sciences, such as physics and
astronomy, there are none such to record; here nature
appears to be governed by immutable laws. The aim of
science is to discover and interpret these laws.
Scientific Synthesis
When a sufficient number of facts have been collected in
any particular branch of science, the next stage is to try
and cover them all by a general principle, which may or
may not admit of an explanation in terms of familiar
concepts. To be ultimately satisfactory, such a general
principle or explanation must not only cover all the facts
already known, but also all the facts which remain to be
found out. It is accordingly first put forward in the form
of a hypothesis. A scientist says in effect "Observation
shews that the following facts are true; I find that a cer-
45
46 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
tain hypothesis as to their origin is consistent with them
all". He and his colleagues may now set to work to
obtain more accurate or extensive data bearing on the
original facts, or entirely new facts may be discovered.
The hypothesis may be tested by examining whether the
extended and new facts can be covered, as the old were,
by the proposed general principle or explanation. When
two separate and conflicting hypotheses are in the field, it
is sometimes possible to devise an experimentum cruets to
decide between them. Suppose it can be shewn that if
hypothesis A is true, a phenomenon X will occur, and that
if hypothesis B is true, the phenomenon X will not occur.
Then we can decide between the two hypotheses by per-
forming an experiment, or taking an observation, to find
whether the phenomenon X occurs or does not.
Interrogating Nature
Such an experiment, like every other, amounts in. effect
to asking a question of nature. This question can never
be "Is hypothesis A true?" but "Is hypothesis A ten-
able?" ^Nature may answer our question by shewing us
a phenomenon which is inconsistent with our hypothesis
or by shewing us a phenomenon which is not inconsistent
with our hypothesis. She can never shew us a phenome-
non which proves it; one phenomenon is enough to dis-
prove a hypothesis, but a million million do not suffice to
prove it. For this reason, the scientist can never claim
to know anything for certain, except direct facts of
observation. Beyond this, he can only proceed by build-
ing up hypotheses^ each of which covers more phe-
nomena than its predecessor, but each of which may have
to give place to another hypothesis in due course. Strictly
THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 47
speaking, the time for replacing a hypothesis by a claim to
certainty never arrives.
We have just considered the simplest possible instance
of the process of interrogating nature. It is not always
possible to frame a question which permits only of the
answers "Yes" or "No 35 . More difficult problems arise
when the experimenter is deceived by hypotheses of his
own imagining, and tries to obtain an answer to a non-
sensical question. If his experiment can be carried
through at all, it must give an answer of some kind, but
the answer, when it comes, may well seem as nonsensical
to the questioner as we can imagine the original question
did to nature.
For instance, let us imagine a race of men equipped
with perfect scientific instruments, but with very little
scientific intelligence or knowledge. They see a rainbow
in the sky, and wish to discover how far away it is. Treat-
ing it as though it were a piece of stage scenery, they
instruct a party of surveyors to discover the distance of
their cardboard rainbow. Observations taken with per-
fect instruments give a precise and unequivocal answer
the distance is minus 93,000,000 miles. Those in authority
might decapitate their surveyors for incompetence, or
harangue against the untrustworthiness of the observa-
tional method "It is absurd to suppose that a distance
can ever be negative, and anyhow 93,000,000 miles is
preposterous, since the foot of the rainbow obviously lies
between us and the mountain over there 5 '. But let them
instead change the form of their question to nature, and
express it in the form "How far in front of us is the source
of the light we see in the rainbow?" and the answer, minus
93,000,000 miles, becomes full of significance. The pre-
48 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCfENGE
liminary minus now tells them that the source of light does
not lie in front of them at all, but behind them, and as its
distance is 93,000,000 miles they can at once identify it
with the sun. It is frequently more difficult to frame a
sensible question than to obtain an answer to a nonsen-
sical one. And if the question was not rightly framed in
the first place, it may be inconceivably difficult to inter-
pret the answer aright.
To avoid the dullness and indefiniteness of a general
discussion, let us step across forthwith to two particular
instances, both of which will figure largely in the dis-
cussion that is to follow.
Astronomy and Relativity
The Greeks and Egyptians had collected a great array of
facts concerning the apparent motions of the sun, moon
and planets across the sky. About A.D. 150 Ptolemy of
Alexandria attempted to cover them all by a single hy-
pothesis. Contrary to the earlier views of Aristarchus of
Samos and the Pythagoreans, he imagined the earth to
form a fixed centre to the whole system, while sun, moon
and planets revolved round it, the sun and moon revolv-
ing in circles, but the planets in a complicated system of
cycles and epicycles. No new facts were brought forward
to test this hypothesis, but in A.D. 1543 Copernicus
brought forward an alternative hypothesis which ap-
peared to explain the same facts in a simpler way; he
supposed the sun, instead of the earth, to be the centre of
the solar system, and earth, moon and planets to describe
circles round it, the motions of the planets still being
complicated to some extent by epicycles.
Two hypotheses were now in the field, and Copernicus
THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 49
devised an experimentum crucis to decide between them.
If Ptolemy's hypothesis were correct, Venus could never
appear as less than a half-circle of light. on the other
hand, if Venus circled round the sun, its appearance,
as seen from the earth, ought to shew phases like that of
the moon, varying from a full circle down to a crescent
as thin as that of the new moon. In 1609, the newly
invented telescope provided the means of asking nature to
decide between the two hypotheses. As soon as Galileo
saw Venus appearing as a thin crescent of light, he knew
that Ptolemy's hypothesis was untenable.
This did not of course establish the truth of the
Copernican hypothesis. Indeed, new and more precise
facts began to accumulate which threw doubt upon it
In particular, Kepler studied the motion of Mars in some
detail, and found that this was inconsistent with the
Copernican hypothesis. This led him to propound the
new hypothesis that the planets did not move round the
sun in cycles and epicycles, but in ellipses having the sun
as common focus. For a time this hypothesis fitted all the
facts known to astronomy.
Half a century later, Newton tried to combine these
and other facts under the cover of a still wider hypothesis.
He imagined every object in the universe to attract every
other object with a force, the force of gravitation, which
varied inversely as the square of the distance between the
two objects, and supposed that the planets moved merely
as these forces compelled them to move. He shewed that
this hypothesis explained the elliptical orbits of the
planets, and an immense range of other facts and phe-
nomena as well the motion of the moon round the
earth, the fall of an apple to the ground, the parabolic
50 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
trajectory of the cricket ball in flight, and even the ebb
and flow of the tides. Finally it was found to account for
the motion of comets. These fearsome and mysterious
apparitions, which had hitherto been dreaded as portents
of evil 'or symbols of divine displeasure, were now shewn
to be mere chunks of inert matter, driven to describe
paths round the sun by exactly the same forces as pre-
scribed the orderly motions of the planets.
New data continued to accumulate, all of which fitted
into Newton's theory, until in the middle of the nineteenth
century the astronomer Leverrier found a discrepancy in
the motion of the planet Mercury. Newton's hypothesis
required a planet continually to repeat its path round the
sun; it ought to describe the same ellipse again and again
like a small boy's engine running round and round the
same track. Leverrier found that Mercury did not do
this, but described an ellipse which itself turned round in
space once every three million years or thereabouts. It
was as though the track on which the toy locomotive ran
was itself laid on a turntable, which slowly rotated in
space while the locomotive ran rapidly round the track.
In time Einstein propounded yet another new hypoth-
esis, the theory of relativity, which not only explained
all the phenomena which Newton's theory of gravitation
had previously explained, but also gave an accurate
account of the motion of Mercury, and explained a great
number of other scientific facts as well. It was possible to
devise experiments and observations to provide crucial
tests between the new theory of Einstein and the older
theory of Newton, and in every case nature ruled out the
latter and decided in favour of the new theory. Other
crucial experiments were designed to compare the new
THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 51
theory with the physical theories then prevailing, such as
that light was propagated as waves in an all-pervading
ether, and that electric and magnetic forces were trans-
mitted as pressures and tensions through such an ether.
Again, nature decided in every instance in favour of the
theory of relativity. To-day, Einstein's theory provides
an explanation of an enormous range of natural phe-
nomena, and no single fact of nature is known to be in-
consistent with it.
The general aim of science is to progress towards, and
ultimately achieve, such theories. We can never say that
any theory is final or corresponds to absolute truth, be-
cause at any moment new facts may be discovered and
compel us to abandon it. Although this seems unlikely,
facts as yet undiscovered may in time compel us to
abandon the theory of relativity. But even if this occurs,
the time spent in constructing it will not have been
wasted; it will have provided us with a stepping-stone to
a still wider theory, which will fit still more of the phe-
nomena of nature. The layman sees Science, as it seems
to him, for ever changing her mind, hesitating, turning
back on her tracks, and repudiating her earlier opinions.
The scientist sees her ever progressing through a suc-
cession of theories, each of which covers more phenomena
than the predecessor it displaced, towards the goal of a
single theory which shall embrace all the phenomena of
nature. If such a theory is ever attained, it will give us a
hypothetical scheme of the external world which will be
capable of reproducing all the phenomena of the external
world and no others.
52 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
Atomic Physics and Quantum Theory
Before turning to discuss the significance and value of
such a scheme, let us take a second example of scientific
progress, drawn this time from physical science.
When a mass of hydrogen gas is raised to incandescence
whether in the atmosphere of a hot star, or in an
electric discharge in a terrestrial laboratory the pho-
tons it emits prove to be of many different kinds, which
can be specified by many different and distinct wave-
lengths. A spectroscope will sort out the photons accord-
ing to their wave-length, much as a potato-sieve sorts out
potatoes according to their size, but with incomparably
greater accuracy; the wave-length of the hydrogen pho-
tons can be measured to an accuracy of about one part
in a hundred thousand.
There are reasons for thinking that each individual
photon comes from a single hydrogen atom, which is
believed to consist of one proton and one electron. For a
long time it was difficult to see how so simple a structure
could emit photons at all. The electron and proton were
believed to be mere electrified particles which attracted
one another according to the inverse square law. In this
case, current theories of electric action shewed that the
electron would describe an ellipse round the far more
massive proton just as a planet does round the sun
and would emit a continuous stream of radiation in so
doing. There was therefore the primary objection that
the emission of radiation would be gradual and not by
complete photons. There was also the further objection
that a gradual emission of energy would cause a gradual
shrinkage in the size of the atom so that, contrary to
THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 53
observation, there could be no definiteness either in the
size of the atom or in the quality of the photons it
emitted.
In 1913, Dr. Bohr of Copenhagen put forward a hy-
pothesis which seemed for a time to dispose of all these
difficulties. He supposed that hydrogen atoms could exist
in a great number of different but quite distinct states,
different amounts of energy being associated with each.
There could be no gradual transitions between these
states, but the atom might occasionally jump discon-
tinuously from one to another, giving out energy in the
form of a complete photon as it did so.
Some years later, Franck and Hertz of Gottingen
obtained direct experimental evidence that such distinct
states really existed. They found that when electrons
collided with atoms, the latter might either take up cer-
tain large amounts of energy from the electrons, or none
at all; they never took up a small amount of energy, so
that a continuous dribble of energy was a fortiori impos-
sible. The encounters were like a series of commercial
transactions; money changed hands at each, but always
by complete coins, so that each individual always had a
certain number of complete coins in his pocket; fractions
did not come into the question at all. And the amounts
of energy associated with the different states were found
to be precisely those required by Bohr's hypothesis.
Although this hypothesis was never quite consistent
logically, it seemed to fit all the facts as known at the
time. Then more refined measures of the wave-lengths of
photons were obtained, and it was found that these did
not completely agree with the predictions of the hypoth-
esis. The hypothesis predicted the right results for the
54 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
hydrogen atom under ordinary conditions, but the wrong
results when the atom was put between the poles of a
powerful magnet. It also gave wrong results for the
normal helium atom, which is the simplest atom of all
after hydrogen.
Recently a new hypothesis, forming what is known as
the "new quantum theory", has removed at a single
stroke both the logical difficulty and the whole of the
observational discrepancies. The new theory is purely
mathematical in form, dealing only with measurable
quantities and the relations between them, but it admits
of several physical interpretations. The best known of
these, generally described as "wave-mechanics", supposes
that electrons and protons are not mere particles of hard
matter, as had previously been imagined, but that
much in the same way as photons they possess many
of the properties of waves.
Unlike Bohr's older hypothesis, this new hypothesis
assigns to the atom properties which are in no way in-
consistent with the inverse-square attraction of its elec-
trons and protons; rather they are additive to it. The
great merit of the new hypothesis is, however, that its
predictions agree exactly with observation in every case
in which comparison has been found possible. To con-
sider the case of hydrogen light alone, it is probably an
under-statement to say that twenty kinds of photons can
have their wave-lengths measured to one part in a hun-
dred thousand, and that in every case the measures agree,
to within one part in a hundred thousand, with the values
predicted by the new quantum theory. Now if this were
a perfectly random hypothesis, having no relation at all
to truth, only a piece of astounding good luck could
THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 55
enable it to predict even a single wave-length to an
accuracy of one part in a hundred thousand; indeed there
would be odds of something like a hundred thousand (10 5 )
to one against. The odds against the same luck holding
good for a run of twenty wave-lengths would be some-
thing like 10 100 to one against. Such at least would be the
case if the wave-lengths were not inter-connected. Actu-
ally there is a certain inter-connection, since both the
wave-lengths demanded by theory and those observed
in practice fall into regular series. This circumstance
obviously calls for a large reduction in the odds just men-
tioned, yet, even so, they remain enormously large
unthinkable millions to one against the agreement being
a mere chance coincidence.
It should be added that the new quantum theory goes
far beyond the explanation of the hydrogen-spectrum, or
indeed of spectra of any kind; it explains a great number
of phenomena in many departments of physics which had
previously defied explanation, while not a single fact of
observation is known to be inconsistent with it. Again,
we see science moving towards a hypothesis which will
cover all known facts with complete accuracy if in-
deed it has not already attained such a goal.
The Search Jar Reality
Suppose, however, that two or more hypotheses prove
equally well able to explain the whole range of phe-
nomena. This is not a mere flight of fancy; in some re-
stricted branches of science the electromagnetic field
equations, for instance such a situation exists to-day*
Is the scientist to rest content with two distinct and
possibly inconsistent hypotheses, or shall he try to dis-
56 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
cover which of the two comes nearer to the realities of the
external world?
The answer must of course depend to a large extent on
what we regard as the ultimate aim of science. What is it
that urges one set of scientists to spend arduous lives in
discovering new facts to destroy old hypotheses, while
another spends even more arduous lives in framing new
hypotheses, destined to be destroyed in their turn by yet
newer facts of observation? Up to now, the raison d'etre
of science has been irrelevant to our discussion.
Part of the value of science is of course utilitarian; it
enriches our lives, and shews us how to live more com-
fortably and more happily in brief, it lessens our pains
and increases our pleasures. This is the obvious extension
of the rudimentary science by which the one-day-old
child tries to adjust itself to the hard facts of life.
Part of the value of science is intellectual. It would be
a dull mind that could see the rich variety of natural
phenomena without wondering how they are inter-
related. Quite apart from all questions of practical
utility, the modern mind feels strongly urged to synthesise
the phenomena it observes, to try to combine happenings
in the external world under general laws. This impels
Karl Pearson to describe the function of science as "the
classification of facts, the recognition of their sequence
and relative significance". In the same spirit, Einstein
writes: "The object of all. science is to coordinate our
experiences and bring them into a logical system". This
view of the aims of science may take very extreme forms,
as for instance when Dirac says that "the only object of
theoretical physics is to calculate results that can be com-
pared with experiment" in other words to gratify
THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 57
intellectual curiosity, since otherwise it would be simpler
to gain the required knowledge from the experiments
direct.
These views regard science as being concerned solely
with the phenomena of nature; the underlying reality
from which the phenomena originate does not come into
the question at all. And indeed many specifically main-
tain that the phenomena and their laws constitute the
whole province of science science, in brief, is concerned
with what happens, not with what is. They hold that
when science has included all phenomena in one single
all-embracing hypothesis, she has run her course and
nothing more remains for her to do. If two or more such
hypotheses are in the field, well and good; either of them
satisfies all requirements, and it is impossible to escape
from the prison-house of the senses to discover which of
the hypotheses agrees most closely with the external
world. If we had a single picture which represented all
the phenomena quite perfectly, we should have no means
of investigating whether it represented reality or not.
Such considerations as this prove quite convincingly
that we can have no certain knowledge of reality. They
do not, however, touch the question of knowledge of
probabilities.
For instance, we ask the question, "Can we know that
the new quantum theory gives the true origin of the
hydrogen spectrum?" The argument quoted above gives
the answer, "No; we can know nothing of the external
world", and a very satisfying answer it is to one who
does not wish to go any further. Science amplifies the
answer, saying "No; we can know nothing of the external
world for certain. At best we can only deal in probabilities.
58 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
Yet the predictions of the new quantum theory agree so
well with the observed spectrum of hydrogen that the
odds in favour of the scheme having some correspond-
ence with reality are enormous. Indeed, we may say the
scheme is almost certain to be quantitatively true; that is
to say, true to reality in those features which it is impos-
sible to alter, in any way whatsoever, without destroying
the numerical agreement of the theory with observation".
A probability which reaches so close a proximity to
certainty is generally good enough for the ordinary affairs
of life. It is far better than the kind of probability which
lawyers describe as "good enough to hang a man on".
Indeed, as Laplace remarked with reference to another
scientific problem, it is far better than the probabilities
in favour of the best attested events in history. We are
accustomed to accept as an indisputable fact that Queen
Anne is dead. The metaphysical argument that we can
have no certain knowledge of anything beyond the con-
fines of our prison-house, because we cannot go there to
see, will of course prove that we cannot know this for
certain. Indeed, it will take us as much further than this
as we like; it can prove the impossibility of knowing that
Queen Anne ever lived. But if we assume that she once
lived, then no conceivable calculation can make the odds
that she is dead anything like the odds of 10 100 to 1, which
we had occasion to mention just now. We may then
argue that there is a better justification for supposing that
the scheme we just discussed for the origin of the hydrogen
spectrum is true in its numerical essentials than for
supposing that Queen Anne is dead.
This particular argument only shews that we can ac-
quire knowledge of numerical essentials i.e. of factors
THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 59
which cannot be altered without destroying numerical
agreement with observation. Other arguments might
conceivably be devised to shew that other factors in
reality can be known, at least to a high degree of
probability.
Yet the possibility of acquiring knowledge of ultimate
reality is obviously restricted by considerations which
have already been mentioned. We cannot claim to have
knowledge unless we can explain it to other beings with
minds like our own. And we cannot explain, and so can-
not know, the ultimate nature of external things except
in the a priori improbable event of these proving to be of
the same nature as something with which our knowing
minds are familiar. For otherwise there is no standard
of comparison, no language in which to describe it, for
language can only describe experiences we have in com-
mon. Trying to explain reality, whether to ourselves or
to one another, would be like trying to explain a wireless
outfit to a savage. He would have no difficulty in under-
standing the phenomena, the voices or music that issue
from the set, for he is accustomed to voices and music.
He may even understand the atmospherics, for he is
accustomed to thunder. Our troubles begin when we
try to explain grid-bias, tuned circuits and high-tension
batteries to him. And, except in the a priori improbable
event just mentioned, we must expect to encounter similar
difficulties when we try to explain reality either to our-
selves or to others. It is this kind of difficulty, rather than
the bleak metaphysical argument that we can have no
certain knowledge of what lies beyond the confines of
our prison-house, that constitutes the true barrier to
progress.
60 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
Pictures of Nature
What we have so far described as a hypothesis might
equally well be described as a picture, or a representation,
or a model, of nature. It does not attempt to portray the
reality of nature, but only what we see of nature the
phenomena of nature. It may reproduce all the phe-
nomena within our cognisance with perfect fidelity, and
yet may differ from reality in its essence just as much as
a photographic print differs from a living face colour,
extension in a further dimension and all vital qualities
may be lacking. The elements of this picture are neces-
sarily concepts with which our minds are familiar, other-
wise we could not have drawn the picture at all. on the
other hand, the elements of reality need not be so, and if
we cannot make our minds familiar with such elements as
can exist in reality, we shall never understand reality.
But it would seem that science might legitimately pro-
gress along the road from phenomena to reality by thinking
over unfamiliar concepts until they become familiar, the
concepts being selected in the first instance on grounds of
probability, as appearinglikely to figure in ultimate reality.
For instance, when the intelligent child is first told that
the world is round, it at once protests that, if it were, the
people on the far side would fall off; at a later age the con-
cept of a round earth presents no difficulties. In the same
spirit, the Victorian physicist used to say that he could
never understand a physical concept of which he could
not make a working model; Lord Kelvin explained that
this was why he could not get hold of the electromagnetic
theory of light. Yet the average physicist of to-day has
somehow contrived to acquire a tolerably clear under-
THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 61
standing of this theory, not because of any inborn intel-
lectual superiority but because he has thought about these
concepts for longer. For the same reason, he has formed
a far better picture of four-dimensional space and of
tensors of the second rank than his predecessor of a gener-
ation ago. And there is no reason why the process should
not continue indefinitely; after all, it is merely a contin-
uation of the process by which the scientist has already
differentiated himself from his medicine-man predecessor.
Our minds are indisputably familiar with the concept
of quantity, and from this we can pass by an easy transi-
tion to the mathematical treatment of quantity. When
we say that there are two constituents to a hydrogen
atom, namely the electron and proton, the words hydro-
gen atom, electron and proton merely represent some-
thing in our phenomenal world. The concept two may,
however, be common both to this world and the world of
reality. Thus it is not foolish to suppose that if the above
statement were translated from the language of phe-
nomena into that of reality, the concept "two" would
figure in the reality.
Again, our minds are familiar with a succession of
changes in time, since our sensations continually experi-
ence such changes. Thus there is no a priori reason
against our obtaining knowledge of measurable quantities
in reality and of the way they change with the progress of
time. (The possible a posteriori objection that neither
time nor measurable quantities may ultimately prove to
exist in reality need not concern us at present.) More-
over, the mathematician can prove, by an argument
which assumes nothing as to the nature of external reality,
that all changes with time can be pictured in terms of
62 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
wave-motion; this concept will, then, enable us to picture
such changes. If a certain kind of wave-motion seems
capable of describing something in reality to a very high
degree of probability, we may proceed to discuss the
further question "Waves of what?"
Here, for the first time, we are confronted with diffi-
culties, since the real essence of the "What" must neces-
sarily remain unknown to us, unless it should prove to be
of the same general nature as something already existent
in our minds, such as a thought or mental concept, a wish
or an emotion.
To anticipate for a moment, we shall find later that the
waves which are most important of all in physics can
quite unexpectedly be interpreted as being of this type.
They are waves of something which the scientist loosely
describes as "probability", but may be more explicitly
described as "uncertainties or imperfections of knowl-
edge" a concept with which our minds are only too
familiar. This may create a suspicion that our minds
have merely forced a priori upon the waves one of the very
few interpretations which a posteriori they would be able
to comprehend. This may be so, and other and less
easily intelligible interpretations may be possible, but in
any case the "probability" interpretation fits the facts of
observation. Given the waves, we know the probabilities,
so that, in a sense, the waves really are waves of proba-
bility. Some may wish to interpret this as shewing that
these waves have no existence in reality at all, but merely
in our imperfect knowledge of reality.
This, however, brings IK right up to the question which
has been lurking in the background all the time "What
is reality?" I think it is possible that science and philoso
THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 63
phy would answer this question in slightly different ways*
The metaphysician is, I think, more inclined to regard
reality and phenomena as detached and distinct, like a
man and his image in a mirror, or an aeroplane and its
shadow on the ground: to use a number of grotesque
ｅxpressions, an entity may have either an ontal or phe-
nomenal existence, but nothing in between. on the other
hand, the scientist is more inclined to regard reality and
phenomena as the two ends of a continuous road, along
which it is his job to travel. The metaphysician may dis-
miss the statement that waves really are waves of proba-
bility as ignorant nonsense, while the scientist applauds it
as a step towards final truth.
Other types of waves may not prove so easily intel-
ligible as those we have just been discussing. Yet even
here we may perhaps be able to discover certain proper-
ties which we may then try to visualise in terms of familiar
concepts until finally our progress is stopped by some-
thing which we can neither picture, imagine nor describe.
The Victorian physicist, for instance, used to picture
light-waves as similar to the shakings of a jelly, or the
waves of an earthquake, until he found that his picture
did not agree with the facts of observation.
Again, we are familiar with the concepts of space,
extension in space, limited extension in space, and so by a
process of abstraction can pass to the concept of a parti-
cle. If our picture of nature proves to consist in part of
particles, we again ask "Particles of what?" and may or
may not be able to arrive at a partial answer.
Finally, we are familiar with the concept of mechanism
through the interaction of our volitions and the muscles
of our bodies.
64 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
It might conceivably have proved possible to picture
the whole external world, completely and perfectly, in
terms of familiar concepts such as waves, particles and
mechanism; indeed nineteenth-century physics aimed
consciously and deliberately at such a representation, not
sufficiently realising how great the odds were against its
being possible.
Had the attempt succeeded, science was all ready
to identify the representation with the reality. Indeed,
most scientists did this without waiting to see whether the
representation could be made to fit all the facts of obser-
vation. It was usual to assert at this time that all dis-
crepancies were sure to be cleared up in time, and those
who taught science seldom allowed any other possibility
to enter the mental field of vision of their pupils. Behind
the scientists whole schools of philosophers, realists and
materialists, were identifying reality with particles, waves
and so forth out there in space. The few others who
urged that neither the known facts nor any possible facts
could compel or warrant any such identification were felt
to be valiant defenders of a lost cause. Their voices
passed almost unheeded, not because they could not
prove their case, or because their opponents could prove
a case against them, but because the probabilities at that
time seemed overwhelmingly against them.
Our present observational knowledge shews that no
representation of this kind can fit the phenomena, so that
the question of identification with reality does not arise*
The external world has proved to be farther removed
from the familiar concepts of everyday life than nine-
teenth-century science had anticipated, and we are now
finding that every effort to portray it brings us up im-
THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 65
mediately against concepts which we can neither picture,
imagine, nor describe. We have already seen that radia-
tion cannot be adequately portrayed either as waves or as
particles, or in terms of anything that we can imagine,
and we shall soon find that the same is true also of matter.
Subjective Nature
The very real difficulties of modern physical science
originate, in large degree, in the facts just cited. Physical
science set out to study a world of matter and radiation,
and finds that it cannot describe or picture the nature of
either, even to itself. Photons, electrons and protons have
become about as meaningless to the physicist as #, y> z
are to a child on its first day of learning algebra. The
most we hope for at the moment is to discover ways of
manipulating x,y, z without knowing what they are, with
the result that the advance of knowledge is at present
reduced to what Einstein has described as extracting one
incomprehensible from another incomprehensible.
Apart from this, science knows of only one way of
proceeding so as to avoid a complete deadlock. Dividing
the world up into (a) ourselves, (b) our experiments on
the external world, and (c) the external world, it can
leave off concerning itself with (c), and can concentrate
on (b) 9 our knowledge of the world as disclosed by experi-
ments which we ourselves perform. The metaphysical
argument mentioned above (p. 57) will suggest one
obvious advantage of this procedure; it is that our knowl-
edge of (c) can never consist of more than probabilities,
whereas that of (b) will consist of certainties. But there is
an even more immediate gain. However little we may be
able to know the ultimate reality of external nature, and
66 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
however unintelligible the imagined reality may be, the
results of the experiments we perform on nature must
necessarily be both knowable and expressible in terms of
familiar concepts, since if the concepts had not previously
been familiar, the experiments themselves would have
made them so.
For instance, we experiment with light, and obtain
results which are expressible in terms of the familiar con-
cepts, waves and particles. The experiments do not tell
us what the true nature of light is; they do not, for in-
stance, tell us that it consists of waves, or of particles.
They merely shew us light behaving in a way which
reminds us sometimes of waves and sometimes of particles.
We infer that the whole nature of light cannot be ex-
pressed by either of the words particles or waves, and as
we do not know of any common object which is some-
times like waves and sometimes like particles, it may be
that the true nature of light is for ever beyond our powers
of imagining; quite certainly it is so now. Thus we can-
not reason about light, only about the results of our
experiments on light,
It is much the same with electrons and protons. We
experiment with these (cf. frontispiece), and find that
their behaviour reminds us sometimes of waves and some-
times of particles. As with light, one has yet imagined
a consistent picture of what the electron and proton
really are. At present the most we can do is to express
quantitatively and in mathematical terms the prop-
erties of electrons and photons which our experiments
reveal.
There is no compelling reason why this stage should be
final, and it may possibly represent only a very transitory
THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 67
phase in the development of our knowledge. Our experi-
ments on nature provide an obvious connecting bridge
between ourselves and nature, and in exploring nature we
naturally start from our own end of this bridge. Because
the bridge involves ourselves as well as nature, it is hardly
surprising that our present knowledge of nature should
still possess a subjective tinge. For, after all, we only
started on the right road a third of a century ago.
When we look into the future we see two possibilities.
It may be that nature goes on her way regardless of us,
and that it is only our imperfect present knowledge which
involves ourselves as well. We can still only explore na-
ture by stamping it with our own footprints and raising
clouds of dust, so that our present pictures of nature shew
our human stamp over it all. In time we shall perhaps
learn how to remove our own footprints from the picture
and shall then see that nature has a real existence, as
much outside ourselves and independent of ourselves as
the Sahara. The essentials of the Sahara are its particles
of sand; the clouds we raise are transitory accidents. In
1899 most scientists would have unhesitatingly averred
that nature was like this. Yet we shall see that up to the
present science has hardly been able to find any solid
ground behind the clouds.
There is another kind of desert in which cloud forms
are the essentials, and the medium in which they are
expressed an accident such are an artist* s concept, or
the traveller's recollections, of a desert. Nature may, too,
be like this.
Broadly speaking, these two conflicting alternatives
represent objectivist and subjectivist views of nature, or
again realist and idealist schemes of philosophy.
68 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
Bradley wrote of the latter alternative:*
"It may be objected that we have now been brought into
collision with common sense. The whole of nature, for com-
mon sense, is; and it is what it is, whether any finite being
apprehends it or not. on our view, on the other hand, . . .
the world of physical science is not something independent, but
is a mere element in one total experience. And, apart from
finite souls, this physical world, in the proper sense, does not
exist. But, if so, we are led to ask, what becomes of natural
science? Nature there is treated as a thing without soul and
standing by its own strength. And we thus have been appar-
endy forced into collision with something beyond criticism.
But the collision is illusive, and exists only through mis-
understanding".
Since this was written, science has gradually discovered
that its nature "standing by its own strength" was an
assumption rather than an ascertained fact, and so is
more ready to admit that the collision may be illusive.
Yet the difficulties of the idealist position are almost too
obvious to need description. A being who had no means
of communicating with his fellow-men would have no
means of knowing whether or not the nature he saw was a
creation of his own mind; he might well credit it with no
more real existence in its own right than the objects
he saw in a dream. We, on the contrary, must somehow
fit into our scheme of nature the fact that, broadly speak-
ing, innumerable other minds all observe the same nature
as we do. Realism explains this very simply and natu-
rally by supposing that nature exists outside of, and in-
dependently of, all our minds we all see the same moon
because the moon is out there, outside ourselves, for us all
to see. Idealism cannot avail itself of this simple explana-
* Appearance and Reality, pp. 279, 283.
THE METHODS OF SCIENCE 69
tion; it has to suppose that our minds are in some way
all members of one body, and so arc all attuned to per-
ceive the same concepts. They must be interconnected in
some way perhaps as the branches of a tree are inter-
connected, through having a common root or perhaps
again as the members of a shower of photons are inter-
connected; in some aspects these appear as a crowd of
distinct individuals, in others as a continuous progression
of light.
We leave the question here and proceed to discuss the
findings of modern science, bearing in mind that they are
a description, not of nature, but of human questionings
of nature.
CHAPTER III
THE FRAMEWORK OF THE EXTERNAL
WORLD SPACE AND TIME
We have already pictured the new-born child trying to
correlate the events and objects which affect its senses,
thereby taking its first steps towards becoming a scientist.
Gradually it makes the discovery which we express by
saying that the events can be arranged in time, while the
objects in which they appear to originate can be arranged
in space. Thus space and time form a sort of framework
for the sense impressions which the child receives from
the external world. The child does not of course concern
itself with metaphysical questions as to the fundamental
nature of space and time, and neither shall we here; only
the simplest properties of space and time, as perceived by
us, are relevant at the present stage of our discussion.
Rudimentary Views of Space and Time
The child finds that the events of its day come in simple
sequence, like beads on a string. The string is what we
call time, and the order of events relative to one another
can be fully described by the words "earlier" and "later".
Adjacent events need not be contiguous; just as there
may be stretches of a string which are not occupied by
beads, so the child may experience uneventful periods of
time. Time passes through our minds like tape through a
chronograph; any small fragment of it may or may not
have events impressed on it. Somewhere in our physio-
70
SPACE AND TIME 71
logical processes, a sort of clock ticks moments, and so
gives us a sense of the passage of time. Through the
tickings of this mental clock, our minds judge time-inter-
vals to be long or short; we find that time passes through
our minds in a way which is, approximately at least, the
same for all of us, so that we are led to think of time as
something outside ourselves, flowing past or through the
consciousness of each of us as a river flows past the piers
of a bridge. Science measures the flow of this supposed
river of time more precisely by counting evenly spaced
events the passage of the sun or stars across the me-
ridian, the ticking of a clock, the vibrations of a quartz
crystal, or the oscillations of a tuned electric system*
Until the theory of relativity compelled us to reconsider
our position, we intuitively regarded time as an ever-roll-
ing stream, whose flow could be measured in such ways as
these.
Our intuitive conception of space is very different.
Light enters our eyes from external objects, and our
crystalline lenses arrange that all the photons (p. 27)
which come from what we describe as "the same direc-
tion" shall be projected on to the same point of the retina.
Our first classification of objects is accordingly by the
points of the retina they affect, and, as the retina is a two-
dimensional surface, we get the impression of objects
arranged in a two-dimensional array of directions
angular space.
Yet we know that objects cannot be fully located by
their directions alone* As we move about, they change
their directions; sometimes a number may lie in the same
direction, as seen by our eyes, and so interfere with one
another's visibility. Looking in one single direction, I
72 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
may see, one behind the other, tobacco smoke, a dirty
window, a butterfly, a tree, a hilltop, a cloud, the sun.
I arrange them in this particular order because of the way
in which they interfere with one another's visibility. The
arrangement is like that of events in time a one-
dimensional arrangement. The different directions of
two-dimensional angular space each contain a one-di-
mensional arrangement of objects, so that objects, as they
appear to me, form a three-dimensional array, which I
can arrange in a three-dimensional "space".
Each of my two eyes makes such an arrangement in-
dependently for my mind, but something further is
needed if both eyes are to make the same arrangement
as they must if the objects exist in their own right in the
external world. We find that, just as consecutive events
are not usually contiguous in time, so consecutive objects
are not usually contiguous in space; the butterfly is not
contiguous with my window, nor the cloud with die sun.
Consecutive objects may be separated by "distance",
just as consecutive events may be by time. Counting the
ticks of a clock will give a measure of the time between
events, and in the same way counting the number of end-
to-end juxtapositions of a measuring-rod will give us a
measure of the distance between objects. This particular
way of measuring distance is, of course, independent of
our sense of sight, and indeed of the properties and even
of the existence of rays of light. Beings deprived of all
senses but that of touch could still map out the arrange-
ment of bodies in space, armed only with their sense of
touch and a measuring-rod. Their arrangement might or
might not agree with that of other beings who used only
their eyes. It would agree if the straightness of rays of
SPACE AND TIME 73
light was the same as that of the straight edge of a meas-
uring-rod; otherwise not. The distinction is important
because we shall see later that light does not always travel
in such straight lines. Thus it is already clear that the
arrangement of objects in space may have a subjective
tinge about it; a blind man might make a different ar-
rangement from one who could see and used no instru-
ment except his seeing.
In some such way as this our individual consciousnesses
first apprehend time and space. And once again the
history of the individual is that of the race writ small.
Pre-relativity Views of Space and Time
We have seen how man as an individual only gradually
becomes, and as a race only gradually became, aware of
the existence of an objective nature, external to and inde-
pendent of himself. What Professor Cornford describes as
the "discovery of Nature . . . one of the greatest achieve-
ments of the human mind 95 * occurred in Ionian Greece
six centuries before Christ. It is important although,
for the scientist, difficult to realise that space and time
were also human "discoveries" of about the same epoch.
Jowett writes: f
"Our idea of space, like our other ideas, has a history. The
Homeric poems contain no word for it; even the later Greek
philosophy has not the Kantian notion of space, % but only the
definite 'place' or 'the infinite'. . . . When therefore we speak
of the necessity of our ideas of space, we must remember that
this is a necessity which has grown up with the growth of the
human mind, and has been made by ourselves. . . .
* Before and after Socrates, p. 15.
t The Dialogues of Plato, vol. iv, Introduction to Theatetus, p. 162.
t See p. 97 Wow.
74 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
"Within or behind space there is another abstraction in
many respects similar to it time, the form of the inward, as
space is the form of the outward. As we cannot think of out-
ward objects of sense or of outward sensations without space,
so neither can we think of a succession of sensations without
time. It is the vacancy of thoughts or sensations, as space
is the void of outward objects. . . . Like space it has been
realized gradually: in the Homeric poems, or even in the
Hesiodic cosmogony, there is no more notion of time than of
space".
Plato (Timaeus) describes space as*
"that which receives all bodies. It must be called ever self-
same, for it never departs from its own quality. . . . Were
it like anything that enters into it, when things of opposite or
wholly different character came to it and were received in it,
it would reproduce them amiss, as its own features would shine
through. Therefore also that which is to receive all kinds in
itself must be bare of all forms, just as in the manufacture of
fragrant ointments the artist first contrives the same initial
advantage; he makes the fluids which are to receive his per-
fumes as scentless as he can. So, too, those who essay to model
figures in some soft vehicle permit no figure whatsoever to be
already visible there, but first level the surface and make it
as smooth as they may. . . . Space never perishes but pro-
vides an emplacement for all that is born; it is itself appre-
hended without sensation, by a sort of bastard inference, and
so is hard to believe in. 5 Tis with reference to it, in fact, that
we dream with our eyes open when we say that all that is must
be in some place and occupy some space, and that what is
neither on earth nor yet in the heavens is nothing".
This view prevailed throughout the period of Greek
science and until the time of Descartes (1596-1650);
nature was conceived as consisting of solid objects inter-
* Plato, Timaeus, Taylor's translation, pp. 49-51.
SPACE AND TIME 75
spaced with a characterless void, and the space of our
intuition was regarded as a mere empty framework for
the arrangement of these substantial objects.
Descartes introduced a new conception of space. It
was fundamental to his philosophy that all substances fell
into the non-overlapping and non-interacting categories
of mind and matter, the essence of mind being thought,
which did not occupy, and was not arranged in, space,
while the essence of matter was occupancy of space and
extension in space. He further maintained that all space
must be occupied by something, arguing that empty space
would fulfil no function, and that it was contrary to the
perfection of design shewn throughout the universe that
anything should exist without a purpose. Thus although
the spaces between the stars might appear empty they
could not be so, and must be occupied by some sort of
continuous substance having a real existence and char-
acteristic properties of its own. Space ceased to be a mere
empty framework, and became an objective reality exist-
ing in its own right. This led Descartes to maintain that
extension in space and motion through space were the
true primary qualities of objects (p. 14).
In accordance with these ideas, Descartes abandoned
the corpuscular theory of light, and imagined light to be
of the nature of a pressure transmitted through this all-
pervading substance to our eyes. At a later date, sci-
entists also rejected the corpuscular theory of light in
favour of the undulatory theory, which imagined light
to be of the nature of waves. The all-pervading sub-
stance of Descartes could now perform the function of
transmitting these waves. It was accorded a real exist-
ence, and described as the "luminiferous ether* 5 .
76 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
Location in Space
We have already noticed how two individuals might
make different arrangements of the objects in space, ac-
cording to whether they relied on their sense of sight or
their sense of touch. It now appeared that nature, too,
had her own special way of arranging objects in space,
and this made all individual arrangements unimportant.
They became right or wrong according as they agreed,
or did not agree, with nature's own arrangement. Ob-
jects could not only be arranged in space; they could be
located in space by their positions in the ether, just as
objects in England can be located by their positions on
English soil.
I can say for instance that an object is 50 yards north
of the twentieth milestone on the Great North Road. If
I tie my handkerchief to an object at this spot, take a walk,
and come back to find my handkerchief still attached to
the same object, I can say I have come back to the spot
from which I started. on the other hand, if I drop my
handkerchief overboard at sea, row about, and come
back to my handkerchief, I am not entitled to say I have
come back to the same spot, since currents and winds are
likely to have moved my handkerchief. I can only fix a
position at sea by taking bearings, directly or indirectly,
from the land.
If space is occupied by an ether, we can locate a spot
in space by the former method. We can, in imagination
at least, tie a handkerchief to a particle of ether, and if
we come back to the handkerchief we may say we have
come back to the same point in space. We need not fear
that currents and winds will have moved the hand-
SPACE AND TIME 77
kerchief, for if light consists of waves travelling through
an ether, its speed of travel shews that this ether must
be far more rigid than steel.
If there is no ether, we can only locate a spot in space
by its bearings from fixed landmarks, but where are such
landmarks to be found? Not in the planets, for these are
moving round the sun at speeds which range from 3 to
30 miles a second. Not in the sun and stars, which move
past one another even more rapidly. Not in the great
nebulae, the most distant objects known, for these are
rushing away from us and from one another at still greater
speeds of many thousands of miles a second. Nowhere in
the whole of space can we find fixed landmarks from
which to take our bearings, with the result that it is
impossible to fix a position in space. Newton was fully
alive to this difficulty, for he wrote:
"It is possible that in the remote regions of the fixed stars
or perhaps far beyond them, there may be some body abso-
lutely at rest, but impossible to know, from the positions of
bodies to one another in our regions, whether any of these do
not keep the same position to that remote body. It follows
that absolute rest cannot be determined from the position of
bodies in our regions".
He also saw how an all-pervading ether might provide
a solution, for he continued:
"I have no regard in this place to a medium, if any such
there is, that freely pervades the interstices between the parts
of bodies".
And indeed the existence of such a medium would seem
to provide the only solution of the problem; its particles
would provide fixed standard positions, against which the
positions of moving objects could be measured at any
78 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
instant. If there is no such medium, we can only define
rest in space in an arbitrary way.
Location in Time
The precise identification of instants of time presents
problems of a similar kind.
We soon learn to regard the time of our own individual
experience as an ever-rolling stream, and it used to be
tacitly assumed that the same stream rolled on in the
same way throughout the universe, so that events could
be "located" in time, just as objects could be located in
the ether. If, for instance, on January 1st, 1901, an
astronomer saw a sudden outburst on a star which he
believed to be 100 light-years' distant, he would say this
outburst had occurred on January 1st, 1 801 . He believed
that the outburst could be "located 39 in thestream of time,
and that there was a definite meaning in saying that it
had occurred at the precise instant of time at which the
nineteenth century opened on earth.
Let us, however, consider what is implied in such a
belief. It will be enough to consider a single illustration,
taken from the every-day operations of practical astron-
omy. Let us suppose that British astronomers at Green-
wich wish to compare their astronomical observations
with those made by American astronomers at Annapolis,
something more than 3000 miles to the west, and, with a
view to doing this, set about synchronising their clocks.
The obvious plan is to send some kind of a signal between
the two places. If any known kind of signal travelled
with literally infinite speed, the operation would be
simple enough the Annapolis astronomers would send
out a signal when their clocks shewed noon, and if the
SPACE AND TIME 79
Greenwich clocks shewed exact noon when this was
received, the clocks would already be synchronous; if not,
they could easily be adjusted to be so. The essential
difficulties of the problem arise from the circumstance
that no signal can travel with infinite speed, since it is a
fundamental principle of physics that no signal can ever
travel faster than light. Actually, astronomers use the
fastest signals available, namely wireless signals, which
travel at the speed of light. Yet if Annapolis sends out a
wireless signal when their clocks shew noon, it will al-
ready be somewhat after noon at Annapolis by the time
the signal reaches Greenwich. In practise the Greenwich
astronomers say that as a wireless signal travels at about
186,000 miles a second, it takes approximately a fiftieth
of a second to come from Annapolis. They therefore
regard their clocks as adequately synchronised if they
point to a fiftieth of a second after noon at the moment
when the Annapolis signal reaches them.
This is near enough for the practical needs of astron-
omy, but it is not absolutely exact. To obtain perfect
synchronism, it would be necessary to know the exact
time which the signal took on its journey.
Now let us suppose that wireless signals consBIRJI
waves travelling through the ether, and imagine t^t the
earth is also travelling through the ether, let us say in the
direction from Greenwich to Annapolis. Then Green-
wich would be advancing through the ether to meet the
signal sent out from Annapolis, and so would meet it
sooner than if the earth were standing at rest in the ether.
But to know by how much sooner, and so discover the
exact time of travel of the signal, it would be necessary to
know the speed of the earth's motion through the ether.
80 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
The Michelson-Morley Experiment
The famous Michelson-Morley experiment tried to
measure this speed in the most direct and most obvious
way. If signals travelled through the ether at 186,000
miles a second, and the earth travelled through the ether
from east to west at 1000 miles a second, signals travelling
from west to east would have their rate of travel over the
earth's surface increased from 186,000 to 187,000 miles a
second because the earth would be moving to meet the
signal, but that of a return signal from east to west would
be decreased from 186,000 to 185,000 miles a second. A
signal which made the double journey would be ex-
pedited on the outward journey, but retarded on the
return journey. For each thousand miles of path, the
outward journey takes jfar second, the homeward
journey ^fa* second, so that we have as the total, per
thousand miles of path:
Outward time yfy sec. = 0.005347594 sec.
Return time = sec. =* 0.005405406 sec.
Total time = 0.010753000 sec.
on the other hand, if the earth were at rest in the ether,
the total time would be:
Total time = ^ sec. = 0.010752690 sec.
We see that the gain of time on the outward journey does
not quite make up for the delay on the return journey;
there is a net delay of about a three-millionth part of a
second.
Conversely, if the net delay could be measured, and
proved to be a three-millionth part of a second, we should
SPACE AND TIME 81
know that the speed of the earth's motion through the
ether was 1000 miles a second.
Actually there was of course no means of comparing
the time of the double journey with the time it would
have taken had the earth been made to stand still. It
was, however, possible to compare the times of two double
journeys, both performed simultaneously on the moving
earth, the one on the east-west course we have already
considered, and the other on a course of equal length at
right angles to this, and this comparison is found to give
the needed information equally well.
To be precise, if we denote the speed of light by c 9
and the speed of the earth's motion through the ether
by u, the loss of time per unit length of path on the double
journey in the direction of the earth's motion is found
to be
1 + 1 2,
+ U C U C
Simple algebra shews that this is equal to
2r ',-1'
Also simple geometry shews that the corresponding loss
of time on the double journey in a direction perpendicu-
lar to the earth's motion is
The former quantity is easily seen to be very approxi-
mately double the latter, and if observation gives the
difference between them, it is easy to deduce the value of
82 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
u. In the actual experiment, the path of the rays was of
course far less than the 1000 miles which we have taken
for purposes of illustration; it was only a few yards, so
that a speed of even a thousand miles a second would only
have produced a time-difference of about a million-
millionth part of a second. It is such minute times as
this that have changed our whole outlook on the universe.
Michelson and Morley hoped to measure this small dif-
ference of time with accuracy, although naturally not
with ordinary clocks or stop-watches. They performed
their experiment with light of great purity of colour, the
waves of which oscillate many millions of millions of times
a second at a perfectly uniform rate, and these oscilla-
tions provided a very perfect clock. The experiment
consisted in starting two beams of light simultaneously to
run the out and home course in the two directions, and
observing which got back to the starting-point first, and
by how much it won.
If the difference of times had proved large, it would
have shewn that the earth was moving rapidly through
the ether; if small, that it was moving slowly. The one
result that was never contemplated was that the time-
difference should prove to be nothing at all. For the
earth's motion round the sun alone gave it a speed of
19 miles a second, and the delicacy of the apparatus was
such as to disclose a speed of only about one mile a
second. Yet it was the unexpected that happened. When
the experiments were performed, absolutely no time-dif-
ference could be detected. They have been repeated time
after time, at different times of day and of the year (so
as to get the apparatus pointing to different positions in
space, and to get the earth at different parts of its orbit
SPACE AND TIME 83
round the sun), under different conditions of temperature,
altitude and so forth, but nature has consistently given
the answer that she knows of no motion of the earth
through the ether. The times given by formulae (A) and
(B) are always precisely equal, so that u = 0.
At first such an answer seemed to be pure nonsense.
The obvious inference (which, however, it took a very
long time to reach) was that the question also had
been nonsense in brief, the concept of light as waves
travelling through an ether had provided the wrong
background for the experiment. The success of the
undulatory theory shews that light has many wave-like
properties, but these experiments seemed to shew that
its mode of travel through space is not one of them.
The corpuscular theory had implied a different mode
of travel. For if light travelled like waves through a sea
of ether, its speed of travel would always be the same
relative to the sea of ether. on the other hand, if it travelled
like particles shot out from a gun, then its speed of travel
would be always the same relative to the gun from which it
wasfaed.
Perhaps then the question to nature ought to have been
put in the form "Does light travel like waves or like
particles? " When the question is framed in this way, the
Michelson-Morley experiments unambiguously support
the latter alternative.
Yet if light travelled like particles, the photons emitted
by two bodies moving at different speeds would them-
selves move at different speeds. Now astronomical ob-
servation shews that the photons emitted by the two
components of a binary star travel at precisely equal
speeds,, so that, in this case at least, light does not travel
84 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
like particles* Clearly our last way of framing the ques-
tion still assumed something we had no right to assume.
It assumed that light must necessarily travel through
space either as waves or as particles. Observation now
seems to suggest that it does not travel as either.
How, then, does light travel through space? We shall
see shortly how Einstein solved the puzzle by giving us a
new conception, not of light but of space.
First, however, we must go somewhat back in the his-
tory of science. In 1873 Maxwell shewed that light was
one special form of electric action, and the question of
how light was propagated through space became only
one aspect of a far wider problem. Both Maxwell and
Faraday had tried to shew that all electric action was
transmitted through space in the form of disturbances in
the ether. Now it was obvious that, if the earth were
travelling through the ether at 1000 miles a second, there
would be what may be described as an "ether-wind"
sweeping past and through all objects on the earth at a
speed of 1000 miles a second. It seemed inconceivable
that such a wind should not affect the transmission of
electric action, yet experiments seemed to shew that it
did not. A whole array of experiments on electric action
in general gave information similar to that which the
Michelson-Morley experiments had given about light.
They not only failed to disclose the speed of the earth's
motion through the ether, but seemed to indicate that
no such motion existed. At any rate, the supposed
ether-wind was found to have absolutely no effect on
terrestrial phenomena.
SPACE AND TIME 85
Newtonian Relativity
Before discussing the significance of this, let us consider
a simpler problem of the same nature, which had been
discussed by Newton. It is well known that when a ship
or train or other vehicle moves steadily forward at a
uniform speed, objects inside it behave precisely as though
it were at rest. If we play tennis on board ship, the player
who is facing towards the bows of the ship gains no
advantage from the ship's motion. Any advantage he
gains in imparting speed to the ball is exactly neutralised
by the extra effort needed to check its motion when it
first impinges on his racquet. Actually it is a matter of
common observation that the ball rebounds from our
racquets exactly as though the ship were at rest. Newton
expressed this fact of observation in the following words:
"The motions of bodies included in a given space are the
same among themselves, whether that space is at rest, or moves
uniformly forwards in a right line without any circular motion.
"A clear proof of which we have from the experiment of a
ship; where all motions happen after the same manner,
whether the ship is at rest, or is carried uniformly forwards in
a right line".
and shewed why this must be in the following words:
"For the differences of the motions tending towards the
same parts [i.e. in the same direction] and the sums of those
that tend towards contrary parts, are, at first (by supposition),
in both cases the same; and it is from those sums and differ-
ences that the collisions and impulses do arise with which the
bodies mutually impinge one upon another. Wherefore (by
Law 2) the effects of those collisions will be equal in both
cases; and therefore the mutual motions of the bodies among
themselves in the one case will remain equal to the mutual
motions of the bodies among themselves in the other"*
86 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
The same situation occurred when the action was
electrical instead of mechanical; the motion of the earth
was found to have no effect on the observed phenomena.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, a great num-
ber of physicists were engaged in investigating how this
could be, and Professor Lorentz of Leyden announced a
very remarkable conclusion in 1895.
*
The Lorentz Transformation
To make as vivid a picture as possible, let us imagine that
a professor of physics discovered certain laws of electric
action in a laboratory on earth, at some epoch when this
happened to be standing still in the ether. Let us suppose
that he formulated them in terms of measurements made
in time and space. We may suppose he would follow the
usual mathematical practice of specifying a point in space
by its distances x, y, z from three perpendicular planes,
and the passage of time by a quantity t which measures
the interval which has elapsed since a specified zero hour.
He can then express his law as a relation connecting
certain quantities which admit of observation and
measurement with x, y, z and t. If we want a concrete
example to fix our thoughts, we may take the law of
magnetic induction, which Maxwell expressed by the
equation lda = dr_<
c dt dz dy'
Here c is the velocity of light; a is the magnetic induction
in a certain direction, and T, are electric forces in two
other directions perpendicular to the first. Thus the law
connects changes in the measurable quantities a, T 9
with changes in x,y, z and t.
SPACE AND TIME 87
Now let us imagine that our physicist is subsequently
shot out into space in a rocket which travels through space
in the direction of x with a speed we may call u. He had
discovered his laws in a laboratory through which no
ether-wind blew, and so could hardly expect them to be
true under his new conditions. Yet Lorentz was able to
shew, from the known laws of electric action, that, not-
withstanding the ether-wind, any laws of electric action
which the physicist had discovered on earth would still
be qualitatively true in the moving rocket. In a certain
restricted sense they would also be quantitatively true.
If he re-investigated these laws in the moving rocket, he
would find that they could be expressed with perfect
accuracy in precisely the same mathematical formulae as
he had used on the earth at rest. The only point of dif-
ference would be that x, j, z and t would not have quite
the same significance as they had on earth, although, as
we shall shortly see, the physicist would never be able to
discover this.
Let us reserve the symbols x,y, , t for the measurement
of space and time on earth; when the corresponding
quantities are measured in the moving rocket, let us
denote them by #',y, ', t'. Then Lorentz shewed that
the same laws will be obtained in the rocket as on earth,
provided the co-ordinates *',/, *', /' of the moving rocket
are related to the co-ordinates x,y, z, t of the stationary
earth by the equations
88 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
These equations express what is known as the "Lorentz
transformation". Every term in them deserves careful
study.
The symbol c still denotes the velocity of light as
measured on earth; we shall soon see that it is also the
velocity of light as measured in the moving rocket. When
we are discussing problems of ordinary mechanics and
astronomy, we need not trouble about the velocity of
light at all; light moves so much faster than everything
else, that we may quite properly think of it as travelling at
infinite speed. Thus for the discussion of such problems,
we may put c equal to infinity, as the mathematicians say,
which means that everything divided by c becomes equal
to zero. When we do this, the equations of the Lorentz
transformation assume the much simpler form
*' = x ut, / = y, z' = , f = /.
Thus, so far as mechanical experiments were concerned,
our experimenter could use precisely the same co-ordi-
nates in the rocket as he had previously used on earth,
except for the difference x x 1 = ; ut> which arises natu-
rally from the circumstance that the rocket is increasing its
distance from the earth at a speed u. This merely means
that positions must be measured relative to the new labo-
ratory, the rocket, and not relative to the old laboratory
left behind on earth, as would naturally be done in any
case.
Thus when the velocity of light is enormously greater
than all the other velocities concerned, Lorentz's result
becomes exactly identical with that which Newton had
found more than two centuries earlier all phenomena
SPACE AND TIME 89
happen after the same manner, whether the laboratory is
at rest, or moves uniformly forward.
Lorentz was, however, concerned primarily with elec-
trical phenomena, which are known to be propagated
with precisely the velocity of light, and so was not able to
treat the velocity of light as infinite; this is why c appears
in his formulae.
I ^
It first occurs in the factor Af 1 - in the denomi-
* c 2
nator of #'. This means that if is measured in different
units from those in which the original x is measured.
Just as twelve inches make a foot, so Af 1 ~ of the lat-
*
ter units make one of the former. This factor is some-
times described as the Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction,
because, while scientists still thought in terms of an ether
pervading all space, Fitzgerald (1893) and Lorentz
(1895) had independently suggested that an object which
moved through the ether with a velocity u might undergo
a contraction of this amount in the direction of its motion
the ether-wind might compress a body moving into it,
just as the pressure of ordinary wind must compress a
football kicked into it.
However we explain it, such a contraction is found to
account exactly for the result of the Michelson-Morley
experiment; the shortening of the apparatus in the up-
and-down direction of the ether stream exactly com-
pensates for the slower average speed of light on this
course.
We shall see this at once if we turn back to the formu-
lae (A) and (B) on p. 81. If the apparatus is shortened
lengthwise by a factor K when it is moving through the
90 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
ether, the formula (A) giving the loss of time on an up-
and-down journey of unit length must be replaced by
2
- 1
c
and when K has the value \ 1 -, this becomes exactly
c
identical with formula (B), which gives the loss of time
on a crosswise journey.
No similar factor appears in the values of y* and ', so
that there is no contraction in these directions; an object
is only shortened in the direction of its motion, and not
in directions at right angles to this. This leads to the odd
result that motion alters the shape of an object; a billiard
ball may be truly spherical when at rest, but ellipsoidal
when in play. If Fitzgerald and Lorentz had been right,
Gilbert's "elliptical billiard balls" would have described
a sober scientific fact, provided that "elliptical" was
meant to describe an ellipsoid of revolution. An object
which moved with the speed of light would have been
flattened to nothing at all in the direction of its mo-
tion; a sphere to a mere disc, a cube to a square, and
so on.
The same shortening factor reappears in the value for
*', so that the experimenter in the moving rocket must
measure his time also in units different from those he used
in his laboratory on earth, if the motion of his laboratory
is not to affect his description of the observed laws of
nature. Again \ 1 - ^ of the latter units will make one
c
of the former.
SPACE AND TIME 91
The value of the time t f as measured in the rocket is
not only complicated by the shortening factor in its
denominator; the numerator also is complicated, de-
pending not only on t, the time on earth, but also on x 9
the distance travelled from earth. This means that at
any single moment on earth, when t has a known definite
value, there is no corresponding definite value for t r which
is the same at all points of space. For the man in the
rocket, time varies at different points of space, just as
"local time", or sun-time, varies at different points of the
earth's surface. For this reason, Lorentz described the
value of t f as the "local time" of the experimenter in the
rocket. The astronomer's local time is propagated round
the globe at such a rate that it is always "local" noon
directly under the sun; Lorentz's formula shews that the
physical experimenter's local time is propagated through
, c*
space at a speed
Here we come upon a speed which is enormous even
compared with the speed of light. If a rocket is moving
at a ten-thousandth part of the speed of light, which is
roughly the speed of the earth in its orbit round the sun,
the "local time" for the rocket is propagated through
space at ten-thousand times the speed of light. We shall
see later that this speed of propagation plays a very im-
portant part in modern physics.
Let us take two concrete illustrations to explain the
physical meaning of the Lorentz transformation. The
law of electromagnetic induction given on p. 86 is ex-
pressed in terms of the co-ordinates x> y, z and t. Since we
know the relation between these and *', /, *', *', it is
merely a matter of algebra to express the law in terms of
92 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
these latter coordinates. We find that it is expressed by
the equation 1 da'
where a\ T', % have slightly different meanings from the
original a, T 9 %. Physically this means that the experi-
menter in the moving rocket might re-investigate mag-
netic induction, and re-discover Maxwell's law. If he
did, he could express it in precisely the same mathe-
matical form as he had previously used on earth, although
all the symbols except c would mean something a little
different from what they had previously meant on earth.
As a second illustration, let us imagine that the ex-
perimenter in the rocket re-investigates the speed of
propagation of light. Let us suppose that he ignites some
magnesium powder at a point out in space which we may
call the origin (x Q,y = 0, z 0), and at an instant
which we may take to be zero-hour (t = 0). The flash of
light produced in this way will set out to travel in all
directions of space equally, at the same speed c. After a
time-interval t, it will have travelled a distance ct in every
direction, so that if it has reached the point x, y, , whose
distance from the origin is V x*+y 2 + z 2 , we must have
From this we can easily deduce, by using the equations
of the Lorentz transformation, that
+ *' 2 - cf.
Between them these two equations shew that whether
the experimenter uses the modes of measurement appro-
priate to the moving rocket or those appropriate to the
earth at rest, light will still appear to travel at the same
SPACE AND TIME 93
uniform speed c in all directions. In other words, no
number of Michelson-Morley experiments could possibly
disclose the speed u with which the rocket was moving
through space.
The Theory of Relativity
In 1905, Einstein gave a new and quite revolutionary
turn to the whole problem. Lorentz had based his inves-
tigation on the concept of an ether filling all space, and
consequently of an ether-wind blowing through every
experiment. Consequently he had imagined that in some
way the time t used by our observer at rest in space was
real time, nature's own time, while the "local time" t f of
the man flying through space in a rocket was merely a
convenient fiction, introduced to allow for the ether-wind.
Yet if a new generation of men were born in the rocket
as it moved through space, they would soon forget about
the true time t they had left behind them on earth and
would know of no time except the "local time" t'\ this
would be "the time" for them. In the same way, our
human race knows only one time; we call it "the time",
but actually it must be merely the "local time" of (nor
rocket, the earth, as it moves through space. When we
say that light from Sirius takes 8-65 years to reach us,
we mean 8-65 years of the local time of our earth. When
we say that an outburst on a certain distant star was
synchronous with the beginning of the nineteenth cen-
tury, we must be speaking in terms of the "local time" of
our earth. It might seem obvious that we have no right
to identify this with the "true time" of nature.
At this state Einstein asked cc Why not? What reason
have we for supposing that our time is inferior to any
94 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
other? " If the laws of nature are to be the same through-
out space, all the various rockets moving through space
with different speeds must have different local times, but
there is no evidence that any true time exists which is
superior to them all. Indeed, all the evidence points in
precisely the opposite direction. True time implies the
existence of a body at rest in space. Not only have we no
means of discovering when a body is at rest in space, but
there is every reason to suppose the phrase is meaningless.
on these grounds, Einstein maintained that all time is
"local 35 ; there are as many local times as there are rockets,
or planets, or stars, moving through space, and none of
them is more fundamental than any other.
This implies that it is just as impossible to locate an
event in time in an objective way, as to locate an object
in space in an objective way. Einstein accordingly pro-
posed abandoning the concepts of objective, or absolute,
time and space, and putting in their place the supposition,
which all experimental evidence appeared to confirm,
that "Nature is such that it is impossible to measure an
absolute velocity by any means whatever". In brief,
nature is concerned only with relative velocities; there
is no fixed background of points in space against which
motion can be measured in absolute terms, and conse-
quently no absolute flow of time against which intervals
of time can be measured.
The theory of relativity starts from this hypothesis, and
proceeds to develop its logical consequences by strict
mathematical analysis. If the hypothesis is true to nature,
these consequences will agree exactly with the facts of
nature. Many of them can be directly tested by experi-
ment, and in every such case, without a single exception,
SPACE AND TIME 95
nature has confirmed the theory the consequences de-
duced from it have proved to be true. If ever one of these
proved not to be true, it would at once become possible
to measure an absolute velocity in space, and the observa-
tion in question would provide us with a framework of
absolute space and absolute time. So far not a single
physical experiment has done this, so that the picture
which modern physical science draws of nature contains
no reference to either absolute space or absolute time.
We shall, however, see later that when astronomical
science studies the universe as a whole, it may draw a
slightly different picture.
This does not of course mean that we must abandon the
intuitive concepts of space and time which we derive from
individual experience. These may mean nothing to na-
ture, but they still mean a good deal to us. Whatever
conclusions the mathematicians may reach, it is certain
that our newspapers, our historians and story-tellers will
still place their truths and fictions in a framework of
space and time; they will continue to say this event
happened at such an instant in the course of the ever-
flowing stream of time, this other event at another instant
lower down the stream and so on.
Such a scheme is perfectly satisfactory for any single
individual, or for any group of individuals whose ex-
periences keep them fairly close together in space and
time and, compared with the vast ranges of nature, all
the inhabitants of the earth form such a group. The
theory of relativity merely suggests that such a scheme
is private to single individuals or to small colonies of
individuals; it is a parochial method of measuring, and
so not suited for nature as a whole. It can represent all
96 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
the facts and phenomena of nature, but only by attach-
ing a subjective taint to them all; it does not represent
nature so much as what the inhabitants of one rocket, or
of one planet, or better still an individual pair of human
eyes, see of nature. Nothing in our experiences or experi-
ments justifies us in extending either this or any other
parochial scheme to the whole of nature, on the supposi-
tion that it represents any sort of objective reality.
We used to think of space as something real and objec-
tive in the region "out there" from which messages came
to our senses; it even seemed to acquire a sort of sub-
stantiality from the ether which we imagined to occupy
its every point. We thought of time as something equally
real and objective, flowing past our senses in a way en-
tirely beyond our control. Yet when we question nature
through our experiments, we find she knows nothing of
either a space or of a time which are common to all men.
When we interpret these experiments in the new light of
the theory of relativity, we find that space means nothing
apart from our perception of objects, and time means
nothing apart from our experience of events. Space be-
gins to appear merely as a fiction created by our own minds,
an illegitimate extension to nature of a subjective con-
cept which helps us to understand and describe the
arrangement of objects as seen by us, while time appears
as a second fiction serving a similar purpose for the
arrangement of events which happen to us.
This is of course in striking contrast with the earlier
views of Kant which had dominated metaphysics until
the advent of the theory of relativity. These may be
summarised as follows:*
* Sidgwick, The Philosophy of Kant, p. 38.
SPACE AND TIME 97
"(1) The notion of Space cannot be derived from external
experience; because, in order that I may apprehend things as
out of me and out of each other, I must have the notion of
Space already in my mind;
"(2) the notion of Space is a necessary, a priori one; for I
cannot imagine Space annihilated, though I can very well
think it emptied of objects ".
In brief, for Kant, as also for Descartes and Newton,
objects cannot exist without space; for Einstein, space
cannot exist without objects.
Objective Space-time
We have seen our ordinary space and time becoming
reduced to mere frameworks of human origin, against
which we see and record our individual sense-experiences.
If we are to study objective nature, we clearly need an
objective framework, which shall be independent of the
motion of our particular rocket through space. Such a
framework was all the time lying latent in the Lorentz
transformation, although the genius of Einstein and
Minkowski were needed to point it out. It is nothing
more nor less than a four-dimensional space, having
#, y, z and t for its four co-ordinates in other words, the
ordinary everyday space of any individual we please,
extended by the addition of a fourth dimension, the
ordinary time of the same individual. When the individ-
ual space and individual time of any particular individual
are welded together in this way, the individual is found
to drop out altogether the constituents are subjective
to a particular individual, but the product is objective.
An analogy from the ordinary three-dimensional space
of everyday life will shew how this can be. We can divide
98 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
ordinary space up in as many ways as we like; for many
purposes it is found convenient to divide it into horizontal
(two dimensions) and vertical (one dimension). Such a
division is, of course, "local" to particular spots on the
earth's surface; one man's vertical is not every man's
vertical, and the division at London will not be the sarne
as at Paris. Yet if an inhabitant of London combines
his two-dimensional horizontal with his one-dimensional
vertical, he will obtain just the same space of three
dimensions as an inhabitant of Paris would obtain by the
same procedure. Horizontal and vertical were local con-
cepts, relative to London or Paris, but there is nothing
local about the resulting space. Sometimes other modes
of division may be more convenient than the horizontal-
vertical division. An architect at work on the leaning
tower of Pisa would probably use the division "per-
pendicular to the axis of the tower" and "along the axis
of the tower 95 . This would differ substantially from the
horizontal-vertical division of the other inhabitants of
Pisa, but would agree with the horizontal-vertical division
of the inhabitants of Naples. The Pisan architect has a
perfect right to use this division whenever he finds it
convenient; it is not specially .reserved for Neapolitans.
In the same way, each of us may divide our new four-
dimensional space up into individual spaces and times in
as many ways as we please. An individual often finds it
convenient so to divide it that he regards himself as at
rest; he thinks of the world as passing by him, rather than
of himself as journeying through the world. At other
times he may find other divisions more convenient. For
instance, a terrestrial mathematician studying the motion
of Jupiter's satellites would almost certainly choose a
SPACE AXD TIME 99
division which reduced Jupiter to rest in space he
would, so to speak, imagine himself living on Jupiter.
Yet, however the division is made, when each man com-
bines the space he has chosen with the corresponding
time, the four-dimensional space he obtains will always
be the same. The relation between one man's space and
time and another man's space and time, or between the
two spaces and times the same man may select for himself
on different occasions, is of course given by the formulae
of the Lorentz transformation.
Minkowski has shewn that this relation can be ex-
pressed in an even simpler form. If we write r for ict,
where t stands as usual for the square root of 1, and
c is the velocity of light, the equations of the Lorentz
transformation can be written in the form
x' = x cos 6 T sin 8; y 1 = y^
r r = x sin & + r cos 8; z' ,
where the angle 8 is defined to be such that tan 8 iu/c.
Every mathematician will see that these formulae repre-
sent a rotation of the axes of co-ordinates through an
angle 8. To interpret them geometrically, we must think
of a four-dimensional space in which x 9 j>, z and T figure
as co-ordinates, just as x, y and z do in ordinary three-
dimensional space; in fact, our new space is merely this
ordinary space extended to a fourth dimension, having T
or ict for fourth co-ordinate. We now see that by turning
the axes round so that they point in some new direction
in this four-dimensional space i.e. by rotating his indi-
vidual directions of space and time in this four-dimen-
sional space one man may change his own space and
time into those appropriate to another man, who is
100 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
travelling through space at a different speed just as,
in ordinary space, by rotating his directions of horizontal
and vertical through a certain angle, the Pisan may
change his horizontal and vertical into those of the
Neapolitan; his leaning tower has already rotated to
shew him how.
The work of Lorentz, Einstein and Minkowski shewed
in effect that although beings who are travelling at differ-
ent speeds relative to one another will naturally divide up
this four-dimensional space in all these different ways,
they will all find the same laws of nature. In other words,
nature herself has no special way of dividing it up. She
is concerned only with the undivided four-dimensional
space, in which she treats all directions equally. Such a
space is generally described as a continuum. Clearly it
forms the canvas on which we must draw our pictures of
nature, if they are to be true pictures, free from all sub-
jective bias. Indeed, we shall be able to test their truth
by examining whether they treat all directions equally;
as is said to be the case with modern cubist pictures, they
must not suffer by being hung upside down or askew.
Every picture or hypothesis which fails to satisfy this test
must tie discarded.
For instance, Newton's law of gravitation that the
force varies inversely as the square of the distance fails
to satisfy it. This is hardly surprising, since the "distance 35
between two objects has no precise meaning when we
cannot synchronise time at the two objects. Coulomb's
similar law of electric attraction also fails by itself, but
magnetic forces step in to make good the deficiency, and
electric and magnetic forces in conjunction are found to
satisfy the test perfectly, as indeed we have already seen.
SPACE AND TIME 101
Objective Nature
Thus nature knows nothing of space and time separately,
being concerned only with the four-dimensional con-
tinuum in which space and time are welded inseparably
together into the product we may designate as " space-
time' 9 . Our human spectacles divide this into space and
time, and introduce a spurious differentiation between
them, just as an astigmatic pair of spectacles divides the
field of vision of a normal man into horizontal and
vertical, and introduces a spurious differentiation be-
tween these directions. With astigmatic spectacles on,
we incline our head and see the scene in front of us re-
arrange itself. Yet we know that nothing has happened
to the objects in the scene. These are objective; our view
of them through our spectacles is subjective.
When we take our human spectacles off, we see that
an event no longer occurs at a point in space and at an
instant of time, but rather exists at a point of the con-
tinuum, this point identifying both the time and place
of its occurrence; we discover that the primary ingre-
dients of nature are not objects existing in space and
time, but events in the continuum. An object which was
formerly characterised by continuity of existence in time
may now be treated as a continuous succession of events
each event being the existence of the object at one
instant of time, and one point of space. Thus an object
is associated with a continuous succession of points, i.e.
a line, in the continuum. This is commonly called the
"world-line 55 of the object, its shape and position repre-
senting the motion of the object throughout its whole
existence. Objects which are acted on by no forces, and
102 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
so for ever move uniformly through space in straight lines,
have straight lines in the continuum for their world-lines.
If their speeds are the same, their world-lines are parallel;
if different, they are inclined.
Two different events are of course represented at two
different points, and the amount by which they are
separated is known as their "interval". With our human
spectacles on, we say that the interval between the depar-
ture of the Flying Scotsman from King's Cross and its
arrival at Edinburgh consists of 7 hours in time, and
400 miles in space, but this is merely a private and sub-
jective description indeed, the fireman might describe
it differently as 7 hours of hard work tied to a single spot
the footplate of the engine. When we take our human
spectacles off, space and time fade away from view, and
we see the departure of the train represented by a single
point in the continuum, while another point represents
its arrival. In the same way, with our human spectacles
on, we say that the emission of a photon in Sirius and the
reception of it by our eyes and instruments are separated
by 51 million million miles, and by 8-65 years. When we
take them off, we can only say that the two events are
separated by so much interval in the continuum.
Certain philosophers object to this mode of treating the
question, on the grounds that it presupposes that space
and time have no existence in their own right, but only
as seen by a conscious mind. They protest that the
separation of the continuum into its two ingredients is
physical .and not psychological, so that, for instance, it
does not require the mind, but only the body, of an
observer just as the selection of a rainbow out of the
rays of the sun does not require the mind, but only the
SPACE AND TIME 103
physical eye, of the observer; even a camera lens is ade-
quate. We can test this contention by putting a dead
body, say Imperial Caesar dead and turned to clay, into
the continuum. We now have the continuum and the
world-line of Caesar's body, and nothing else, and it is
hard to find any sense in which "space-time" has been
separated into space and time* We may of course agree
to take the direction of the world-line at each point of it
as the direction of time, and the other three directions as
space, so that if Caesar returned to his body, he would not
think of himself as travelling through the world but of
the world as processing past him. Yet if we do this, the
separation has not been effected by Caesar's dead body,
but by our live minds. We cannot argue that Caesar's
mind would necessarily effect the separation in this way,
if he returned to life. When I am climbing a mountain,
I do not choose my space and time in this way; I think of
myself as going up the mountain and not of the mountain
as coming down to me, and we need not doubt that
Caesar used to do the same.
We must recollect that the space and time with which
the theory of relativity deals admit of perfectly precise
definition; they are the space and time which an observer,
discovering or verifying or discussing laws of nature,
chooses with his conscious mind as the framework against
which to record his observations. The space and time of
his choice may or may not coincide with the space and
time of his conscious perception at the moment. The
theory of relativity knows nothing of the latter, so that if
we identify the two, it is at our own risk.
The space and time of relativity are definite and pre-
cise; often those of our conscious perception are not
104 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
When we voyage through a rough sea, the solid structure
of the ship suggests one space visually to our conscious-
ness, the horizon suggests another, while the combination
of gravity and the ever-varying accelerations of the ship
suggests a rapid succession of quite different others, the
continual conflict adding much to the woes of the un-
seasoned traveller. To take a more placid example of the
same thing, while an astronomer is taking observations, a
driving clock keeps his telescope pointing in a fixed
direction in space, but his body shares in the earth's
rotation. He will almost certainly choose to record his
observations with reference to the fixed direction in space
of the telescope, but unless he allows the space of his
conscious perception to alternate repeatedly between this
and the terrestrial space in which his body is at rest, he
will find the telescope running away from his seat
When he jumps off a moving omnibus, he must change
the space and time of his perception with extreme alacrity
or else he will fall. Yet if he subsequently wishes to
understand why he fell, he must choose either the omni-
bus or the road as the framework for his calculations,
and must definitely confine himself to the one or the
other: he must in fact pass from the space-time of his per-
ceptions to that of the theory of relativity. Because the
two are so entirely different, the technique of avoiding a
fall is the exact opposite of that of understanding it after
it has occurred.
Past 9 Present and Future
Even when space and time are completely welded to-
gether in the continuum, we can still distinguish two
distinct kinds of interval. It is a dearly established law of
SPACE AND TIME 105
physics that no material object can travel faster than a
ray of light, so that the speed of light which we have
already (p. 93) seen to be objective, the same for all
travellers in space provides an absolute maximum
speed. If two events are so located in the continuum that
a body can be present at both, although not travelling at a
speed greater than that of light, we say that the interval
between them is "time-like". Thus the interval between
any two events on the world-line of the same body as
for instance the departure of the Flying Scotsman from
King's Cross and its arrival at Edinburgh must always
be a time-like interval. In the same way, all the events
which affect the individual consciousness of any one of us
are separated by time-like intervals. It is from this we
get our intuitive conception of the flow of time.
on the other hand we say that two events are con-
nected by a "space-like" interval when a messenger
would have to move faster than light to be present at both.
A boundary line between the two kinds of intervals is
formed by cases in which a messenger could be present at
both events by travelling with exactly the speed of light.
For mathematical reasons, which do not concern us here,
the interval in such a case is described as a "zero-
interval". When events are separated from us by a time-
like interval e.g. the death of Queen Anne or the
Coronation of King George we can only know of them
by the exercise of memory, or by the use of records which,
by their permanence, arrest the flow of time. When
events are separated from us by a space-like interval, we
cannot know of them at all; more time must elapse until
the interval becomes first zero, and then time-like, so that
we can know the events. But when the interval is exactly
106 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
zero, we can have direct and immediate knowledge of the
events the knowledge of seeing them with our own eyes.
So long as a river of time was supposed to flow equably
through all points of space, events could be divided per-
fectly sharply into past, present and future. All the
events of the world could be represented in a continuum
constructed of three directions of objective space and one
of objective time. A surface drawn through the three
directions of space at any instant of time had the whole
of the past on one side of it, and the whole of the future
on the other. Itself, it contained the whole of the
present.
The theory of relativity has shewn us that such a di-
vision is merely the private choice of a particular indi-
vidual. The surface through the three directions of space
of any individual still forms the "now" for that individual
and divides his subjective time into his past, present and
future. It is sometimes suggested that by changing his
speed through space, any man can wave his "now" about
in the space-time continuum, much as the man in charge
of a searchlight can wave his beam of light about in
ordinary space; he can re-divide the continuum into past,
present and future, much as the searchlight operator can
re-divide space into darkness, light and darkness. Indeed,
he need himself do nothing. If he sleeps for eight hours,
the rotation of the earth will have changed his speed
through space by several hundreds of miles an hour, and
will have rearranged his division of the continuum ac-
cordingly. It may well have shifted ten years of time on a
distant nebula from the past into the future, and so may
seem to give its inhabitants ten years of their lives to re-
live for good or for evil or would it be merely to re-live
SPACE AND TIME 107
precisely as they had already lived them before? The
paradox disappears if we remember that the time in-
volved is merely that which an individual chooses for the
recording of his observations of nature. It is not the time
of his consciousness, still less that of the consciousness of
the inhabitants of the nebula. We cannot wave anything
about in the continuum which is more tangible than our
own thoughts.
Nevertheless, we see that time, as one dimension of the
continuum, may be lacking in one of the properties with
which our uncritical intuitions had endowed it, namely,
its sharp division by a "now 59 into past and a future.
We cannot prove either that such a division exists or does
not; the theory of relativity merely suggests that when our
intuitions suggested that it certainly did, they may have
been misleading us.
Again, it has been suggested that if this sharp line dis-
appears, the concept of evolution in time may lose all
meaning. We used to think of the universe evolving
much as a pattern is woven in a loom. Space and time
were the warp and the woof of its weaving. At any one
instant, so much and no more has been irrevocably fixed;
the rest still lay hidden in the loom, the womb of time, to
be brought forth in due course. on the mechanistic view
of nature, the loom had been set to work according to
certain unalterable laws, so that the complete pattern
was potentially existent from the outset and evolution
became a mere synonym for the disclosing of predeter-
mined changes, the tapping out of a pattern already
designed. on a non-mechanistic view the loom was
guided no one knew how, and might produce no one
knew what.
108 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
The theory of relativity in no way compels us to give
up this simple picture of evolution, but it certainly casts
doubt on the intuitive concepts on which it was based.
And many have thought that, because of this, the whole
comparison between the evolution of the world and the
weaving of a pattern is faulty. Time, they say, no longer
remains time or involves change; it is merely a geo-
metrical direction of our own choice in the continuum.
The pattern is not being continually woven piece after
piece in a time which no longer exists, but is spread before
us .complete in a continuum in which future events have
just the same kind of existence as past events. We say that
Australia exists although we. are not there to see we
have perhaps never been there yet, but shall go there
some day. In the same way, they argue, may we not say
that the year 1942 exists? We have not been there yet,
but perhaps we shall get there some day. Indeed an in-
habitant of the nebula we just mentioned can wave his
"now** through the continuum until its intersection with
the world-line of our earth passes instantaneously from
1932 to 1942, like the searchlight operator waving his
beam of light over the clouds. The clouds are there
whether the searchlight falls on them or not, and, so it is
said, is the year 1942.
Again we must recall that the space and time with
which the theory of relativity deals are merely a time and
space selected by our own minds for the discussion of
natural laws. The theory of relativity does not assert that
anything more tangible than our own thoughts can im-
pinge on the year 1942, and this can hardly be said to
endow the year 1942 with a real existence at the present
moment.
SPACE AND TIME 109
The theory of relativity is built upon a perfectly
definite and concise experimental basis; in the analogy we
have already used, it is that the whole of physical nature
follows us about like a rainbow, or like our own shadow.
The result is that we cannot find evidence of our own
motion by questioning physical nature, so that absolute
space and absolute time do not enter into the nature we
study in our physical laboratories. But this is not to say
that they cannot exist in a wider external world than that
of pure physics. Indeed, we shall see later that astro-
nomical nature finds some evidence of absolute space and
absolute time, and this has a bearing upon the questions
we have just discussed. We shall return to this later
(p- 142).
From the time of Plato onwards, philosophic thought
has repeatedly returned to the idea that temporal changes
and the flux of events belong to the world of appearances
only and do not form part of reality. The reality, it is
thought, must be endowed with permanency, otherwise it
would not be real, and we could have no knowledge of
it behind the kaleidoscopic changes of nature there
must be a permanent kaleidoscope, imparting a unity to
the flux of events.
For this kind of reason philosophers have insisted that
reality must be timeless, and time merely, in Plato's
phrase, "a moving image of eternity". Bradley,* for
instance, writes:
"Change, as we saw, must be relative to a permanent.
Doubtless here was a contradiction which we found was not
soluble. But, for all that, the fact remains that change de-
mands some permanence within which succession happens.
* Appearance and Reality, pp. 207, 209.
110 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
I do not say that this demand is consistent, and, on the con-
trary, I wish to emphasize the point that it is not so. It is
inconsistent, and yet it is none the less essential. And I urge
that therefore change desires to pass beyond simple change.
It seeks to become a change which is somehow consistent with
permanence. Thus, in asserting itself, time tries to commit
suicide as itself, to transcend its own character and to be taken
up in what is higher".
And again, two pages later:
"Time is not real as such, and it proclaims its unreality by
its inconsistent attempt to be an adjective of the timeless. It is
an appearance which belongs to a higher character in which
its special quality is merged. Its own temporal nature does
not there cease wholly to exist but is thoroughly transmuted.
It is counterbalanced and, as such, lost within an all-inclusive
harmony. ... It is there, but blended into a whole which we
cannot realize 95 .
We may notice how the absorption of space and time
into a higher unity, the space-time continuum, which
transcends both and is changeless, satisfies the require-
ments of the philosophers, although only at the expense of
relegating evolution to the realm of appearance.
CHAPTER IV
MECHANISM
Action at a Distance
Primitive man saw nature as a collection of objects which
acted on one another, if at all, by direct contact; he was
familiar with the pressure of wind and water on his body,
the fall of raindrops on his skin, the thrust by an enemy,
but action at a distance was somewhat of a rarity in his
scheme of things.
Early science hardly advanced on this view, picturing
matter as consisting of hard objects, no two of which
could occupy the same space because one invariably
pushed the other out of the way by direct contact. The
science of a later era, however, found many instances of
action at a distance. A magnet attracts iron filings to
itself from a distance, and is itself acted on by the yet
more distant magnetic poles of the earth; two electrified
bodies attract or repel one another across the intervening
space according as they are charged with opposite or
similar kinds of electricity; the sun attracts the planets,
and the earth the falling apple. In none of these cases
can anything tangible be found to transmit the attractions
and repulsions. It is true that the space between the
interacting objects will often be occupied by air, but thig
does not transmit the action; electrified bodies and mag-
nets attract rather more forcibly in a perfect vacuum than
in air, while an apple falls more freely and rapidly when
there is no air-resistance to break its fall. The sun attracts
111
112 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
the planets across a space which is practically void of
matter.
At a still later period, matter was found to be wholly
electrical in its structure, consisting of particles which
carried electrical charges, and of nothing else. These
particles were so minute that an object occupied enor-
mously more space than the aggregate of the amounts
occupied by its separate particles. Roughly a ton of
bricks occupies a cubic yard, while the millions of
particles which form this ton of bricks occupy only about
a cubic inch; all the rest is empty space. The particles of
the brick hold one another at arm's length through the
electric forces they exert on one another. If these forces
could be abolished, we could pack all the particles of a ton
of bricks within a cubic inch of space. In the interiors of
the densest stars the particles are packed as closely as
this; the electric repulsions are not actually abolished,
but they count for nothing against the immense forces
resulting from the pressure of the star itself.
In ordinary everyday life, however, these electric forces
maintain their supremacy against all others, and the
pushes and pulls of common objects are as much the out-
come of action at a distance as is the attraction of a mag-
net for iron filings or of the pole for the compass-needle.
When the wind blows on my face, the molecules of air
come to within about a thousand-millionth part of an
inch of my skin, but no nearer; at this distance the mole-
cules of my skin repel them so violently that they turn
back the way they came. The sensation of the impact of
the wind on my face is the outcome of the reaction of the
electric forces exerted by the molecules of my own skin
just as I feel a reaction in my foot when I kick a football.
MECHANISM 113
It is the same throughout nature. When we look at
it through a sufficiently powerful mental microscope, we
find no instances of actual contact; nature appears to have
only one mechanism, which is action at a distance
action across intervening space*
For a long time it was thought that the ether, which
had been originally introduced to transmit waves of light,
might transmit all these other actions as well, and so serve
as the general mechanism underlying nature. Innumer-
able experiments were tried in the hope of discovering
any signs of the existence of an ether. They one and all
failed, which of course only amounts to saying that all
the phenomena of nature were found to conform to the
principle of relativity. Space appeared to be entirely
empty except in the isolated regions which were occupied
by objects.
How, then, was the action transmitted from the mag-
net to the iron filings, from the earth to the falling apple,
from the moon to the tides, from the cricket bat to the
ball? If the ether was no longer available for this pur-
pose, something else must be found to take its place. The
story of the quest for this new something brings us to the
very heart of modern science.
The Curvature of Space
We have an intuitive belief that space is flat or Euclidean
parallel lines never meet, and so on. This is based on
our everyday experience. Yet all that this actually tells
us is that we can bring law and order into the arrange-
ment of the objects with which our everyday life is con-
cerned by imagining them arranged in a space of this
kind. We might try other arrangements of objects, as for
114 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
instance arrangement in a four-dimensional space, and
should soon discover that the ordinary Euclidean three-
dimensional space, which the layman describes as
"space" without any adjectives, had some sort of pre-
eminence, at any rate for the arrangement of such objects
as we encounter in ordinary life. Yet we have no right
to assume that the whole universe could be reduced to
law and order by being arranged in such a space; if we do
so, we merely repeat the old mistake of thinking that all
nature is like the small fragments of it with which we are
familiar the "common sense" view of nature.
There is a certain peculiar sect whose members insist
that the earth's surface is flat, so tSat parallel lines drawn
on it can never meet. Their intuitive concept of the
earth's surface is like ours of space; both are based upon
an imperfect acquaintance with the whole. And, just
because the concept is intuitive, no amount of abstract
argument will persuade the man who holds it that it is
faulty. The little bit of the earth in which his daily walk
or daily labour lies is flat, and he absorbs this flatness
into his mental make up, until he is unable to conceive
any possibility except flatness, which he then wrongly
extends to the whole earth. It becomes a matter of com-
mon sense to him that the earth not only is, but must
be, flat.
Suppose, however, that a member of this sect took to
travel. He might find it of interest to draw a map of the
earth on which to record his journeys it would of
course be a flat map, as for instance an ordinary Mercator
projection, which can be found in any school-atlas.
When he travelled by sea, he might copy down the ship's
position day by day, and in this way record the course of
MECHANISM 115
the ship on his map. Now the shortest course between
two points in the northern hemisphere always bends
towards the north pole, so as to "take advantage of the
shorter degrees of longitude", while in the southern hemi-
sphere there is a corresponding deflection towards the
south pole. For instance, the shortest course from South-
ampton to New York goes farther north than either
Southampton or New York; the shortest course from
Gape Town to Cape Horn goes farther south than either.
When such courses are mapped on a Mercator projection
they look very curved; a shortest course only looks straight
if it happens to lie either due north and south, or else
dead along the equator. No doubt our traveller would
at first be surprised to find that all the steamers he
patronised seemed to follow very curved tracks; he might
imagine that they were pulled out of their direct courses
by forces emanating from the two poles of the earth.
one day, however, he might shew the curved tracks on
his map to a friend, and discuss their meaning with him.
It would be a tremendous revelation if his friend took him
to a spherical globe on which the countries of the earth
were marked in their proper positions, stretched bits of
string from point to point, and shewed him that when the
string was pulled tight so as to give the shortest path from
point to point, it invariably lay exactly over the course
which had been followed by the steamers in his travels.
He would then see that the ships had actually been fol-
lowing the shortest courses on a curved earth. Their
tracks had appeared curved on his map, not because
forces were pulling them out of their courses, but because
the framework of latitude and longitude, which actually
is twisted by the curvature of the earth, had been arti-
116 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
ficially untwisted in his Mercator projection. In brief, he
had been trying to describe his journeys against a back-
ground which was not true to nature. He would discover
that, although a flat map was perfectly suited to the
arrangement of places in the immediate neighbourhood
North
South
Fig. 1 Kg. 2
Notwithstanding its apparent curvature, the course from A to B shewn
in fig. 1 is the shortest possible. If it is mapped out on a globe, as shewn
in fig. 2, a tightly-stretched string will be found to cover it exactly.
of his own home, it was not at all suited to the representa-
tion of the whole of the earth's surface.
Newton's theory of gravitation had explained the
curved paths of planets, comets and cricket balls precisely
as our flat-earth traveller had explained the curvature of
his steamer tracks. The latter imagined that his steamers
sailed in a flat sea and were drawn out of their straight
courses by a pull emanating from the poles of the earth.
Newton imagined that the planets swam in a flat space
and were drawn out of their straight courses by a pull
emanating from the sun; he imagined that the cricket
MECHANISM 117
ball was thrown in a flat space but that its course curved
earthward because of a gravitational pull emanating from
the earth.
We have already noticed that this theory of gravitation
does not conform to the requirements of the theory of
relativity. Einstein replaced it by a new theory which
does; it is an extension of the simple or "restricted" theory
of relativity which we discussed in our previous chapter,
and is generally known as the "generalised" theory
of relativity. It does not picture the planet and the
cricket ball as describing curved paths in a straight (or
Euclidean) space, but shortest paths in a curved space.
Actually what is curved is not primarily the space of our
ordinary life, but the four-dimensional continuum, the
objective blend of space and time which we considered in
our last chapter. The theory supposes that gravitating
bodies, such as the earth, curve this up in their neigh-
bourhood, the word neighbourhood now implying
proximity in time as well as in space. This curvature de-
flects the planet and the cricket ball much as the mole-
hill on the bowling-green deflects the bowl. Just as the
friend of the flat-earth heretic was able to shew him a
curved surface in this case a sphere in which all his
complicated curves became shortest courses, so Einstein
has shewn the scientific world a curved continuum in
which the complicated tracks of planets, cricket balls,
rays of light, and so forth, all reduce to shortest courses.
As the continuum is curved, the space of our everyday
life, which is a cross-section of it, must also be curved.
We notice that action at a distance has fallen out of the
picture. If we fix our attention on the three space-dimen-
sions of the continuum, we may say that the earth keeps
118 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
space in its neighbourhood continually curved, so that
when the cricket ball is thrown through this space it de-
scribes a curved path, much as though it were rolled along
a hill-side. The proximate cause of the curvature of its
path is the contiguous space, not the distant earth. True
action at a distance action transmitted instantaneously
across intervening space inevitably had to drop out,
because of the impossibility of synchronising time at two
distant points.
The generalised theory is concerned with precisely the
same space and time as the restricted theory, namely, the
space and time which an investigator or scientist chooses
with his conscious mind for the recording of his observa-
tions of nature. He has a right, just as our traveller had,
to record these on any kind of map he pleases. When our
traveller tried a flat map he had to introduce a compli-
cated system of forces to explain his facts of observation,
and when Newton tried a flat space he had to do the
same. Just as the traveller's friend shewed him a better
kind of map, so Einstein has shewn us a better kind of
map. Using this new kind of map, Einstein has been
able to dispense with gravitational pulls, and at the same
time draw a far simpler and far more accurate picture of
nature.
Shortest Courses
Although the concept of a curved map of nature first
entered science with Einstein, the complementary con-
cept, of material objects and rays of light following the
shortest possible course, goes back to the earliest ages of
science, and has a most respectable pedigree behind it.
Revolutionary though Einstein's new theory seemed
when it was first announced, it merely put science back
MECHANISM 119
on the road it had been travelling for two thousand years
before Newton, This may not be of much interest to
the practical scientist except as a matter of history, but it
is of considerable interest to one who wishes to under-
stand the philosophical implications of modern science.
Three hundred years before Christ, Euclid had defined
a straight line as the shortest distance between two points,
and announced that light travelled in straight lines.
Thus he knew that light took the shortest path from point
to point at any rate under ordinary terrestrial con-
ditions. He also knew that light could be deflected from
its path by a mirror, and discovered the laws it obeyed
when this happened it followed the same path as a
perfectly hard ball bouncing off the mirror.
Euclid saw these only as two totally disconnected facts.
About a century later, Hero of Alexandria combined
them in a very significant synthesis, shewing that even
when light was reflected at a mirror, its path was still the
shortest by which it was possible to travel to the mirror
and back again. Mirror or no mirror, light followed the
shortest path.
Light can experience other accidents besides reflection.
For instance, we can see the setting sun after it has passed
well below the horizon in the geometrical sense. We say
we see it by rays which are "refracted", or bent, by the
earth's atmosphere. These rays cannot be following the
shortest path, for a bent path can never be as short as a
straight one.
Actually, they are following the quickest path. When
light passes through any material substance, such as glass
or air, the particles of matter slow down its motion, and
the denser the substance, the greater the slowing down.
120 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
Thus when light has to travel through a number of dif-
ferent substances, it can often save time by travelling
through a less dense substance even though it has to travel
an additional distance to get to and from this substance
just as the steamer saves time by going farther north
than either its starting-point or its port of arrival, and
teVing advantage of the short degrees of longitude up
north. As an example of this, the quickest path for a ray
from the setting sun to us is one which avoids travelling
overmuch through the dense air near the earth's surface,
the rays bending round this rather than travelling directly
through it. It is found to be a quite general law of nature
known as Fermat's principle that when rays of light
have to make their way through a retarding substance,
they take the quickest path from point to point.
Hero had stated his law in the form that light, whether
reflected or not, takes the shortest course from point to
point. He might have said with equal truth that it takes
the quickest, and had he done so, his statement would
have been true for refracted light also. Indeed it would
have been true for light moving in all the ways known to
science; all known light takes the quickest path from point
to point.
Interference
The undulatory theory, which interpreted light as waves
in an undulating ether, provided a very simple explana-
tion of this. When waves or ripples travel over a pond,
points on the surface of the water are alternately de-
pressed and elevated beyond the normal level of the
undisturbed water. When two sets of waves are travers-
ing the surface at the same time, one may tend to elevate
a particular spot on the surface, while the other tends at
MECHANISM 121
the same moment to depress it. When the two effects
neutralise one another in this way, the two sets of waves
may jointly produce less disturbance than either would
produce alone. This is the phenomenon known as
"interference 33 ; its essence is that the disturbances pro-
duced by sets of waves must be treated as algebraic
quantities elevations (positive) and depressions (nega-
tive) and not as mere arithmetical quantities, and of
course the sum of two large algebraic quantities may be
small, or even zero, if they are of opposite signs.
It is easily shewn that wo waves which started from the
same source at the same instant, and so have travelled
for the same length of time, will be always in step with one
another or, to use the technical ｅxpression, in the same
"phase". This will also be the case if their times of
travel differ by the times of one, two, three or any exact
number of complete oscillations. Now if two waves which
are in the same phase, or nearly in the same phase, meet
at any point, their joint effect is greater than that of
either singly we may, for instance, have two crests
superposed, or two troughs superposed; in either case the
disturbance is intensified. on the other hand, if the
waves are in opposite phases, crest is superposed on
trough, or trough on crest, and we have destructive
interference.
When waves are sent out from any specified point, we
can imagine them travelling in circular ripples until
something occurs to disturb their regular forward motion;
they may, for instance, encounter an obstacle. As soon as
this occurs, it is convenient to think of each little disturb-
ance as itself forming a centre for new waves; these new or
"secondary" waves now spread out from every point of
122 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
the primary waves, the whole complex system crossing
and recrossing one another and either reinforcing or
destroying each other by interference at every point.
Even when no such obstacles exist, we are still free to
imagine each wave breaking up into a multitude of new
waves at each point of its journey, so that the whole of the
disturbed region can be thought of as filled with waves
crossing and recrossing one another. Mathematical
analysis shews that these waves will reinforce one another
all along the path of quickest journey, while they neutral-
ise one another along all other paths. It is not strictly
true that the waves travel only along the quickest path;
they travel along all possible paths, but destroy one
another on all paths except the quickest.
This is not quite the whole story, since we have seen
that waves whose times of travel differed by exactly one,
two, three, or any integral number of complete oscilla-
tions, would also reinforce one another when they met,
and so ought to be visible, although neither had travelled
by the quickest path. The undulatory theory had the
great triumph of its life when this possibility was found to
account exactly and completely for all known phenom-
ena of diffraction and interference. These phenomena,
which had dealt a fatal blow to the corpuscular theory,
seemed to provide incontrovertible proof of the truth
of the undulatory theory.
Least Action
It was also found that material objects could be brought
under the same synthesis as rays of light. Aristotelian
doctrine had asserted that substances tended to rise or
sink, according as they were light or heavy; every object
MECHANISM 123
moved so as to find its own proper place in the ordained
scheme of nature. Galileo and Newton made it clear that
this was not a universal law, but a mere local effect
resulting from the gravitational pull of the earth. In the
absence of such forces all objects moved in straight lines
with uniform speed; like light they took the shortest path
from point to point, or, if their speed of motion was
assigned, they took the quickest path from point to point
again like light.
When forces were in operation, their effect was, in
Newton's words, to "draw bodies off from their rectilinear
path", in which event it was clear that their path could
neither be the shortest nor the quickest possible.
The French mathematician-philosopher Maupertuis
argued that even in such cases the path must exhibit some
perfection worthy of the mind of God. When there were
no forces in action, it was already known that this per-
fection took the form of either the distance or time of the
motion being a minimum; hence when forces were in
action, something else must still be a minimum. Our
modern minds find it a strange line of attack, but it suc-
ceeded. Maupertuis discovered a quantity known as the
"action", which proved always to have the minimum
possible value. This quantity is associated with the mo-
tion either of a single object or of a group of objects; just
as each bit of travel on a railway involves a certain ex-
penditure in railway fare, so each bit of motion involves
a certain expenditure of "action". Our expenditure on
railway fares is not usually exactly proportional to either
the time or the distance we travel, and in the same way,
when forces were in operation, the expenditure of action
was not exactly proportional to either the time or the
124 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
distance of the journey. Yet it was easily calculable, and
Maupertuis shewed that objects invariably moved in such
a way as to make the total expenditure of action a
When no forces were in operation, the expenditure of
action was exactly proportional to the time, and the new
principle of least action absorbed the older principle of
least time. Thus the new principle provided a synthesis
to cover the motion both of objects and of light of
matter and radiation, the two constituents of the physical
universe.
Incidentally, this principle enables us to take a first step
at least towards understanding the puzzle of the appar-
ently dual natures of radiation and matter, both of which
sometimes remind us of waves and sometimes of particles.
We have already seen that any picture we may draw
of nature must be built up of concepts already existing in
our minds. The number of such concepts is very limited,
but waves and particles happen to be two of the most
familiar of them, with the result that we tend to think in
terms of waves and particles. For a time it seemed as
though radiation could be pictured quite perfectly as con-
sisting of waves, and matter as consisting of particles. We
now know that nature is not as simple as this; neither
matter nor radiation can be pictured either as pure
particles or as pure waves. A wider view shews us both
radiation and matter as entities whose behaviour con-
forms to the mathematical principle of least action.
Thus to obtain a true picture of nature, we must try to
picture both matter and radiation in terms of familiar
things whose behaviour also conforms to this principle,
but we again find our choice almost limited to particles
MECHANISM 125
and waves. Thus we picture radiation sometimes as
particles and sometimes as waves, and also, as we shall
see later, do the same with electrons and protons.
Least Interval
Nevertheless a reservation must be made the simple
synthesis of "least action" did not provide a perfect ex-
planation of nature. At first it was found possible to alter
and extend it, so as to bring one new phenomenon after
another under its scope, but ominous sign ! each ex-
tension made it more intricate and, to all appearances,
more artificial, until finally it broke loose from the facts al-
together; nothing could make it fit. Even in its most intri-
cate form, it still predicted that gravitating bodies should
bend starlight only half as much as they are observed to do,
and that the perihelion of Mercury should stand still in*
stead of advancing round the sun at about 80 miles a year.
Then the theory of relativity came to the rescue, first
explaining why the principle failed, and then shewing
how it could be put right The restricted theory, de-
scribed in our previous chapter, shewed that the principle
was bound to fail. For any true picture of nature, or
principle to explain the workings of nature, must permit
of representation in the undivided four-dimensional con-
tinuum. The principle of least action, on the other hand,
did not permit of representation in this framework until
it had been divided up into space and time.
There was found to be only one entity capable of repre-
sentation in the new framework which could possibly re-
place action. This was the "interval", the blend of space
and time which lay between two events, so that the only
principle with any self-consistent meaning is one
126 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
of "least interval". It was the essence of the generalised
theory of relativity that this interval must be measured in
a curved continuum. The world-line of a particle or
other moving body could be obtained like the steamer
tracks in our earlier analogy by stretching a tight
string from point to point.
When the principle is amended in this way, it takes
upon itself the role which at one time seemed to be filled
by the principle of least action, and is found to govern
and to predict the whole motion of the universe, in so far
as this is determined by what we used to describe as the
forces of gravitation. It seems possible, although by no
means certain, that electrical forces admit of explanation
in terms of the same principle, so that when an electron
appears to be compelled to describe a curved orbit by
electric forces, it also is finding the shortest possible path
through a curved continuum. Einstein's recent "Unitary
Field-theory 55 attempts to specify the exact kind of con-
tinuum necessary for such an explanation, but its success
is not yet established. If ever complete success is achieved
in this direction, the principle will equally govern the
motion of a ray of light and of a moving body, and will
remain valid whatever physical agencies are in action, so
that we shall be able to combine all the operations of
nature in one synthesis; they will all have become shortest
courses in a curved four-dimensional space.
Generalised Relativity
In this way, Hero's first simple synthesis of the two laws
of Euclid has been gradually extended and modified until
it has finally emerged as a general principle covering all
the large-scale phenomena of nature, and possibly sub-
MECHANISM 127
atomic phenomena as well. We used to think of the
principle as applying to particles of matter and to rays of
light existing and travelling in a framework of space and
time. But in the process of making a perfect fit between
the principle and the observed facts of nature, we have
had to discard space and time as objective realities, forces
and mechanism have dropped out of the picture alto-
gether, and we are left only with empty space and empty
time, first welded together to form a four-dimensional
continuum differing in quality from either space or time,
and then curved and contorted. We can no longer think
of the varied phenomena of nature as arising from a blind
dance of atoms as they are pushed and pulled about by
mechanical force; we must attribute them to efforts of we
know not what to find the shortest path through the
tangled maze of the space-time continuum.
At this point it becomes natural to inquire whether
Einstein's picture represents anything in ultimate reality,
or merely provides a convenient way of describing phe-
nomena. For we must remember that the most con-
venient description is not always that which is closest to
reality. Although ships' captains are aware that the
world is round, they still find it most convenient to map
out the tracks of their ships on flat Mercator projections,
as though the earth was flat. In the same way, Einstein's
straight paths in a curved space may conceivably be
merely convenient pictures which represent the phe-
nomena but not the reality behind.
The Einstein Universe
Mathematical analysis shews that there are more ways
than one of curving the continuum so as to explain the
128 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
paths of astronomical bodies and rays of light. These all
give equally good pictures of the astronomical phenomena
of the solar system, or any other small part of the universe,
yet one at most can represent ultimate reality. Many are
disqualified because they lead to obvious absurdities when
the universe is considered as a whole. Einstein found one
way which he considered free from such objections.
This postulated two distinct kinds of curvature. The
first was a curvature inherent in the continuum itself,
which rolled the whole continuum up into a closed
surface, much as the whole surface of the earth is rolled
up into a closed globe. The second consisted of local
irregularities which were superposed on to the main cur-
vature, just as a curvature of hills, mounds and molehills
may be superposed on to the main curvature of the earth's
surface. These smaller irregularities were caused by, or
at any rate associated with, the presence of matter, and
were responsible for the observed curvatures of the paths
of planets and rays of light. Over a small region of space,
such as the solar system, the main curvature produced too
small an effect to permit of observation.
If the continuum were curved in this way, then space,
being a cross-section of the continuum, was also curved.
It was moreover curved in such a way that there was
only a finite amount of it. This representation possessed
certain definite advantages over all older views of space,
which had always been confronted with the dilemma
that, although it was impossible to imagine any limit to
space, yet unlimited space was objectionable on purely
scientific grounds. If matter extended through unlimited
space, there would be an infinite amount of it exerting its
attraction on planets, stars and galaxies, and this would
MECHANISM 129
cause them to move at speeds far greater than those
actually observed at infinite speeds, in fact. The only
escape would be by supposing that there was only a finite
amount of matter, and as this could only occupy a finite
amount of space, it left an infinite amount of space en-
tirely devoid of matter. Such a concept could not be dis-
proved as being in any way ridiculous or impossible, but
it was certainly not convincing by its inherent reason-
ableness. Kant had dismissed it on the grounds that an
infinite empty space would contain nothing by whicK to
locate the position of a finite material world. If the
question "Where is the finite matter in infinite space?"
admitted of no answer, then there could not, according to
Kant, be finite matter in infinite space.
However serious these difficulties were, Einstein re-
moved them all by his concept of a closed finite space.
He found that, when the average density of matter in
space is assigned, there is one and only one radius at
which space can stand in equilibrium without either ex-
panding or contracting. He accordingly supposed this to
be the actual radius of space; it could of course be calcu-
lated as soon as the average density of matter in space
was discovered observationally.
Since space was supposed to retain the same radius
through all time, the curvature of the space-time con-
tinuum could not be geometrically like that of the surface
of the earth; it was rather like that of a roll of paper, or
better still that of a single sheet of paper pasted so as to
form a cylinder of paper like a postal-tube (cf. fig. 3).
In this model of the continuum, any cross-section the
paper itself, not the circular area it encloses represents
space at any instant, while the passage of time is repre-
130 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
sented by lengthwise motion along the cylinder. Thus
space became finite and constant in amount, while time
remained infinite, extending from an eternity back in the
past, through the present to an eternity in the future.
The Expanding Universe
Recent mathematical investigations have shewn that the
continuum cannot be represented by so simple a model.
Fig. 3. Fig. 4. Fig. 5.
Diagrammatic representations of space-time to exhibit various
theoretical possibilities.
Einstein originally introduced his large-scale curvature
into the universe to keep it in equilibrium. Friedmann,
Lemaitre and others have shewn that a universe whose
equilibrium was secured in this way would not stay in
equilibrium. It would be unstable, in the sense that space
would at once start expanding or contracting the
general mathematical theory leaves both alternatives
MECHANISM 131
open and that the process would continue with ever-
increasing speed. Thus we must not picture space-time
by a cylindrical roll of paper, but rather by a cone or
horn-shaped surface, such as the cardboard surface of a
megaphone (cf. fig. 4). Time is still represented by the
central axis. Space, the cross-section of the horn, is still
finite, but for ever changes its dimensions as we move
about in time* In other words, space cannot remain of
constant size, as Einstein originally imagined, but must
be for ever expanding or contracting.
If Einstein's molehill curvature represents anything in
ultimate reality, and is not a mere convenient means of
picturing the paths of the planets, then the large-scale
curvature, which follows almost as a logical corollary to
it, ought also to represent something in ultimate reality.
Clearly it is important to look for observational evidence
of its existence.
The most obvious property of this large-scale curvature
is that it closes space up, so that if we tried to travel on
for ever through space, we should merely come back to
our starting-point, as Drake did when he circumnavigated
the globe. It is of course no good our trying to obtain a
proof of the curvature of space by an actual circum-
navigation of space for one thing life is too short. A
ray of light might have a better chance, for it travels at
ten million miles a minute and is not limited to a lifetime
of three-score years and ten. It was at one time thought
that a sufficiently powerful telescope might enable us to
look round space and see our own galaxy by light which,
starting many millions of years ago, had travelled round
the whole of space, and finally come back to its starting-
point. Such an experience would of course constitute a
132 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
very direct and convincing proof of the curvature of space,
but we no longer believe it to be possible.
It is not, however, necessary to travel round space to
obtain a convincing proof of its curvature, any more than
it is necessary to travel round the earth to prove that its
surface is curved. If we draw a circle on a perfectly flat
piece of paper, we know that its circumference is x times
its diameter, where v denotes the number 3-14159....
This is true, no matter how large or how small our circle
may be, provided always that we draw it on a perfectly
flat surface. It is not, however, true of a circle drawn on
a curved surface such as that of the earth. A circle of
synajl diameter still has a circumference equal to 3-14159
times its diameter, but the ratio becomes less as the circle
is made larger. A circle of 1000 miles diameter does not
have a circumference of 3141-59 miles, but only of about
3110 miles. If a surveyor were to draw such a circle on
the earth's surface, and then measure its circumference,
he would obtain a ready proof of the curvature of the
earth's surface.
In theory it is possible to test the curvature of space
in a similar way. If we construct a small sphere of any
substance, its surface will be T times the square of its
diameter, where v is still the same number 3- 141 59. Now
if space were uncurved, the surface of any sphere would
always be 3-14159 times the square of its diameter, no
matter how great this diameter might be. But if space is
curved, the ratio continually decreases as the sphere gets
larger, just as on the earth's surface the ratio of circum-
ference to diameter decreases as the circle gets larger.
If then we could map out an immense sphere in space
and measure up the total area of its surface, we should
MECHANISM
133
have an immediate means of testing whether space is
really curved in the way that Einstein imagined. Yet
even if the curvature exists, its scale is so large that its
Fig. 6.
Fig. 7.
effects are inappreciable in the solar system, and we
should have to make a sphere millions of millions in
diameter before we could hope to detect it. And, apart
134 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
from the practical difficulties of mapping out a circle of
such dimensions, there are two theoretical difficulties
first (p. 76) we have no means of locating points in space,
and second (p. 72) we have no objective means either of
drawing straight lines or of measuring their lengths.
Although this line of thought will not enable us to test
whether space is curved, it goes some way towards help-
Fig, 8.
ing us to imagine the kind of curvature postulated by the
generalised theory of relativity space contracts as we
get farther from home, so that the content of a sphere of
assigned radius is always less than it would be if space
were flat. We can construct a flat area in our imagina-
tions by joining a number of triangles together at their
vertices, as in fig. 6, but if we want to imagine a curved
(say a spherical) surface, we must replace our triangles by
areas shaped like the leather sectors which are stitched
together to make a football, as in fig. 7. In much the
same way we can imagine a flat space formed by joining
MECHANISM 135
a number of sugar-cones together at their vertices, but if
we want to form a curved (spherical) space, we must
replace our sugar-cones by spindle-shaped bodies, as in
fig. 8. If the reader can imagine enough spindles tied
together at A to fill the whole of the space surrounding .4,
and then (this is where the difficulty comes) imagine them
all bent about, equally and similarly, until all their other
ends 5, B', B" meet in a point, he will have made for
himself a sort of mental picture of spherical space. More
likely, however, he will be unable to imagine this at all,
because of the difficulty of conducting his imagination out
of ordinary three-dimensional space; he will then have a
proof of the impossibility, to which we have so often re-
ferred, of either picturing or describing things except in
terms of concepts made familiar by our everyday life.
As the curvature of space cannot be directly tested in
either of the geometrical ways we have just described,
we must fall back on the more indirect way of examining
whether the various mathematical consequences of this
curvature are to be found by observation. If the curved
continuum merely provides a convenient means of pictur-
ing phenomena, there is no reason why all its mathe-
matical consequences should be found in nature; mere
representation must be expected to part company with
reality somewhere. on the other hand, if this curved
continuum has a real existence in nature, all the mathe-
matical consequences of this existence ought to be con-
firmed by ob ervation. And the principal of these is that
space must be either expanding or contracting at a uni-
form rate throughout its whole extent.
Now the great nebulae out beyond the Milky Way
provide just the means of testing this prediction of theory.
136 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
They are the largest and most distant objects known to
astronomy, and yet, in relation to the universe as a whole,
they are mere straws floating in the stream of space, and
ought to shew us in what way, if any, its currents are
flowing. If the continuum is curved in the way we have
described, these nebulae ought all to be receding from us,
or else all rushing towards us, the speed of each nebula
being exactly proportional to its distance from us.
At this point observation takes up the tale. If recent
astronomical observations can be taken at their face
value, these nebulae are all receding from us, and .this at
quite terrific speeds. Moreover, their speeds are almost
precisely proportional to their distances, exactly as de-
manded by theory. Nebulae whose light takes a million
years to reach us are receding at (in round numbers) 100
miles a second, nebulae at twice this distance at double
this speed, and so on. Nebulae whose distance is esti-
mated to be 135 times as great as this so that their
light takes 1 35 million years to reach us have just been
found to be receding from us at the colossal speed of
15,000 miles a second, the greatest speed so far known to
astronomy.
These speeds are so great that many astronomers have
doubted whether they are real surely, they say, the ob-
servations must permit of some other and less sensational
interpretation. It may be so; we are still a long way
from being able to pronounce a final judgment on these
questions.
Sir Arthur Eddington* has recently tried to investigate,
in a purely theoretical manner, the speeds with which the
nebulae ought to move if the universe were expanding in
* The Expanding Umvarse (1933), chap. iv.
MECHANISM 137
the way required by the theory of relativity. The speeds
he calculates agree with those actually observed to within
a factor of about 2, which is as good an agreement as
could reasonably be expected. The whole investigation is
extremely speculative and does not yet, I think, command
the general assent of mathematicians. If ever these cal-
culations can be put beyond criticism, they will provide
a very strong confirmation of the whole theory of the
expanding universe, as developed by Friedmann and
Lemaitre.
on the other hand, there are very grave astronomical
objections to accepting the observed speeds of recession as
real. If they are real, the universe must be changing very
rapidly; it is doubling its dimensions every 1,300 million
years or so. If we assume that the speeds have always
been as at present, and trace the motion back for 2,000
mil linn years, we find the whole universe concentrated in
a quite small region of space. Actually the theory of the
expanding universe she\vs that the speeds would diminish
as we go backwards in time, and that there is no definite
limit to the time during which expansion can have been
in progress, but it also suggests rather forcibly that this
time can hardly be more than about a hundred thousand
million years. Against this, the time needed for the
universe to attain its present stage of evolution can be
estimated in a great number of ways, and all agree in
indicating a period of millions of millions of years. It is
exceedingly difficult although perhaps not absolutely
impossible to imagine that the universe can have been
evolving for ten or a hundred times longer than space has
been expanding. It is even more difficult although
again perhaps not absolutely impossible to imagine
138 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
that space can have been expanding for millions of mil-
lions of years. The difficulty is so grave as to cast real
discredit on the whole mathematical theory of the ex-
panding universe.
A recent short note by Einstein and de Sitter may be
found to contain a means of escape from this very serious
dilemma. We have seen how Einstein originally thrust
his large-scale curvature on to the universe because he
saw no other way of keeping it quiet, and restraining it
from either exploding or collapsing. Now that space ap-
pears to be exploding in spite of all Einstein's efforts to save
it, the inherent large-scale curvature seems to play a less
essential part in the scheme of things than it once did.
Einstein and de Sitter have accordingly examined what
reasons, if any, remain for supposing that space possesses
this inherent curvature. They find none at all. It is no
longer needed to keep space at rest, because space is not
at rest, and neither the mathematical equations nor the
observed recessions of the nebulae in any way require it.
Thus we become free to suppose that space would be flat
if it were perfectly empty of matter, and that it owes the
whole of its curvature, both coarse and fine, to the objects
which occupy it. While this does not carry us much
further towards a positive understanding of the nebular
motions, it brings a whole new class of possibilities into
the field. It has, for instance, been suggested that the
universe may be undergoing a succession of alternate ex-
pansions and contractions (cf. fig. 5, p. 130); this would
account for the observed recessions of the nebulae, and
yet give us all the time we want for the evolution of the
universe; there is no longer any conflict with the general
evidence of observational astronomy.
MECHANISM 139
We must not regard any of the foregoing speculations
or conclusions as in any way final or established. Indeed,
science is only just entering upon its latest and most com-
prehensive problem the study of the universe as a
single entity and it would be folly to treat the first
tentative results as final. Yet, although these can hardly
be said to have led to definite conclusions so far, they
nevertheless hold out hope that conclusions may not be
very distant. And they illustrate once again that it is
usually the totally unexpected that happens in science
the unaided human mind can seldom penetrate far into
the darkness which lies beyond the small circle of light
formed by direct observational knowledge.
Even the meagre results so far obtained seem to shew
that nature is one and not many. The different sciences
have each drawn their own pictures of small fragments of
nature which form their special objects of study, and we
now find that these fragmentary pictures piece together
to form a consistent whole. An experiment performed by
two physicists, Michelson and Morley, with a view to
measuring a time interval of less than a million millionth
part of a second, or a length of less than a thousandth part
of an inch, led, through the theory of relativity, to a pic-
ture of the whole vast universe, which depicts it as explod-
ing like a burst shell, its most distant objects unanimously
rushing away from us. We examine these objects through
our largest telescopes and find that they are, to all appear-
ances, rushing away in precisely the way predicted by
theory. _
The Nature of Space
The point which is of immediate interest to our present
discussion is the following. Unless this apparent agree-
140 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
ment between theory and observation is wholly illusory,
it provides us with evidence of a contact between the
theory of relativity and reality at the furthest point to
which this theory has so far been pushed. It suggests very
strongly although of course it does not prove that
the curved continuum postulated by this theory has more
reality that that of a mere convenient explanation of the
apparently curved paths of planets and cricket balls,
just as the curved surface of the earth has more reality
than that of a mere convenient explanation of the appar-
ently curved tracks of steamers.
Even so, it only tells us of the metrical properties of
space, and nothing as to its essential nature. Indeed,
there would appear to be little advantage in discussing
this latter problem. After 2,000 years of metaphysical
discussion, the question stands much as Plato left it in the
Timaeus (pp. 74, 144); the growth of scientific knowledge
has done little more than negative the speculations of
subsequent philosophers. Of all external entities, per-
haps space is the one whose essential nature is least likely
to be understood by the human mind, since it is hardly
probable that what is completely external to the mind,
and without effect on the mind, will admit of being
pictured in terms of familiar concepts inside the mind.
Although the new curved continuum is still a blend
of space and time, these constituents no longer enter
it in similar or even symmetrical ways. In our simple
diagrammatic analogy, space was the cross-section and
time the axis of a cone, and however much new knowl-
edge may change the details, some such distinction seems
likely to persist. Such a continuum does not satisfy the
invariant condition, which was found to be essential iii
MECHANISM 141
the restricted theory, of giving a picture which does not
suffer by being hung askew. It therefore contains in itself
a unique mode of separation into space and time, which
we may now designate as absolute space and absolute
time. The restricted theory of relativity, which we dis-
cussed in our previous chapter, shewed that any division
into space and time was subjective in respect of such phe-
nomena as we could observe and measure in our labo-
ratories. The generalised theory which we are now
discussing suggests that just as our individual conscious-
nesses recognise a sharp and clear-cut distinction be-
tween space and time, so also does nature on the grand
scale. This distinction, which we first find in our own
minds, vanishes for a time when we study objective
nature on the small scale, but apparently reappears in the
cosmos as a whole.
Neither the mathematical theory we have just de-
scribed, nor the interpretation of the astronomical obser-
vations, are sufficiently certain to w ? arrant the drawing of
any conclusions except as almost random conjectures,
but a simple analogy may suggest the kind of conjecture
that presents itself.
Let us, very unpoetically, compare the human race to
a race of worms living inside the earth, and capable of
burrowing about in it but never reaching its surface.
As their bodies would be subject to gravitational forces,
their minds would be conscious, through their nervous
systems, of a distinction between horizontal and vertical
directions inside the earth. They would not be able to
pick out an absolutely permanent and unaltering hori-
zontal and vertical, since a worm who was moving with
an acceleration would experience a different horizontal
142 THE SEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
and vertical from his fellows who were not. In spite of
this, the worms might still feel sure that the horizontal
was somehow essentially different from the vertical.
Suppose now that they took to science and built labora-
tories, still inside the earth, in which to study electro-
magnetism and optics. They would be unable to detect
any distinction between horizontal and vertical in their
laboratories, because the laws of electromagnetism and
optics treat all three directions in space equally. If, then,
they knew of no sciences but these, they would be unable
to discover any scientific justification for their intuitive
feeling that horizontal and vertical were really dissimilar.
Finally, to come to the climax, one of them might burrow
his way out to the surface of the earth and discover that
their intuitive feeling was based on a real fact of nature.
He would then see that nature contained something more
than the sciences they had studied in their laboratories,
and would realise that they had all the time been in
contact with nature through this something more.
In the same way, our minds are conscious of a radical
distinction between space and time which does not
appear to extend to physical phenomena; these seem so
similar in the continuum and so dissimilar when appre-
hended by our minds. Through our consciousnesses, we
break up the space-time product into space and time,
while electrons and protons and radiation cannot. If this
distinction is ultimately found to be real, as our present
vague and uncertain knowledge seems to suggest, we may
be tempted to conjecture that our minds are in contact
with reality through other than purely physical channels.
Finally, we may notice that, if a more complete knowl-
edge of the continuum as a whole is ultimately found to
MECHANISM 143
restore a meaning to absolute space and absolute time,
the problems which were indicated at the end of Chapter
m do not arise.
In that chapter we pointed out how the concept of the
space-time continuum neither space nor time being
complete in themselves, and only acquiring objective
reality when blended into a single whole was in ac-
cordance with a view \vhich certain metaphysicians had
taken of space. In the present chapter we have con-
sidered the properties of this blend of space and time in
more detail. We have seen that, according to the picture
drawn by the generalised theory of relativity, space must
be finite in amount, and must possess a texture, defined
by the different curvatures at its various points, so that
it is in some way differentiated from mere emptiness*
Again, these qualities satisfy the requirements of the
metaphysician. Writing twenty years before the general-
ised theory of relativity appeared, Bradley described these
in the following words:*
"Empty space space without some quality (visual or
muscular) which in itself is more than spatial is an unreal
abstraction. It cannot be said to exist, for the reason that
it cannot by itself have any meaning. When a man realizes
what he has got in it, he finds that always he has a quality
which is more than extension. But, if so, how this quality is
to stand to the extension is an insoluble problem".
And again, with reference to finite space:
"For take space as large and as complete as you possibly
can. Still, if it has not definite boundaries, it is not space;
and to make it end in a cloud, or in nothing, is mere blindness
and our mere failure to perceive. A space limited, and yet
* Appearance and Reality, pp. 37, 38.
144 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
without space that is outside, is a self-contradiction. But the
outside, unfortunately, is compelled likewise to pass beyond
itself; and the end cannot be reached. And it is not merely
that we fail to perceive, or fail to understand, how this can be
otherwise. We perceive and we understand that it cannot be
otherwise, at least if space is to be space. We either do not
know what space means; and, if so, certainly we cannot say
that it is more than appearance. Or else, knowing what we
mean by it, we see inherent in that meaning the puzzle we are
describing. Space, to be space, must have space outside itself.
It for ever disappears into a whole, which proves never to be
more than one side of a relation to something beyond".
This quotation raises a metaphysical dilemma which
science alone cannot claim to solve. If the whole con-
tinuum is finite, what can there be outside the continuum
except more continuum? which proves that our
original continuum was not the whole continuum. And
how can space be expanding, since there is nothing for it
to expand into except more space? which proves that
what is expanding cannot be the whole of space, and so
on. We shall return to this in a later chapter.
Finally, those who hold that "out of Plato come all
things that are still debated among men of thought" may
be tempted to claim that Plato anticipated Einstein in
evolving the whole of nature out of the metrical texture
of space. They may even claim that he anticipated Fried-
mann and Lemaltre in respect of the instability of the
Einstein universe. For he wrote*:
"Even before the birth of a heaven, there were these several
ree being, space, becoming. Hence as the foster-mother
of becomingf was liquefied and ignited and received the shapes
* Timaeus, Taylor's translation, p. 52.
T /.*. Space.
MECHANISM 145
of earth and air and underwent further affections consequent
on this, she took on many motley guises. And since the forces
with which she was filled were neither alike nor equipoised,
there was no equipoise in any region of her; she was swayed
and agitated with utter irregularity by these her contents, and
agitated them in turn by her motion".
CHAPTER V
THE TEXTURE OF THE EXTERNAL WORLD
MATTER AND RADIATION
We must now leave the vastness of astronomical space,
to pass to the other extreme of the scale of size and explore
the innermost recesses of the ultra-microscopic atom.
While the phenomena of astronomy may shew us the
nature of space and time, it is here, if anywhere, that we
may hope to discover the true nature of matter and of
material objects, the contents of space and time.
The Structure of Matter
We have seen how the atomic concept of matter gradually
gained scientific recognition, and finally appeared to be
securely established when Maxwell and others shewed
that a gas could be pictured as consisting of hard bullet-
like atoms or molecules flying about indiscriminately at
speeds comparable with those of ordinary rifle bullets.
The impact of these bullets produced the pressure of the
gas; the energy of their motion was the heat-energy of the
gas, so that heating up the gas resulted in its bullets
travelling faster; the viscosity of a gas was caused by the
drag of one bullet on another on the rare occasions on
which actual collisions occurred, and so on. These con-
cepts made it possible to explain a great number of
the observed properties of gases, both qualitatively and
quantitatively, with great exactness. Yet a residue ob-
stinately defied explanation, and it is only recently that
146
MATTER AND RADIATION 147
an explanation of these has been obtained, in terms of new
and very different concepts to which we shall shortly pass.
This picture of matter as consisting of hard indivisible
atoms had to be modified when Sir J. J. Thomson and his
followers began to break up the atom. They shewed that
the atom was far from indivisible; small fragments of it
could be knocked out by bombardment, or pulled out
by sufficiently intense electric forces. These fragments
proved to be all similar the electrons. They all had
the same mass, and carried the same electric charge,
which was conventionally described as being of negative
sign. It was subsequently found that the remaining in-
gredients of the atom were also similar electrically
charged particles the protons. Their charges were
opposite in kind to the charges on the electrons, and so
were described as positive in sign.
There were many reasons for supposing all the atomic
constituents to be of minute size. For instance, it was
found that radio-active substances shot off two kinds of
projectiles, a less massive kind known as j8-particles, which
proved to be rapidly moving electrons, and a more mas-
sive kind known as a-particles, which proved to be
identical with the central nucleus of the helium atom.
This is known to consist of four protons and two electrons.
When particles of either kind were shot at matter they
penetrated it to a considerable depth, which suggested
that they were of very small dimensions. A tennis ball
weighs about the same as a rifle bullet, yet if we fire both
at the same piece of wood, the bullet will penetrate a
considerable distance, because its mass is concentrated in
a very small, space, while the tennis ball will not penetrate
at all; both a- and jS-particles were found to behave like
148 THE NEW BACKGROUND OJb
rifle bullets rather than like tennis balls. Not only so,
but when they were fired at a thin film of metal, the
majority passed through without being substantially
deflected from their courses, which seemed to shew that
the electron and protons of the metal film were them-
selves of minute size. Thus there appeared to be fairly
conclusive evidence that the ultimate ingredients of
matter were of the nature of small particles carrying
highly concentrated charges of electricity.
It has never been found possible to measure the sizes
of these particles directly. It is often supposed that the
diameter of the electron must be about 4 X 10~ 18 cms.;
it cannot be less than this, for if the electrical charge of
the electron were compressed into any smaller volume,
the inertia resulting from this alone would necessarily be
greater than that of the total observed mass of the elec-
tron. Yet this raises a serious difficulty. According to
the generally accepted theory, the nuclei which form the
centres of the most massive atoms, such as gold or ura-
nium, must contain a large number of electrons as well as
protons. These nuclei are, however, themselves so small
in size that they could not contain the requisite number
of electrons of the size just mentioned inside them, even if
the protons occupied no space at all. This shews that the
concept of electrons and protons as small charged parti-
cles is at best only a picture, and a picture which cannot
be true to nature in all particulars. Nevertheless, a small
spherical particle of radius 2 X lO" 13 centimetres and
charged with 4-777 X 1Q- 10 units of electricity repro-
duces many of the properties of the electron, and proba-
bly no one has ever regarded it as providing a complete
picture which was true in all particulars.
MATTER AND RADIATION 149
Radiation
As regards their material structure, all objects are built
up of these two kinds of electrified particles, but they con-
tain also the intangible constituent of energy, which may
be set free from all association with matter, when it
travels through space in the form of radiation. We have
seen how, throughout the nineteenth century, radiation
was pictured as waves in the ether. This picture not only
failed to describe the propagation of radiation in ways
which have already been described; it also failed to
account for some of the most fundamental properties of
the radiation itself.
We know how a pendulum swinging in air continually
loses energy to the molecules of air which impinge on it;
unless it is kept in motion by clockwork it soon comes to
rest, the energy of its motion being transformed into
waves of the surrounding air which are subsequently
dissipated into heat. In the same way a steamer soon
comes to rest when its engines are stopped, the energy of
its motion being used in setting up waves in the surround-
ing sea. And, again in the same way, it can be shewn
that if material bodies were surrounded by a sea of ether,
their energy would be rapidly dissipated in setting up
waves in the ether. Calculation shews that this process
would continue until the material bodies, like the pen-
dulum and the steamer, had no energy left at all; their
whole energy would have passed into the ether, where it
would take the form of radiation of very short wave-
length. This is true of all kinds of energy, so that a hot
body ought speedily to lose all its heat-energy to the ether,
and fall to the absolute zero of temperature.
150 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
Instead of this, experiment shews that a state of equi-
librium is soon attained in which a body receives back
from the surrounding space exactly as much radiation as
it pours out into it. For instance, disregarding certain
small internal stores of heat, the average temperature of
the earth is such that it loses just as much energy by
radiation into space as it receives back from space in the
form of solar light and heat. If the earth were suddenly
made hotter than it now is, it would cool down to its
present temperature, but not to the absolute zero; if it
were made cooler, it would warm up to its present tem-
perature. To take a more precise case, if a heating
system maintains all the walls of a closed room at exactly
60 F., then every object in the room will stay per-
manently at exactly 60 F. this is why we can say that
a thermometer gives "the temperature of the room".
In such a state of equilibrium, every object gives out
just as much radiation as it receives. In the idealised case
of an object which has no reflecting power at all, and so
appears perfectly black (p. 19), the radiation is known
technically as "black-body radiation", and is said to
have the temperature of the object which emits it.
Radiation of this kind can be analysed into its different
constituents with great accuracy, and its quality is found
to be as unlike as possible to what it would be if radiation
consisted of waves in a substantial ether.
Quanta
In the last years of the nineteenth century, Planck tried
to discover the reason for this divergence, and, just as the
century was closing, he put forward the ideas out of which
the vast structure of the quantum theory has since arisen.
MATTER AND RADIATION 151
He shewed that it was possible to account exactly for the
observed state of equilibrium between matter and radia-
tion, by the assumption that radiation was atomic in its
nature. He supposed it to occur only in complete mul-
tiples of a unit which he called the "quantum". This
unit was not the same in amount for all kinds of radiation,
but depended on the wave-length of the radiation, and so
also on its period of oscillation or its "frequency" the
number of oscillations performed in a second. To be
precise, radiation which oscillated v times a second was
supposed to occur only in complete units of energy of
amount hv, where h was a quantity, now universally
known as Planck's constant, which is found to pervade the
whole of atomic physics. Thus blue or violet light, being
of high frequency, consisted of quanta of great energy,
while red light, which is of low frequency, consisted of
quanta of small energy. The greater the energy of the
quanta, the greater their capacity of producing atomic
change. This is why blue light causes pigments to fade
and affects photographic plates, where red light is in-
effective.
The recently-discovered X-radiation was known to be
of enormously high frequency, so that on Planck's theory
its quanta ought to possess exceptionally great energy.
It was soon remarked that when this radiation was passed
through a gas, a few of the molecules of the gas were
shattered, but the vast majority remained entirely un-
affected by the passage of the rays. Had the rays
consisted of waves travelling through an all-pervading
ether, it might reasonably have been expected that they
would treat all the molecules they encountered in the
same way, or at least in approximately the same way;
152 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
actually, less than one molecule in a billion seemed
to be singled out for destruction. It was further found
that doubling the intensity of the radiation did not double
the damage done to each molecule, but merely doubled
the number of molecules that were damaged. This was
subsequently found to be true of radiation of all kinds,
including ordinary visible light. It was exactly what was
to be expected if radiation consisted of small point-like
atoms of radiation, like the old Newtonian corpuscles.
Photons
In 1905 Einstein crystallised these concepts and hypoth-
eses in his theory of light-quanta, according to which all
radiation consisted of discrete bullet-like units, which he
called "light-quanta" at the time, although we now call
them "photons". When an atom was struck by a photon,
it might be either disturbed or shattered, according to the
amount of energy which the photon brought to the attack,
and by observing the amount of damage done to the
atom, it became possible to calculate the energy of the
individual photons. This invariably proved to be exactly
one quantum if the incident radiation which attacked
the atoms was of frequency v, the change produced in
each affected atom represented an expenditure of en-
ergy to.
one of the fundamental consequences of the theory of
relativity is that every kind of energy has mass associated
with it. Thus a photon must possess mass of its own, and
it is just as accurate to speak of the mass of a photon as
of the mass of an atom or of a motor car. As photons are
always in motion, we may also speak of the momentum
of a photon, much as we speak of the momentum of a
MATTER AND RADIATION 153
motor car, although there is the essential difference that
photons always move with the same speed, the speed of
light, whereas motor cars move with variable and differ-
ent speeds.
Professor Compton of Chicago has recently found very
direct evidence of the existence of this mass, and has been
able to measure its exact amount. When a photon strikes
an atom, its energy is not always completely absorbed by
the atom; it may occasionally strike a particular electron
in an atom and rebound from it like a perfectly hard
bullet. In such cases the photon loses part, but not all,
of its energy to the electron with which it has collided.
Compton found that when this happens to a photon, its
frequency changes in such a way that after the collision
the energy is precisely h times the frequency of the radia-
tion, as of course it also was before the collision. The cir-
cumstances of the recoil made it possible to calculate the
momentum, as well as the energy, of the photon, and this
proved to be hv/c. This is exactly the amount of momen-
tum which the theory of relativity predicts must be
associated with energy hv moving with the speed of light.
These various experiments suggest that radiation may
be pictured as consisting of bullet-like units, which travel
through space very much like shot fired from a gun and
have nothing to do with any supposed ether. In this new
picture, the constant speed of 186,000 miles a second at
which radiation travels is no longer regarded as the speed
of waves; we have instead to imagine that photons of
radiation are endowed with inertia, like a bullet or an
electron. This inertia keeps them moving in a straight
line with a uniform speed, although nothing in this pic-
ture explains why this speed should always be 186,000
154 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
miles a second. This last fact shews that the particle
picture by itself is incomplete.
Quantitatively, the experiments shew that the mo-
mentum of a photon is connected with its wave-length by
the relation
momentum X wave-length A,
while its energy is connected with its period of oscillation
by the relation
energy X period of oscillation = h.
Finally the wave-length and period of oscillation are con-
nected by the relation, which survives from the undula-
tory theory,
wave-length = period of oscillation X ,
where c is the uniform speed of light.
The evidence which these experiments provide for the
real existence of photons is of the same general nature as
that which other experiments provide for the existence of
electrons. In each case experiment suggests an indivisi-
ble entity having definite quantities associated with it
e and m for the electron, and h and c for the photon
and measurement of these quantities yields uniformly
consistent values. No experiment yet performed has sug-
gested that fractions of either entity can exist independ-
ently; fractions of a photon are as unknown as fractions
of an electron.
The radiation with which we are usually concerned in
atomic physics is produced by disturbances or upheavals
of single atoms, and it is found to be a general law that
every such disturbance produces one, and only one, com-
plete photon. As mass is conserved through a change of
MATTER AND RADIATION 155
this kind, the atom must lose mass exactly equal to the
mass of the photon it emits. When the disturbance con-
sists only of a rearrangement of the outermost electrons
of an atom, the resulting change of mass is only a few
millionths of the mass of a single electron, and the photon
has the wave-length of visible light it is by the entry
of such photons into our eyes that we see things. A re-
arrangement of the inner electrons of the atom produces
X-radiation, in which each photon has a mass of perhaps
the 10,000th part of the mass of an electron. If the nu-
cleus of the atom rearranges itself, we have the still more
penetrating 7-radiation, in which each photon has a mass
comparable with the whole mass of an electron. Finally,
the hardest constituent of cosmic radiation, the most
penetrating radiation known, has photons of mass about
equal to that of a complete atom of helium, while the
next most penetrating constituent has photons of mass
about equal to that of a hydrogen atom. It is possible,
then, that these photons may be produced by the total
annihilation of atoms of helium and hydrogen, or, more
probably, by the annihilation of electrons and protons to
an equivalent extent in more complex atoms.
The Kinetic Theory of Radiation
Just as Maxwell was able to explain many of the proper-
ties of a gas by picturing it as a medley of bullet-like
molecules, so we can explain many of the properties of
radiation by picturing it as a medley of bullet-like pho-
tons. The pressure of a gas can be pictured as resulting
from the impacts of its molecules, and in the same way
the pressure of radiation can be pictured as resulting from
the impacts of its photons. And again, just as the energy
156 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
of a gas is the sum of the energies of its molecules, so the
energy of the radiation in any space is the sum of the
energies of the photons in that space.
When we picture radiation as consisting of waves, the
quantity kno\vn as the "intensity" of the radiation is pro-
portional to the energy of the waves at any point, or, even
more pictorially, to the "storminess" of a sea of ether.
When we picture radiation as consisting of photons, we
can no longer interpret the intensity in this way. We
may, however, give it a statistical interpretation; we can
define it as proportional to the chance of finding a photon
at the point in question, just as the density of the gas at
a point is a statistical concept, and is proportional to the
chance of finding a molecule there. The temperature of
radiation, like the temperature of a gas, is also a statistical
concept. We cannot speak of the temperature of a single
photon, any more than of that of a single molecule. We
say that "black-body radiation", which experiences no
change either of quality or quantity when it interacts with
heated matter, has the same temperature as the matter,
but the temperature belongs to the crowd of photons
and not to the individuals separately.
Such radiation may be pictured as a crowd of pho-
tons moving equally and indiscriminately in all direc-
tions, just as a gas in equilibrium may be pictured as a
crowd of molecules moving equally and indiscriminately
in all directions. The energies of the separate photons
conform to the statistical law known as Planck's law,
just as the energies of the molecules in a gas conform to
Maxwell's law. Various other concepts, such as those of
the two specific heats, of their ratio, and of adiabatic
changes, mean much the same for the radiation as for the
MATTER AND RADIATION 157
gas, and permit of the same pictorial representation,
photons of course replacing molecules.
We may picture the photons as retaining their indi-
vidual identities through all changes except that of being
completely absorbed into, or emitted out of, an atom or a
molecule. They may change their energies, but then they
adjust their frequencies to their energies so that each
photon remains a complete unit. Suppose for instance
that "black-body radiation" is darting about inside an
enclosure, whose volume can be varied by a cylinder-
piston arrangement, and is being continually reflected
from its walls. When we compress a gas inside a cylinder
the advancing piston does work against the pressure of the
gas, and this work reappears as an increase in the energy
of the separate molecules i.e. as heat. When the cyl-
inder is filled with radiation, the advancing piston does
work against the pressure of the radiation, and this re-
appears as an increased energy of the photons. Let us
imagine that we reduce the volume accessible to the
radiation to one-eighth, equivalent to an all-round reduc-
tion of linear dimensions to half. It can be shewn that
each photon will double its energy, and so also will double
its frequency and halve its wave-length. Thus wave-
lengths and enclosure are uniformly reduced to half-scale,
and the new radiation is at double the original tempera-
ture. If we suppose the photons to have retained their
identity, there are eight times as many per unit volume,
so that the density of energy has increased sixteen-fold
as the fourth power of the temperature. This is exactly
what is observed, the fourth-power law being known as
Stefan's law. And, again as with a gas, the pressure is
proportional jointly to the density and temperature, so
158 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
that this also varies as the fourth power of the temper-
ature, which again agrees with observation.
Just as we can picture "black-body radiation" as a
random crowd of photons, so we can picture a beam of
radiation as a regular shower of photons, all moving in
parallel paths. This, of course, corresponds to a blast of
gas in which all the molecules move in parallel paths,
their ordinary heat-motion being either neutralised or
neglected. on the other hand, a beam of light is in one
respect more intricate than a blast of gas, since in addition
to its motion through space it possesses the property we
describe as polarisation.
The nineteenth-century picture of radiation attributed
polarisation to angular momentum of the ether; in our
present picture of radiation, we must attribute it to
angular momentum in the separate photons which form
the radiation. In brief, not only must our radiation move
through space like bullets, but each bullet must have a
spin like that caused by rifling. Planck's constant h has
the same physical dimensions as angular momentum, and
we find that we must picture all photons as spinning with
the same angular momentum A/2?r, which may be in
either direction right-handed or left-handed. In a
beam of circularly polarised radiation, we picture the
photons as all spinning in the same direction. If the beam
is elliptically polarised, more photons spin in one direc-
tion than in the other; if plane-polarised, the numbers
are equal. If it is not polarised at all, the proportion of
the two kinds continually varies at random, but the laws
of probability secure that the actual ratio shall never
wander very far from unity. This spin has recently been
detected and measured by Raman and Bhagavantam.
MATTER AND RADIATION 150
Inadequacy of the Particle Picture of Radiation
This picture of radiation as a crowd of bullet-like pho-
tons has many advantages, but also suffers from many
limitations, which shew that it does not present us with a
complete picture of reality, but at best only of certain
aspects of reality. We have already mentioned one con-
Fig. 9. (This is purely diagrammatic and is not
drawn to scale.)
spicuous instance of its failure: nothing in the particle
picture explains the most fundamental of all the proper-
ties of radiation its uniform speed of travel.
A second instance of its failure is provided by an
experiment which can be performed in any laboratory.
Let S be a source of light, emitting light of approximately
pure colour, and let an opaque screen, punctured by two
tiny pinholes, A y B> be set up in front of , so that A and
B are at equal distances from S. If we picture the light
which S emits as bullet-like photons, then two points P 9
Q, on the laboratory wall will be under fire from S, and we
shall expect to find the wall illuminated at the points
P, Q and dark everywhere else. In a general way this
describes what will usually happen; yet if we make our
holes A, B near enough together, the description fails
160 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
entirely. The most brightly lighted region of the wall will
no longer be the points P and , but the single point R
midway between them, although this is out of both of the
lines of fire SAP and SBQ if light really consisted of
bullets, we should expect R to be completely dark* Not
only so, but for light of one particular colour, P and Q,
which ought to be most brilliantly lighted of all if the
light consisted of bullets, may be completely dark.
We can obtain yet more surprising results by blocking
and unblocking one of the pinholes, say B. We shall
find that so long as B is blocked up, P is brightly illumi-
nated, but the moment B is unblocked, P becomes dark
letting more light in on P changes light into darkness.
The old undulatory theory had provided a perfect ex-
planation of all this; it is, indeed, a special instance of the
general principle already explained on p. 121 . Let us for
the moment think of our diagram as representing the
surface of a rectangular piece of water, such as a swim-
ming pool, while A, B is a wall built across the pool with
small apertures at A and B. When a swimmer splashes
about at S, he will cause ripples to spread over the pond.
Some will pass through the apertures A 9 5, and set up
new systems of ripples in the space beyond. These will
spread out in circles from the points 4, 5, and as these
two points are symmetrically placed with respect to S 9
the two sets of ripples will be exactly similar.
Now the point R is symmetrically placed with respect
to A and 5. Thus the crest of a ripple from A will arrive
at R simultaneously with the crest of a ripple from JJ,
and their combined effect at R will be just twice what it
would be if only A or B were open separately. on the
other hand, P is not symmetrically placed with respect
MATTER AND RADIATION 161
to A and 5, so that the two sets of ripples from A and B
will not in any case reinforce one another quite so per-
fectly at P as they did at R. In an extreme case, crests
of ripples from A may arrive coincidently with troughs of
ripples from F, so that the two will exactly neutralise one
another, and the water at P will remain unagitated. If
we block up the opening B, the water at P is agitated by
the waves which reach it from A. If we now reopen B,
and so let more waves in on to P, the water at P becomes
quiescent, because we have added a second set of waves
which exactly neutralises the first.
These are precisely the results obtained in an actual
experiment. They seem nonsensical to the last degree
when we picture light as bullets, but perfectly natural and
inevitable when we picture it as waves.
Yet suppose we carry our experiment a stage further,
and put a sensitised photographic plate against the wall
PRQ of our laboratory. If the apertures A and B are both
open, this will of course give us a permanent record of
the light at R and of the darkness at P and Q. At R
the grains of the plate will be changed by the incidence
of the two sets of waves, one from A and one from B,
which reinforce one another. on the other hand, the
grains of the plate at P and Q, will undergo no change,
because the two sets of waves neutralise one another.
Yet the grains of the plate can only absorb radiation by
complete photons, as is shewn by the fact that blue light
makes more impression on it than red. Thus, to make
our picture consistent, we must suppose that light travels
through space in the form of waves, but breaks up into
photons as soon as it encounters matter. We shall find
later that there is an exactly complementary picture for
162 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
electrons and protons. This shews us electrons and pro-
tons behaving as particles while they travel freely through
space, and as waves when they encounter matter.
There is a complete mathematical theory which shews
how in all such cases the particle- and wave-pictures
are merely two aspects of the same reality, so that light
can appear sometimes as particles and sometimes as
waves, but never as both at the same time.* It also ex-
plains how the same can be true of electrons and protons.
It is hardly possible to give even the vaguest account of
this highly intricate theory in non-mathematical terms,
but the following considerations will perhaps provide
something of a bridge between the particle- and wave-
pictures of radiation, and shew how both may represent
partial aspects of a unity which transcends both particles
and waves.
Free Vibrations
Any system which is capable of vibration is set into
vibration when it is disturbed from outside. If the dis-
turbance finally fades away or is withdrawn, the system
does not come to rest immediately, but continues to
vibrate for a time. The vibrations which it now executes
are known as the "free vibrations 35 of the system, and the
periods of these vibrations are described as the "free
periods" of the system. The simplest instance of this is
provided by a tuning-fork. For all practical purposes,
this has only one period of free vibration, which deter-
mines the pitch of the note emitted by the fork. Suppose,
for instance, this is middle C, which corresponds to 256
vibrations a second. If the fork is disturbed in any way
* See, for instance, Hefeenberg, The Physical Principles of the Quantum
Theory, p. 177.
MATTER AND RADIATION 163
whatever, as by the impact of a blow or the friction of a
violin bow, it will be set into vibration, and after the
disturbance is over it will be left vibrating at 256 vibra-
tions a second. It will, so to speak, have forgotten
what caused it to vibrate, and remember only its own
period of free vibration hence its utility for musical
purposes.
A piano string provides a more complicated example
of the same thing. When we sound middle G of the piano,
the hammer strikes a string which has an infinite number
of free vibrations, these being at the rates of 256, 512,
768, 1024, ... vibrations a second. These frequencies are
in the ratio 1:2:3:4: ..., and the corresponding musical
notes are called the "harmonics" of middle C. They are
the C above, the G and C above this, then the E, G, Bk
C, D, E and so on in succession, their respective wave-
lengths being a half, a third, a quarter, and so on, of the
length of the string. Again, these tones are associated
with the string itself, not with the striking of it. In what-
ever way the hammer strikes the middle C string, these
same harmonic notes are always sounded; only the pro-
portion of their intensities depends on the way in which
the hammer strikes the string.
A still more complicated example is the air in a concert
hall. This has innumerable free vibrations, their wave-
lengths ranging from the whole length of the concert hall
down to a minute fraction of an inch. When a pianist
plays middle C in the concert hall, the hammer momen-
tarily strikes three strings of the piano, and sets them into
vibration, after which they are left performing free vibra-
tions of all the wave-lengths and frequencies just men-
tioned. These vibrations do not persist for ever, because
164 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
their energy is gradually transferred to the surrounding
air through the medium of the sound-board of the piano.
We can describe what happens by saying that the piano
string sends out waves of sound into the concert hall, but
it is an equally fair description to say that the energy of
the string is transferred to the free vibrations of the air in
the hall; actually it will be transferred almost exclusively
to those having the same frequencies of vibration as the
string itself, namely middle G and its harmonics. Thus
we have two pictures the wave picture and the free
vibration picture each of which represents the facts
equally well, although each represents only one special
aspect of the facts.
We have mentioned these cases merely as stepping-
stones to a system of still greater complexity, namely the
optical laboratory represented in fig. 9 (p. 159). Radia-
tion can travel through this laboratory just as sound can
travel through a concert hall, and again this radiation can
be represented equally well either as waves or as free
vibrations of definite wave-lengths and frequencies. We
need not associate the vibrations with any special under-
lying mechanism, since a theorem of pure mathematics,
similar to that already mentioned on p. 62, shews that,
quite apart from any special type of mechanism, or indeed
of any mechanism at all, every kind of disturbance can be
pictured as made up of free vibrations.
If the source of light at S emits radiation of any single
definite frequency, the energy it emits is transferred to
various free vibrations of the same frequency in the
laboratory. If we study these vibrations after the manner
of p. 160, we find that, under the special conditions and
with the special arrangement of apparatus already postu-
MATTER AND RADIATION 165
lated, there will be a violent disturbance at R, but no
disturbance at all at P or Q. A source of light at S can
add to the energy of these vibrations by emitting radia-
tion, and, by the same process reversed, a molecule at R
can subtract from their energy by absorbing radiation.
Molecules at P and Q, cannot, however, do this; we have
seen that the vibrations produce no disturbance at P or Q,
which shews that there is no coupling between the free
vibrations of the laboratory set up by the source of light
at S and the molecules at P and Q.
If we now picture the energy of these free vibrations as
that of photons, we can say that the source at S emits
photons of a definite known frequency, and that mole-
cules at R can absorb these photons, while molecules at
P and Q cannot. Thus if we expose a photographic plate
on the wall PRQ, the points P and ( will appear dark on
the plate, while R will appear light. We can make our
picture of the process more vivid by saying that S emits
photons which fall on R but not on P and Q, We are now
picturing the light as consisting of bullets of energy, but
only in a limited sense. We may picture it as bullets
when it leaves , and again when it arrives at R, and this
picture will give us a true account of the phenomena
actually observed. on the other hand, we must not
picture it as bullets while it is passing through the aper-
tures A and B\ if we make this mistake we shall expect
to find P and ? light and R dark, exactly contrary to the
facts of observation. If we want to combine the bullet
and wave aspects in a single picture, we must say, as
before, that light behaves like waves while travelling
through empty space, but like bullets as soon as it en-
counters matter.
166 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
When we adopt the particle picture, we are, in effect,
interpreting the energy of free vibrations of any specified
frequency as energy of photons of the same frequency, but
we must be careful not to identify individual free vibra-
tions with individual photons. The energy of a free
vibration in our laboratory extends through the whole of
the laboratory, and on imagining the walls of the labora-
tory to recede to an infinite distance, we find that the
energy of a free vibration in space extends through the
whole of space. A mathematical theorem shews that the
energy of any isolated disturbance in space can be re-
garded as the sums of the energies of a number of free
vibrations, each extending through the whole of the
available space. This is true no matter how restricted the
area of the disturbance may be, or how large the space
may be; inside the area of the disturbance, the different
vibrations are cumulative in their effects; outside it, they
destroy one another by interference. It is the energies
which reside in such restricted areas, not the energies of
the separate free vibrations, that must be identified with
the photons.
We have not yet found any reason why the energy of
photons should occur only in complete quanta; we shall
only understand the atomic aspect of radiation through a
study of the properties of matter, to which we now turn.
Atomic Spectra
This problem is most naturally approached through a
study of the complex spectra emitted by atoms of the
chemical elements. We have seen that striking a piano
string in any way whatever causes it to emit sound-waves of
various distinct frequencies, which are in the simple ratio
MATTER AND RADIATION 167
1:2:3:4:.... For instance, when the fundamental fre-
quency is 256, the other frequencies are 512, 768, 1024,
and so on all the integral multiples of 256 in succession.
In precisely the same way a mass of incandescent
hydrogen, or of any other chemical element, emits light-
waves of various distinct frequencies, which can be
measured with great accuracy in a spectroscope. These
frequencies are not found to stand in any such simple
ratio as 1:2:3:4:...; indeed, for a long time, no
relation whatever could be discovered between them.
Finally minor regularities began to appear. The fre-
quencies of the three most conspicuous lines in the spec-
trum of hydrogen HQJ, H, HT were found to be in the
ratio 20 : 27 : 32. At first it was conjectured that these
vibrations might be the 20th, 27th and 32nd members of a
series of harmonics similar to those of a piano string, but
it soon became apparent that the vibrations of the hydro-
gen atom were far more complicated than this. Ritz
made a great advance in 1908, when he shewed that all
the intricate frequencies of the light emitted by any single
substance were connected in a very simple way. He
found that there exist a number of fundamental fre-
quencies v^ *% v c > such that the frequencies of the
emitted light are the differences between them, namely
v a v*i *>b ?, v* PC, and so on. Even these funda-
mental frequencies do not stand in any such simple
proportion as the 1:2:3:4:... of a piano wire, al-
though Balmer and others found that for the hydrogen
spectrum they stood in the ratio
L.I. L.I.
1*'2 2 '3 2 *4 2 ""'
which is not very much more complicated.
168 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
The first step towards the interpretation of spectra must
obviously be the assigning of meanings to the frequencies
?a, n, PC, ... etc. This may seem a simple matter, but
actually it has presented a problem of very great diffi-
culty. The clue to its solution was found to lie in a sug-
gestion which had originally been made by Bohr on
theoretical grounds, and was subsequently confirmed
experimentally by Franck and Hertz: An atom can only exist
in certain distinct states possessing different clearly defined amounts
of energy. When it passes from one state to another of lower
energy, the liberated energy forms a single photon.
If we know the amounts of energy in these various
states, Planck's original quantum law will at once tell us
the frequency of the photon emitted at the passage of the
atom from one state to another. For if W a denotes the
energy of the atom before the photon was emitted, and
Wi> the energy afterwards, the amount of energy liberated
is W a Wb, and this must be equal to hv> where v is the
frequency of the single photon emitted.
The frequency of this photon is accordingly given by
_ W _ Wi
h T"'
and we notice at once that the fundamental frequencies
?, v*9 ... of Ritz are merely the energies W a , W^ ... of the
distinct states postulated by Bohr, all divided by h. Thus
the problem of interpreting atomic spectra reduces to
that of assigning meanings to W a , W^ ..., the values of
the energy of the atom in the various distinct states in
which it can exist.
When Bohr attacked this problem in 1913, he adopted
the then current view that the proton and electron of the
MATTER AND RADIATION 169
hydrogen atom were minute particles charged with elec-
tricity, in which case the mutual attraction of the opposite
kinds of electricity would cause the electron to describe an
orbit round the more massive proton, much as a planet
describes its orbit round the sun. In those days the orbit
of a planet round the sun was supposed to be determined
by the inverse-square law of gravitational attraction, so
that it was natural to expect the orbit of the electron to be
determined by the similar law of electrical attraction.
This law would compel the electron to describe a circle
or an ellipse round the proton, but the law of itself gave
no definiteness of size to the atom, and so could not limit
the atom to distinct states with different clearly defined
amounts of energy; it permitted the atom to have any
amount of energy.
Bohr accordingly found it necessary to suppose that the
orbit not only conformed to this law, but to certain other
laws as well. These other laws were of the nature of re-
strictions; they restricted the electron to one or other of
a number of definite clearly defined distances from the
proton. It was rather as though a number of grooves,
some circular and some elliptical in shape, were cut in
the space round the proton. The electron had to stay
in its groove, but its speed of motion was continually
changed as it was accelerated or retarded by the electrical
attraction of the proton, just as the speed of a planet's
motion is continually changed by the gravitational pull
of the sun. Physicists still describe these orbits as Bohr
orbits. An electron might go on describing the same
Bohr orbit for ever, or it might suddenly fall from one
orbit to another of smaller dimensions. When such a fall
occurred, the system lost a certain amount of energy.
170 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
Assuming that this reappeared as a single photon of
radiation, Bohr was able to calculate the frequencies of
the different kinds of photons which could be emitted, in
the way already explained. The frequencies calculated
for the hydrogen atom agreed very closely, and probably
perfectly, with those actually observed in the light emitted
by incandescent hydrogen. This, however, was only a
fragment of a far larger problem, and when more com-
plicated spectra of other substances were discussed in the
same way, Bohr's theory was found to lead to a less per-
fect agreement with experiment. In certain cases, it
quite obviously gave a wrong result, and no conceivable
modification seemed capable of bringing it into line with
the facts of observation.
Observable* and Unobservables
At this stage Heisenberg introduced a new method of
looking at the whole problem, which has proved bril-
liantly successful. In brief Bohr's theory had pictured an
atom as consisting of particles which pushed and pulled
one another about in space and time; it represented a last
brave but unsuccessful attempt to force nature into a
mechanical setting, and to depict the atom as existing in
space and time. The difficulties it encountered seem to
shew the imperfections of both these concepts. Bohr had
pictured the atom as a mechanical structure, but was
finally compelled to suppose that at intervals it evaded
the limitations of this picture, when it passed from one
orbit to another in a wholly non-mechanical way. He
had tried to force the electron into space and time, yet
was finally compelled to postulate jumps which shewed
, no continuity in space-time.
MATTER AND RADIATION 171
Heisenberg did not fetter himself with either mechan-
ical pictures or space-time representations. A priori, as
we have seen, there are very great odds against our being
able to form any kind of visual picture of the fundamen-
tal processes of nature. Heisenberg was not prepared to
handicap his investigation at the outset by assuming a
picture of any kind whatever to be possible. Just as the
visual picture of light as waves in an ether had brought
confusion into optical theory, so he thought that a picture
of an atom as a structure of electrified particles was bound
to bring confusion into atomic physics, as indeed it
obviously was doing.
In place of Bohr's picture concept of an atom, he intro-
duced a new set of ideas which followed naturally on the
changes in scientific outlook which were described in
Chapter m, and can perhaps best be approached through
a consideration of these changes. These had, in effect,
amounted to the dismissal of three concepts from the
scheme of science absolute space, absolute time and
the luminiferous ether. Einstein's successes made it clear
that these three dismissals had started science on the right
road, and by travelling farther along the same road,
Heisenberg was now able to bring order into atomic
physics. Just as the theory of relativity had removed a
whole massi of inconsistencies and contradictions from
large-scale physics and astronomy, creating hardly a
single new difficulty in their place, so Heisenberg's new
line of thought has performed a similar service for atomic
physics.
It was not mere accident that selected the three above-
mentioned entities for dismissal. Our mental activities
are stimulated by sense-impressions which originate
172 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
beyond our senses; to account for these, we invent an
external world of objects and entities, but everything
beyond our senses is pure inference. The inferred entities
are of many kinds, but fall into two distinct categories,
which we may label as "observables" and "unobserv-
ables". In brief the distinction is that the observables
produce a direct effect on our senses, or on the instru-
ments in the laboratory, whereas the unobservables affect
our senses and instruments only indirectly, through the
intervention of observables. A typical observable is a
photon; a typical unobservable is the ether. Both types
of entities may have quantities associated with them, so
that we have "observable" quantities and "unobserv-
able" quantities. An observable quantity admits of di-
rect instrumental observation, whereas an unobservable
quantity can only be a matter for abstract calculation.
Typical of the former is the wave-length of a photon;
typical of the latter is the rigidity of the ether.
The universe of the scientist may be expressed dia-
grammatically somewhat as follows:
Thought
t
Sense-data
Instrumental effects
Observables
t
Unobservables
All the items of the last two categories are purely
inferential, but the type of inference is of course different
in the two categories. The observables certainly repre-
MATTER AND RADIATION 173
sent something objective, because they affect the senses of
everyone in the same way, and affect instruments which
are independent of our individual senses, but the very
existence of the unobservables is in doubt because they
do not affect our senses or instruments at all; unobserv-
ables may represent nothing more than bad guesses. In
brief, the properties of the observables are inferential, but
the very existences of the unobservables are inferential.
We may elaborate our scheme by setting against each
category the principal items which belong to it, when it
will stand somewhat as follows:
Thought
Sense-data Sights, Sounds, Smells, Tastes and
Feelings
Instrumental effects Light, Photographic action, Elec-
tric currents, etc.
Observables Events at hand (impact of photons),
Individual space, Individual time
Unobservables Distant events, Objects, Ether,
Absolute space, Absolute time
This represents the universe as it appears to a scientist
who explores it with the help of instrumental resources;
primitive mart would of course short-circuit the item
"instrumental effects" and pass directly from observ-
ables to sense-data, in the way shewn in our previous
ci i fMrr^tTTH T
The observable ingredients of the external world are
those which directly affect either our instruments or our
senses. At first sight these may seem to be of a vast
number of kinds; actually there is only one the impact
of photons. It is obvious that the imprints on photo-
graphic plates, which play so large a part in modern
174 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
experimental science, are the result solely of the impact
of photons, and that all optical and photometric effects
must be the same. It is less immediately obvious how
effects such as galvanometer deflections, which measure
the passage of an electric current, or thermometer read-
ings, which measure temperature, or the pressure on an
ear-drum which registers the arrival of sound-waves, can
be caused by the impact of photons. Yet they are;
neither a physical instrument nor a sense-organ can
exhibit an effect unless energy is in some way transferred
to it, and all energy which is transferred from one object
to another consists of photons. We are not of course
speaking of photons in the limited sense of bullets of light,
but in the more general sense of bullets of energy, which
we reach by extending the concept of light to all possible
wave-lengths and frequencies. In brief, all instrumental
effects and sense-impressions depend on the transfer of
energy, and all transfer of energy is by photons. So great
a simplification may seem almost too good to be true,
but it -is not pure gain to the scientist, as we shall find
that it imposes very severe restrictions on his exploration
of the universe (p. 230).
In addition to the impact of photons, individual space
and time may properly figure in our list of observables, as
the mental framework in which the arrival of the various
photons is set. When we try to arrange and classify the
photons which impinge on our senses, we find that the
mental creation of a three-dimensional space and a one-
dimensional time instantly introduces complete and per-
fect order.
Out beyond the observables i.e. still farther away
from our senses and instruments come the unobserv-
MATTER AND RADIATION 175
ables. These are mere pictures, images or models, which
science has imagined to exist in reality merely because
they seemed capable of inciting the observables to pro-
duce the effects actually observed. We have, however,
no guarantee that these effects cannot be produced in
other ways. To establish that the supposed unobservables
exist, it would be necessary to shew that nothing else
could produce the observed effects.
The three supposed entities which were dismissed from
science in the previous chapter absolute space, abso-
lute time, and the ether were all drawn from the list
of unobservables, as was of course inevitable. Their fate
naturally raises the question of the status of the two
unobservables which still remain in our scientific scheme
distant events and objects. Are these also mere bad
guesses, made in our hasty efforts to depict, in the light of
inadequate knowledge, an external world of which no
picture is, in all probability, possible?
It may at first seem surprising that material objects
such as electrons, protons and atoms should figure in
our list of unobservables; yet it is here they must be
placed. An eventless electron or proton could never dis-
close its existence to us, and a single electron or proton
must necessarily be eventless. The simplest kind of event
can affect our senses which needs the juxtaposition of at
least two such objects. When the two objects are of the
same kind, the event is an encounter of electrons or
protons such as can be observed in certain favourable
cases. When they are of different kinds, they constitute
a hydrogen atom, and the event is the emission (or
absorption) of any one of the many types of photons which
figure in the hydrogen spectrum. The mere orbital
176 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
motion of an electron round a proton, which figured so
largely in Bohr's theory, is not an observable event. It
emitted no light, and so could not affect our senses.
..We must then regard electrons and protons merely as
unobservable sources of events which are themselves
observable. The millions of electrons and protons in the
sun exist only as inferences, created to explain the stream
of photons which fall on our eyes and skin all day long.
The Stream of Radiation
Heisenberg, holding the views already explained, refused
to concern himself with the unobservable electrons and
protons in distant atoms, and concentrated on the ob-
servable photons which came from them. These form a
mixed bag of distinct kinds, which can be distinguished
primarily by their frequencies. The bag is less like the
bag of animals killed by a sportsman, than like the bag of
tickets taken by a ticket collector on a railroad. For the
principle of Ritz shews that each photon has two funda-
mental frequencies associated with it (its own frequency
being a measure of the distance between the two), just as
each railway ticket has two railway stations associated
with it e.g. Aberdeen to Birmingham. Bohr's theory
had pictured these two frequencies as those of motions in
fixed orbits, and imagined the emission of a photon to be
the result of the passage of an electron from one orbit to
another, just as we may picture the giving up of a rail-
way ticket to be the result of a journey from one railway
station to another. Heisenberg did not tie himself to any
definite picture as to the origin of the photons; he was
concerned only with the stream of light. In terms of our
analogy, he did not try to picture in detail the move-
MATTER AND RADIATION 177
ments of the trains on the railroad, but studied the work-
ings of the system as a whole, as put in evidence by the
stream of tickets forwarded to headquarters by the ticket
collectors. For headquarters were our senses, so that the
tickets were observables, but engines, coaches and pas-
sengers were all unobservables.
Headquarters could gain a great variety of statistical
knowledge from such a collection of tickets; they could
discover, for instance, the total number of passengers
leaving Aberdeen, the total number arriving at Aberdeen,
the total money taken at Aberdeen booking-office, the
total number of miles travelled by passengers starting
from Aberdeen, and so on for every station on the railway.
If they wished to co-ordinate aU this knowledge, they
would probably begin by tabulating the numbers of
tickets issued from every station to every other station.
If we denote the various stations Aberdeen, Birming-
ham, Carlisle, Dundee, Edinburgh, and so on, by A, B,
C 9 D, E, ..., the knowledge could be put in the form:
A B - 23
B > C = 72
A >C = 13, etc.
It could all be very concisely recorded in a table of
double entry, as, for instance:
From A B C D E
To
A
103
23
13
84 22
B
23
207
72
28 43
C
13
72
90
D
84
28
E
22
43
and soon
178 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
A square table of double entry provides the obvious way
of tabulating quantities, each of which is associated with
two others. In mathematics, such a table is called a
matrix, and the entries 103, 23, 13, ... are described as
the elements of the matrix.
The first entry 103 in our particular table would mean
that headquarters received 103 tickets from Aberdeen to
Aberdeen; we may if we like interpret these as platform
tickets, bought at Aberdeen and finished with at Aber-
deen. The entry 23 to the right of this means that 23
people travelled from Aberdeen to Birmingham, while
the entry 23 in the line below means that an equal num-
ber made the same journey reversed. This may or may
not accord with the facts of railway travel, but it does
with the original problem of physics. For this is idealised
until all conditions become as simple as possible; in
particular, the gas which emits the photons is supposed to
be in a steady state. This requires that it shall be in
equilibrium with its own radiation, and so absorb as
many photons of each kind as it emits, except for an
insignificant number which escape to affect our instru-
ments. Thus as many atoms pass from one state to
another, emitting photons, as pass in the reverse di-
rection, absorbing photons. The result is that in the
matrix which specifies the numbers of photons, the
corresponding elements are equal, and the matrix is
"symmetrical" in the sense that each vertical column
contains just the same entries as the corresponding hori-
zontal line.
Our matrix has so far merely specified the numbers
or, perhaps better, the relative proportions of the
different kinds of photons, but this does not contain all
MATTER AND RADIATION 179
the "observable" knowledge at our disposal. A railway
ticket has printed on it the names of two places, and also
the fare, which gives an indication of the distance between
them. In the same way every photon has indelibly and
unalterably stamped on it a quantity,, its frequency,
which tells us the distance between the two fundamental
frequencies associated with it.
Even this does not exhaust our observable knowledge.
It contains our knowledge of the relative numbers of pho-
tons, but not of the manner of their oscillation. A large
mass of experimental evidence shews that the oscillations
of all photons are like those of a pure musical tone; they
can be compared to the up-and-down motion of a point
on the rim of a fly-wheel which goes round-and-round
with absolute evenness.
In mathematics, such oscillations are described as
"simple harmonic". The changes they involve are pro-
portional to those of the quantity cos (2in>t + c), where v
is the frequency of the oscillation, and e fixes its phase
(p. 121). Yet such a formula is too explicit for our
present problem, in which the phase does not permit of
observation.
It is, however, very easy to avoid over-precision of this
type. A well-known theorem of Demoivre tells us that,
if is any quantity whatever,
e = cos + i sin 9,
where e is the ordinary exponential function (so that **
is the quantity e or 2-71828... raised to the power of #),
cos 9 and sin are the ordinary trigonometrical functions,
and t stands for the square root of 1. Any algebraic
quantity C can be represented in the form A + iB, where
180 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
A and B are ordinary numerical quantities, and De-
moivre's theorem now shews that
+ B* [cos (9 + ) + i sin (6 + )],
where depends on the ratio of A to B. If we now assign
to the specific value 2irvt> we find that the first term
V A* + B 2 cos (9 + e) exactly represents the needed
oscillation. We may accordingly represent the oscilla-
tion by Ge**** 9 with the understanding that the parts
multiplied by i are to be ignored; in using such an ex-
pression, we make no claim to know the phase e, because
we do not divide C into its constituent parts A and iB.
This is a useful and very common artifice in the mathe-
matical theory of oscillations and vibrations of all kinds.
Subject to this understanding, the whole of our observ-
able knowledge of the stream of light received from a
mass of, say, hydrogen can be embodied in a single matrix
of the form
Cace** i ( v a- v c')* 9 and so on,
in which v has been replaced by its known value v* v^
etc., where *>, ^, ... are the fundamental frequencies of
Ritz. We do not know the values of v a , v^ ... separately;
but only their differences, which alone occur in the
matrix.
Atomic Structure
Having embodied all our observable knowledge of the
light emitted by, say, hydrogen in such a matrix,
Heisenberg found the clue to his next step in Bohr's earlier
investigation which we have already described. Bohr
MATTER AND RADIATION 181
had pictured the hydrogen atom as consisting of an
electron describing an orbit around a proton, and had
obtained agreement with observation by supposing that
certain "quantum restrictions" only permitted orbits
whose diameters were proportional to the squares of the
integral numbers. The large outer orbits were nearer
together relatively than the small inner orbits, and the
largest orbits of all could be regarded as continuous with
one another, because their distances apart were insig-
nificant compared with their total dimensions. Here we
need no longer think of an electron which passes from one
orbit to the next as jumping; we may think of its motion
as continuous, and of the change in its energy as a con-
tinuous change.
So long as the electron remained in these orbits, Bohr's
quantum restrictions were found to have no restrictive
effect whatever on its motion, so that Bohr's picture of
the atom coincided exactly with the older mechanical
picture. As Bohr's picture predicted an emission of
radiation which agreed with that actually observed, it
follows that the old mechanical picture did the same in
this extreme case of atoms of infinite diameter.
In the case of orbits of very large, but not actually in-
finite, diameter, Bohr shewed that the quantum restric-
tions only came into play to a minute extent, and that the
agreement extended to this case also. This is known as
Bohr's "correspondence principle".
Thus the old mechanical picture of nature predicted
the radiation from very large atoms with accuracy, al-
though it was known to fail badly for ordinary atoms of
small diameter. Heisenberg set himself the problem of
modifying the old picture so that it would remain true to
182 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
observation over its whole range i.e. for small atoms
as well as for large.
As he had resolved to leave unobservables alone, the
only material available for the construction of the new
picture consisted of the matrix just described, and quan-
tities directly reducible from it. Thus the line of attack
was obvious first to try to reconstruct the old picture,
which was valid for very large atoms, in terms of this
material, and then to try to extend the picture to cover
atoms of all sizes.
Each element in the matrix is of course proportional
to the intensity of the corresponding spectral line. If we
halve the amount of gas by which the light is emitted,
we halve the intensity of each spectral line, and so must
halve each element of the matrix. If we reduce each
element by dividing it by a suitable factor, we shall obtain
a "reduced" matrix which will represent the average
light emitted by one single atom.
We have seen how the motion of a particle can always
be represented as compounded of a great number of
oscillations. In the special case in which the atoms are
very large, Heisenberg found that the "reduced" matrix
specifies the position of the point electron of Bohr's pic-
ture, its separate elements representing the separate
oscillations, the compounding of which gives the motion
of the electron.
We must not of course expect a similar interpretation
when the atom is small. Let us however assume that,
even in this case, the hydrogen atom consists of two con-
stituents, which we may still call the proton and electron,
without knowing in the least what these words now
signify.
MATTER AND RADIATION 183
As the matrix was found to specify the position of the
electron in a large atom, Heisenberg imagined that it
must also specify some sort of position of the electron
when the atom was small, although, as we have seen, the
electron must no longer be compared to a point, but
rather to a complete railway system. The elements of the
matrix must no longer be taken to represent oscillations
which can be merely added together; they rather cor-
respond to the journeys of the various trains on the
railway.
It may seem strange that an electron which is de-
scribing a large orbit in an atom can be pictured as a
particle, while an electron which is describing a small
orbit can be pictured as nothing less than a complete
railway system. We must, however, remember that
Heisenberg's matrix is not concerned with a single photon
originating in a single atom, but rather with a beam of
millions of photons of different kinds originating in
innumerable atoms in different states. For this reason,
it could not be expected to give us a picture of the state
of any single individual atom, but only a composite
photograph of all the atoms. We may if we like say that
the reduced matrix gives us a picture of a "statistical
atom" whose properties and qualities are the average of
the properties and qualities of all the actual atoms con-
cerned in the emission of the light.
Each element in the Heisenberg matrix changes with
the time in a calculable way. on replacing each element
by its rate of change, we obtain a second matrix, which
will give a sort of representation of the changes occurring
in the statistical atom somewhat like the speeds of
the trains on our railway system; for large atoms, it
184 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
simply represents the speed of motion of the particle
electron* If we multiply every element by the mass of
an electron, we obtain a matrix which represents the
momentum of the electron.
Heisenberg s relation
Let us denote this last matrix by p, and the original
reduced matrix, which corresponds to the position of the
electron, by q. Heisenberg found himself able to con-
struct a new picture of atomic workings in terms of the
matrices p and q, and this is found to agree exactly with
observation throughout.
This picture does not involve the matrices p and q sep-
arately, but only their product. If p and q were simple
quantities, such as 6 and 8, the product pq would have an
exact meaning, such as 48. With things as they are, the
product pq has no meaning as yet, and we are free to
assign to it any meaning we like. Actually a mathe-
matical theory of matrices had been in existence long
before Heisenberg, and this had assigned a conventional
meaning to the product p q, p multiplied by , and also a
conventional meaning to qp, q multiplied by p. Ifp and q
were mere quantities such as 6 and 8, the product pq
would of course be the same thing as qp, but when they
are matrices, this need not be so. Indeed, on the con-
ventional mathematical interpretations of pq and qp, it is
not so; pq qp has a definite meaning, being itself a
matrix which is usually different from zero.
In the extreme case of an atom of very large radius,
Dirac has shewn that pq qp becomes identical with a
quantity which occurs in ordinary dynamical theory, and
is known as a Poisson-bracket (for our discussion it does
MATTER AND RADIATION 185
not matter what these words mean). Ordinary dynamics
tells us that the Poisson-bracket must retain a constant
value throughout the whole motion, and we have already
seen that ordinary dynamics predicts the radiation from
an atom of very large size with accuracy. Thus a true
picture of the radiative processes of an atom of very large
size can be obtained by supposing that pq qp retains a
constant value.
This picture contains only the "observable" matrix q,
and the matrix p which can be directly derived from it.
It can obviously be extended to small atoms, since every
term in it has a clearly defined meaning for small atoms.
The picture is perfectly precise and clear-cut except for
the evaluation of the constant quantity on the right of
the equation; the only question is whether it is true to
observational facts. Now Heisenberg and a great num-
ber of other workers in this field have jointly shewn that
the whole problem of atomic spectra is solved not a
single old difficulty remaining outstanding, nor a single
new one appearing by supposing that the activities
of the electron conform in every case to the simple law
In this equation is itself a matrix, of the kind known
as a unit diagonal matrix, namely
1
1
1
and so on
in which all the diagonal terms are equal to unity, while
all the rest are equal to zero. Thus the meaning of
186 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
Heisenberg's equation is that, in the matrix pq qp 9 all
those elements which do not occur in the diagonal are
equal to zero (as they would be if p and q were ordinary
numbers or quantities), while all the rest are equal to .
Here h is again Planck's constant which pervades the
whole of small-scale nature. The letter i stands for
V 1, which again pervades all atomic physics, pos-
sibly as representing a transition from some sort of real
time to the time of our observation (p. 100); TT stands
as usual for the number 3- 14159... (the circumference of a
circle in terms of its diameter), while somewhat re-
freshingly, after all the other symbols 2 merely denotes
the ordinary 2 of arithmetic, twice one.
The central fact in the situation is that pq is not equal
to qp. There is nothing mystical or surprising in this,
since p and q are not single quantities, but arrays of
quantities, and the product pq is defined in such a way as
to make it different from qp at the very outset. Yet the
quantities which enter into the arrays p and q are inter-
locked in a curious way, so that p and q may almost be
treated as single quantities rather than as arrays of inde-
pendent quantities. This appears very clearly in the
limiting case of atoms of very large dimensions, in which,
as we have seen, we may think of p and q as the co-
ordinate and momentum of a point-electron.
A simple illustration may explain the nature of this
interlocking. Any pair of independent numbers, say 2, 3,
forms an array of two numbers, but out of these we may
form the algebraic combination 2 + 3V 1, which may
be treated as a single number it is for instance a root of
MATTER AND RADIATION 187
the quadratic equation x* 4* + 13 = although
its constituents 2, 3 do not lose their identities. If we take
P and Q, to be the numbers whose constituents are 2, 3
and 4, 5 respectively, the product PQ has the value
PQ = (2 + 3V r ^l)(4 -j- 5\/~) - - 7 + 22 \/^"l,
which is of the same nature (- 7, 22) as the original
numbers.
Here of course the product PQ appears to be precisely
equal to QP. Yet there is an ambiguity here, since we
have taken no account of the fact that there are two
distinct square roots of 1, of equal values but of
opposite signs. Let us denote these by i and j, and further
agree that any product PQ is to be obtained by putting
V 1 equal to i in the first factor, and equal to j in the
second. With this definition of a product, PQ is not the
same thing as QP; in fact we find that
PQ - QP = (2 + 30(4 + 5j) - (4 + 5f)(2 + 3/)
of which the value is 2 (i j) or 4i.
In some such way as this, we may treat/?, q almost, but
not quite, as single quantities, q being analogous to the
co-ordinate and p to the momentum of a point-electron.
To the extent to which this analogy holds, we find that
pq is analogous to the action (p. 123) of the electron
throughout the description of a complete orbit* measured
in one way, while qp is analogous to this same action
measured in a different way. We now see that the equa-
tion of Heisenberg,
-*-&
* More precisely, 2*pq and 2rqp are analogous.
188 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
merely expresses a relation between two different quanti-
ties, each of which becomes analogous to the action in
an electron-orbit in the limiting case in which this orbit
is of very large dimensions.
Although this equation has so far only been found true
for an "average" or statistical atom (p. 183), yet, as so
often happens in science, its validity appears to extend far
beyond the special conditions which led to its discovery.
The state of any dynamical system can be specified by a
number of co-ordinates (q) 9 and its motion by the values
of the momenta (p) associated with these co-ordinates.
With any such pair of corresponding values assigned to
p and ?, Heisenbergfs relation appears to be confirmed by
observation, although we must remember that the ob-
servations can never be made on single atoms, but only
on statistical assemblies.
This generalisation implies that the equation must hold
for individual atoms, as well as for statistical atoms. This
is necessary to explain why a mass of gas gives a spectrum
of sharp lines. It also shews that each individual electron,
when inside an atom, has the complexity of a whole rail-
way system rather than of a simple moving point; the
picture of an electron as a point in space and time fails,
completely and finally.
To take a further instance, the atoms of a solid body are
in effect a vast number of oscillators vibrating around
positions of equilibrium, the energy of their oscillations
being merely the heat-energy of the solid. Heisenberg's
relation shews that such an oscillator can never be com-
pletely devoid of energy, its oscillations necessarily
possessing or f or f or any such number (n + ) of
quanta of energy to. Thus a solid body can never lose all
MATTER AND RADIATION 189
its heat; even at the absolute zero of temperature, each of
its internal oscillations possesses half a quantum of energy.
Surprising though this conclusion may be, it is strikingly
confirmed by investigations on the specific heats of solids
at low temperatures.
The relation can also be applied to the rotations of
atoms and molecules, when it shews that the angular
momentum must always be one or the other of certain
definite and calculable multiples of h. Transitions from
one of these values of the angular momentum to another
produce the lines observed in band spectra, and the
calculated frequencies are confirmed by observation.
Perhaps, however, the most interesting application of
the equation is to ordinary radiation in empty space.
We have seen (p. 166) how the energy of such radiation
can be regarded as made up of the energies of a number
of separate free vibrations. Heisenberg's relation shews
that the total energy of the free vibrations of any given
frequency v must be an integral multiple of hv, which is
precisely the supposition on which Planck originally
based his quantum theory of radiation. In other words,
the relation shews that all radiation can be regarded as
consisting of indivisible photons each having energy hv\
it brings atomicity into the wave picture of radiation, and
this, in combination with the considerations of p. 164,
establishes the equivalence of the wave picture and the
particle picture.
All this suggests that Heisenberg's relation must be the
ｅxpression of some quite fundamental law which, so far as
we can at present see, must hold throughout the whole of
nature. We shall discuss possible interpretations of this
law below (p. 208).
190 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
Transition to Newtonian Mechanics
The quantities of action which occur in the large-scale
events of everyday life are of course enormously large
multiples of h. For instance, the action for a complete
oscillation of the pendulum of a grandfather clock is about
400,000 seconds X ergs,
while the value of Planck's constant is only
h - 0-000000,000000,000000,000000,006555 seconds X
ergs.
The products pq and qp which occur in Heisenberg's
equation are each of the nature of action, and for tangible
bodies they will be such enormous multiples of A, that the
single h on the right-hand side may be neglected in com-
parison. When this is done, the equation takes the form
P<1 = <lP>
and merely tells us what was accepted without hesitation
for the whole of nature, until challenged by Heisenberg.
This shews very clearly how the new theory of Heisen-
berg gradually fades into the ordinary mechanical theory
of Galileo and Newton as we pass from atomic structures
to objects of tangible size. Primitive man did not regard
a river as a collection of molecules of water but as a con-
tinuous stream, and his more sophisticated descendants,
still treating water as continuous, developed the science
of hydraulics. This was only suited for dealing with
molecules in vast crowds; it gives accurate results for
rivers in which billions of molecules are involved, but fails
for single molecules. In the same way the Newtonian
mechanics was only suited for dealing with processes in
MATTER AND RADIATION 191
which the unit of action h occurred in vast crowds; it gave
accurate results for the motion in large-scale processes,
where billions of units of action were involved, but failed
for sub-atomic processes which involved only single units.
Newtonian mechanics is the limit to which Heisenberg's
picture of nature proceeds when the units of action be-
come so numerous that they can be treated as a crowd.
We may also compare Heisenberg's equation with the
earlier quantum restrictions of Bohr, of which it is of
course the more accurate successor. It used to be sup-
posed that these restrictions were somehow added to the
Ne\vtonian laws; large systems were subject only to the
Newtonian laws, \vhile atomic systems were subject to
these laws and to the quantum restrictions in addition.
Heisenberg^s equation is occasionally discussed in a
similar manner, as though the laws of nature allowed less
liberty to little systems than to big. Actually this is not the
case. The information that little systems obey Heisen-
berg's law only corresponds to what we have already
tacitly assumed about the big systems in supposing that
for them p q is the same thing as qp. We have perfectly
unwittingly assumed this in supposing that big objects
can be represented in time and space. The fact that pq is
not the same thing as qp for sub-atomic nature casts
doubt on whether sub-atomic nature can be represented
in time and space at all, a question to which we shall
return later (p. 252).
Somewhere in Heisenberg's equation the innermost
nature of atomic structure must Ke hidden, if we could
but read the riddle aright. As the equation does not bear
any obvious interpretation on its face, our best procedure
will be to try to construct a kind of model system which
192 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
shall conform to the laws expressed in the equation. If
our attempt succeeds, the model will not necessarily, or
even probably, be identical with any real structure in
nature, but is likely nevertheless to throw some light on
the nature of the atom, for it would be surprising if two
distinct systems, both governed by the same equation, did
not have some properties or characteristics in common.
CHAPTER VI
WAVE-MECHANICS
While Professor Heisenberg of Leipzig was following up
the train of thought described in the preceding chapter,
Prince Louis de Broglie of Paris and Professor Schrodinger
of Berlin were engaged on an independent attack on the
problem of the structure of matter. Between them, they
devised an alternative explanation of the origin of the
spectra of chemical substances, which at first sight seems
to bear but little relation to that of Heisenberg. Sub-
sequently Schrodinger himself, as well as Born and
Wiener, shewed that the two sets of ideas not only led to
the same results, namely those actually observed in na-
ture, but were fundamentally identical. Schrodinger had
in effect obtained a solution of Heisenberg's equation
which admitted of physical representation, and so pro-
vided us with a sort of model of the electron. This model
has proved capable of interpreting all the results actually
observed by spectroscopists. We shall first explain the
work of de Broglie and Schrodinger from this standpoint,
although it will be understood that in the first instance its
authors achieved it entirely independently of Heisen-
bergfs ideas. Later we shall discuss the more physical
concepts of de Broglie and Schrodinger in a less mathe-
matical manner; some readers may prefer to pass directly
to this discussion (p. 203).
193
194 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
The Wave Picture
If any quantity r increases n times as rapidly as a second
quantity q, then we describe n as "the differential co-
efficient of r with respect to (f\ which we write as ~(r).
dq
Any other quantity, such as the product qr, will also have
a differential co-efficient with respect to q, which we write
as | for).
The product qr has a double cause of change, namely
the changes in q and the changes in r. on account of the
first cause, qr changes r times as fast as q; on account of
the second, q times as fast as r. Adding these changes
together, we obtain the relation
We notice that r enters just once in each term of this
equation, so that it can be written in the alternative form
7 f *~
in which we regard as an operator, this meaning that
dq
everything which comes after it must undergo differentia-
tion with respect to q. We also regard q itself as an oper-
ator, meaning that everything that comes after it is to be
multiplied by #, this latter being of course the meaning
in ordinary algebra. As our equation is true whatever r
is, we may write our knowledge in the form
d d
WAVE -MECHANICS 195
in which every symbol is treated as an operator, including
unity on the right-hand side.
If we think of a number, then double it and then halve
it, the final result will of course be the number we first
thought of. In the same way, we may think of any
quantity, perform upon it all the operations directed by
the combination on the left-hand side of the above equa-
tion, and our equation shews that the result will always
be the quantity we first thought of. If we multiply both
sides of the equation by -., it reads
O - =
2mdq q q 2iridq 2m
which, we see at once, is of the same general form as
Heisenberg's relation. Indeed, the two relations become
identical if we take
JL
P 2m dq
When we say that x = 3 is a solution of * 2 + 2 = 11,
we mean that the substitution of 3 for x reduces the equa-
tion to a truism. In the same sense the value we have
just written down for p reduces Heisenberg's equation to a
truism, so that in a certain sense we may say that it is a
solution of this equation. We must not say it is the solu-
tion, or the only solution, any more than that x = 3 is the
only solution of x 2 + 2 = 11, but it is one solution, and so
will shew us something of the meaning of the equation.
In more physical language, it shews us how to construct a
model or picture, which may be only one of many possible
models or pictures, and yet may perhaps tell us some-
thing of the physical meaning of the equation.
196 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
Let us first use it to examine what Heisenberg's equa-
tion means when applied to the motion of a particle, such
as an electron. We need not suppose that the particle is
so minute as to be point-like, but we shall suppose that its
position can be specified by the position of a point in
space, just as the position of a cricket ball can be specified
by the position of its centre, or that of a train by the foot-
plate of its engine. Then we can specify its position (as
on p. 86) by an array of three co-ordinates x, y, , which
we may regard as giving the distances through which the
particle has moved in three directions at right angles to
one another as, for instance, vertical, north-south and
east-west. The speed of motion of the particle will be
specified by a similar array w, z>, 20, and its momentum
by yet a third array a, b, c, in which, however, we know
that a is the same thing as mu, where m is the mass of the
particle. In this simple case, the "solution 35 we have
already obtained for Heisenberg's equation assumes the
form h //
mu = Af (C),
2iri dx
and there will of course be similar values for mv and mw,
the system of three equations thus being symmetrical in
the three co-ordinates *, j>, z. We have, however, seen
(p. 99) that any true picture of nature must be sym-
metrical in the four co-ordinates x 9 y, z and ict of the con-
tinuum. This indicates that our system of three equations
is incomplete; there must be a fourth equation cor-
responding to the co-ordinate ict. This is easily found
tobe h d
me* = : -y (D).
t at
WAVE -MECHANICS 197
If these equations seem meaningless, this is only what
was to be expected. Heisenberg began by conjecturing
that it would prove impossible to construct an intelligible
picture or model of an electron. The fact that our equa-
tion the first step towards such a model already
proves to be unintelligible, suggests that he may have
been right. If the equations had led us to a simple model,
such as a tiny hard sphere, Heisenberg would have stood
convicted of unwarranted pessimism.
We can, nevertheless, infuse a little more physical
meaning into our equations by remembering that both
sides are operators, and so are hungry for something on
which to operate. If each member of the first equation
(C) is given a symbol ^ on which to operate, it becomes
cty _ 2wimu .
d^~~h~^
which is a very familiar equation. Solving it, we find that
^ must be of the form
where C is a constant.
The formulae given on pp. 179, 180 shew that this rep-
resents a train of regular waves. As x changes, the value
of ^ fluctuates between the values +C and C, repeat-
ing itself at regular intervals k/mu. It is beyond the scope
of this book to enter upon either a rigorous or a com-
prehensive discussion of mathematical formulae. The
present discussion is neither, but shews that a momentum
mu is in some way related to a train of regular waves of
wave -length h/mu, or h divided by the momentum in
question.
198 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
Photons have already provided an instance of this, for
we have seen that the wave-length of a photon is equal
to h divided by its momentum. There is experimental
evidence that the relation is equally true for electrons.
In the experiments of G. P. Thomson, a shower of
electrons, all moving with the same speed and in the
same direction, like a regiment of soldiers marching in
perfect order, was allowed to strike on a very thin film
of metal* An older physics would have predicted that
each electron would fight its individual way, as best it
could, through the atoms of the film and their interstices,
so that the current of electricity would emerge on the
other side as a disordered mob of electrons, the indi-
viduals moving at different speeds and in different
directions. Instead of this, the experiments shewed that
they form a perfectly regular wave pattern such as is
shewn in fig. 2 of the frontispiece. Their scramble
through the interstices of the solid has not introduced dis-
order into their formation but a new kind of order. It
has changed the quality of what order there was, and
given it wave-like characteristics.
It is found possible to measure the precise wave-
lengths of these waves. Their wave pattern proves to be
identical with that which is formed by X-rays of a certain
known wave-length, so that this must be the wave-length
of the shower of electrons also. Now the wave-lengths
obtained in this way are found to obey the theoretical
law exactly invariably the wave-length is h divided by
the momentum of each electron in the shower. It is
important to understand that this wave-length has
nothing to do with the spacing of the atoms in the metal
film.
WAVE-MECHANICS 199
Experiments on showers of positively charged protons
have given similar results.
Thus we may proceed with some confidence that we
are on the right road; our picture, however unintelligible
it may be to us, is true to reality.
The wave-length of the electron waves is determined by
the speed of travel of the shower of electrons, and this
shews that the waves cannot have any objective existence
when the shower is travelling through empty space. For
under these conditions "speed of travel" has no meaning
at all this of course is the main message of the theory
of relativity. As soon as a shower of particles encounters
matter of any kind or an electric field, this provides a
frame of reference against which the speed of motion can
be measured, and the ｅxpressions "speed of motion" and
"momentum of a particle" acquire a definite meaning.
There is no reason why the waves should not be real now,
but we shall soon see that even in this case they must
not be supposed to possess any material or substantial
existence.
We can discuss the fourth equation of our group,
equation (D) on p. 196, in precisely the same way. If we
provide a quantity ^ for each side to operate on, we get
an equation of the same type as before, of which the
solution is found to be
This represents vibrations which repeat themselves at
regular intervals h/mc 2 of time. Again we cannot enter
on a rigorous or comprehensive mathematical discussion,
but we see that the existence of a particle of mass is in some
way associated with vibrations of frequency mc*/h.
200 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
The theory of relativity tells us that a particle of mass
m is a storehouse of energy of amount me 2 . Thus the
frequency of vibration is equal to the energy divided by h.
Again photons provide an instance of this, their fre-
quency being equal to their energy divided by h.
The theory of relativity shews that the mass of a moving
particle depends on the speed of motion of the particle,
being proportional to
the factor we have already encountered in Chapter m
(p. 89). Thus a moving particle has a greater mass than
one at rest, and so has also greater energy; actually the
excess is precisely the kinetic energy of its motion. It
follows that a moving particle is associated with more
rapid vibrations than one at rest; its motion increases the
frequency of vibration.
It might seem at first that these vibrations must be
subjective, like the waves just discussed, because they
depend on the speed of motion of the particle, and we
have no objective framework against which to estimate
this speed. Actually this is not the case. Motion with a
speed u increases the rate of oscillation by the factor men-
tioned above, but also, as we saw on p. 91, it increases the
unit of time in precisely the same ratio, so that the two
effects cancel out. Thus no reason has so far appeared
why these vibrations should not be real. If we picture
the electron as oscillating me 2 /h times a second, the wave-
pattern of an electron is very simply explained as result-
ing from the interaction of this oscillating system with the
solid surface on which it falls. Calculation shews that the
WAVE-MECHANICS 201
wave-lengths disclosed by actual experiment would be
produced by the electron-structure vibrating at the rate
of 1-24 X 10 20 (124 million million million) complete
oscillations a second. Thus we have a far more wonder-
ful and surprising picture of the electron than that which
exhibits it as a tiny billiard ball charged with electricity,
although it must be remembered that we are still in the
dark as to how far these vibrations are real, and how far,
like the waves, they are mere mathematical fictions.
Theory and observation agree in suggesting that protons
may also be pictured as performing vibrations, real or
fictitious, at the even greater rate of 229,000 million
million million complete oscillations a second.
We have seen that both waves in space and vibrations
in time are associated with the motion of a particle. We
can combine the two effects in the single formula
this value of ^ satisfying equations (C) and (D) simul-
taneously.
It represents waves of wave-length h/mu 9 travelling in
the direction of # at a speed c*/u . This speed again is one
with which the theory of relativity has made us familiar;
it is the speed of propagation of local time (p. 91). Thus
we see that a particle of mass m moving at a speed u is
in some way related to such a train of waves.
A motion which is performed with varying speed is
related to a more complicated system of waves. As an
illustration, let us consider the special case of an electron
moving in a field of electric force. To simplify the prob-
lem we shall suppose that its speed always remains grnall
in comparison with that of light.
202 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
As we have seen, its motion must conform to the laws of
ordinary mechanics as well as to Heisenberg's restriction.
Ordinary mechanics tells us that a moving electron pos-
sesses kinetic energy of amount \m (u 2 + v* + w*)\ and
that it moves in such a way that the sum of this and its
potential energy, which we may call V, retains a constant
value throughout the motion. If we denote this constant
value by , we know from ordinary mechanics that
\m (u* + v* + w*)=E-V ...... (E)
throughout the motion, while Heisenberg's relation adds
the further restrictions which we can represent in our
model by replacing mu by . , and so on. The com-
2717 dx
bined information leads to the equation
In this equation, as before, every term is to be regarded
as an operator. Let us again supply a symbol ^ for the
operators to act on, without for the moment pausing to
enquire what ^ is. Our equation now becomes
The value of ^ will still oscillate with the time, so that
mathematicians will recognise the equation as expressing
the propagation of waves. The wave-length is no longer
definite; it varies from point to point, being proportional
to 1 / V V, just as the wave-length of light varies as
it passes through a refracting substance. We see that an
electron moving in an electric field is in some way related
WAVE -MECHANICS 203
to waves like those of light moving through a refracting
substance.
De Broglie Waves
The equation we have just obtained is generally known
as Schrodinger's wave equation, because Schrodinger
first obtained it by a distinct method of his own. This
method did not involve passing through the particle con-
cept of an electron at all. Like Heisenberg, Schrodinger
was convinced that Bohr's earlier theory had failed be-
cause it envisaged the electron and proton in the too
precise and too concrete form of small charged particles.
Before Schrodinger came on the scene at all, this failure
had reminded de Broglie of the earlier, and very similar,
failure of the corpuscular theory of light. A theory which
had pictured light as a shower of minute corpuscles had
explained shadows and other simple large-scale proper-
ties of light, but only a wave picture had been found
capable of explaining its more subtle small-scale prop-
erties. In the same way the picture of matter as a collec-
tion of minute particles, namely electrons and protons,
explained some but not all of its properties, and these
were mainly the large-scale properties. De Broglie sus-
pected that a wave picture might be needed to explain
the remainder.
Whatever an electron may be, it must be supposed to
conform, like the rest of nature, to the theory of relativity.
This shews that it is meaningless to assign to an electron
properties which can be specified in space alone; their
description must involve time as well. This may seem a
small clue to go on, but in actual fact it is found to restrict
the structure and behaviour of the unknown object some-
what drastically. We find that if the electron conforms to
204 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
the theory of relativity, it must be possible to picture its
structure mathematically as a system of waves.
For if the structure of an electron at rest is specified in
terms of x, y, z and t, then when the same electron is mov-
ing with a speed u in the direction of x, its specification
will be the same except that x must be replaced by x ut
and t must be replaced by the local time t ^ This
c
is of course the content of the Lorentz transformation,
except that we have disregarded certain small changes
which only become important when the electron is mov-
ing with a speed comparable with that of light.
The change of x into x ut is a necessary consequence
of the motion of the electron; x ut retains its value if
the electron moves with a speed u in the direction of x.
But the change of t into t ^ implies motion of a dif-
c*
ferent type; for this quantity to retain its value, an
unknown something must move with a speed c*/u in the
direction of x. We may picture this as the propagation
of some kind of disturbance, or a system of waves, moving
in the same direction as the electron at a speed c */u, the
speed at which local time is propagated.
A group of waves, each of which was travelling at pre-
cisely the same speed, would of course itself travel at the
same speed as its individual waves. A flash of light pro-
vides an obvious instance of this: it travels at the same
speed as the waves of light which compose it. But clearly
we cannot imagine an electron represented by such a
group, since waves travelling at a uniform speed c*/u
would immediately run away from the electron, which
only travels at the slower speed u.
WAVE -MECHANICS 205
Let us now consider the motion of a group of waves,
anywhere and of any kind, which travel at different
speeds, but momentarily extend through only a small
region of space a storm at sea will help to fix our ideas.
The front of the disturbance will of course forge ahead at
the speed of its fastest wave, but its tail will travel only at
the speed of the slowest. Thus the head and tail will
continually increase their distance apart, so that the
group will spread, while the centre of the group, always
lying between the two, will move at a speed intermediate
between those of the fastest and slowest waves.
There is one case in which these conclusions do not
follow, namely when each constituent wave is already
spread through the whole of space. This is not incom-
patible with the whole system forming a group of finite, or
even small extent, because the outlying waves may neu-
tralise one another completely by destructive interference
(p. 166). Indeed the mathematical theorem to which we
have already referred has shewn that any disturbance, no
matter how restricted, can always be regarded as made up
of constituent waves, each of which extends through
space. A group of waves which is restricted to a small
extent of space in this way is known as a "wave packet".
Analysis shews that a wave packet will in general
spread, but may do so only slowly. When it spreads so
slowly as to remain a compact structure through an
appreciable time, we may properly speak of its speed of
motion, and we find that this need no longer be inter-
mediate between the speeds of the fastest and slowest
waves which enter into its composition. For instance, a
wave packet may itself travel with a speed u, although
each of its constituent waves may have a speed of travel
206 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
near to some quite different speed, such as c*/u. This is of
course exactly what we want if we are to explain the
electron as a group of waves. The condition that the
speeds of the group and of its individual waves shall be
related in this particular way is quite simple; it is that the
frequency of a wave travelling at a speed c z /u shall be
proportional to
which is exactly the relation we have already obtained for
the waves we discussed on p. 200.
Thus we can identify the de Broglie waves we are now
discussing with those previously discussed, the wave-
length and period of vibration being given by the for-
mulae already mentioned, and so proving to be the same
for electrons, protons and photons.
A detailed study confirms that this system of waves will
not run away from the electron. Individual waves are
continually neutralising one another before and behind,
and reinforcing one another in the intermediate regions,
and they do this in just such a way as to build up a per-
manent structure which moves with precisely the speed
of the electron. Except for the fact that the electron-
waves are purely mathematical, their action proves to be
similar to what we see in the ordinary bow wave of a boat.
Although ripples on the surface of the sea may travel
faster or slower than the boat, this complete system of
ripples does not run away from the boat, but progresses
steadily at exactly the speed of the boat.
The speed of light c is necessarily greater than u, the
speed of motion of the electron. The speed c*/u of the
WAVE -MECHANICS 207
waves is greater than the speed of light in just the same
proportion, so that the waves not only travel faster than
the electron, but faster than light itself. For instance,
if the electron is travelling at a quarter the speed of light,
the individual waves travel at four times the speed of
light; if the electron is a slow one, travelling at only a
thousandth part of the speed of light, its waves travel a
thousand times as fast as light, and so a million times as
fast as the electron.
This of course only gives us a mathematical picture of
a kind with which mathematicians are very familiar; they
are accustomed to regarding all kinds of changes as pro-
duced by successions of waves, merely as a convenient
means of description.
We have seen that the wave-lengths and periods of
electrons, protons and photons are all given by the same
formulae, namely
momentum X wave-length = A,
energy X period = h.
It is certainly very remarkable that these formulae are
the same for three such dissimilar objects as electrons,
protons and photons. one possible explanation is of
course that these apparently diverse objects may in the
last resort be of die same nature, at any rate so far as their
oscillations, as expressed by their frequencies and wave-
lengths, are concerned. The fundamental distinction
that electrons and protons carry electric charges, whereas
photons do not, is enough in itself to account for many of
the differences of their properties. Both cany energy and
so possess mass. For a charged particle to carry a finite
amount of energy, it must move more slowly than light,
208 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
whereas for a photon to carry a finite amount of energy,
it must move at precisely the speed of light. This explains
why photons always travel with the speed of light, while
electrons and protons travel more slowly. Again, elec-
trons and protons interact with one another through the
attractions and repulsions of their electric charges,
whereas photons, having no charges, cannot interact with
one another at all. Thus there is considerable justifica-
tion for regarding photons as being of the same nature as
electrons and protons, but without electric charges.
Yet the facts admit of a far wider interpretation than
this. The formulae in question are direct consequences
of Heisenberg's relation, and the whole of the available
observational evidence indicates that this relation is true
throughout all nature; its validity certainly extends be-
yond electrons, photons and protons (p. 188).
Hence it seems probable that the derived formulae also
are valid throughout all nature, the cases of photons,
electrons and protons only providing illustrations of
a quite general truth. In other words, the formulae
may perhaps express some general property of space and
time, rather than of special phenomena or objects in
space and time. Energy for instance may be merely
another way of regarding frequency or time, and mo-
mentum only another way of regarding wave-length or
space. Just as we can regard light almost indifferently as
either waves or particles, so it may be that we can regard
space almost indifferently as either extension or momen-
tum, and time as either oscillations or energy.
There may seem to be two distinct conjectures here;
actually there is only one. For the theory of relativity
shews that space is related to momentum in the same way
WAVE -MECHANICS 209
in which time is related to energy. When the imaginary
observer of the theory of relativity changes his speed of
motion through space, he changes space into time in the
sense already explained; and in precisely the same sense,
and to the same extent, he changes momentum into en-
ergy. In the space-time continuum, momentum and en-
ergy are merged into one, like space and time themselves.
Thus the conservation of energy may admit of inter-
pretation also as a conservation of oscillations; the total
number of oscillations taking place throughout the uni-
verse in unit time may remain constant, and this may give
an absolute measure of time. Similarly the conservation
of momentum may admit of interpretation as a conser-
vation of wave-number (number of waves per unit of
length), and this may give an absolute scale of length.
Modern science has taken a great deal away from the
nature of nineteenth-century science, and may be ex-
pected to supply something to fill the gaps it has created.
The concept of relativity seems to qualify as one of the
new factors; possibly the concept just mentioned may be
another. The mere circumstance that we have to con-
sider such possibilities seriously shews how far removed
the science of to-day is from that of thirty years ago; if, as
we hope, present day science is one stage on from the
world of appearance, as represented by the older science
and the "common-sense" view of nature, towards the
world of reality, the same circumstance may also suggest
how wide is the gulf between appearance and reality.
In any event, the frequencies of electrons and protons
ought to possess the same kind of reality as the corre-
sponding quantities for photons. Now we know some-
thing, at least, as to the reality of these latter frequencies.
210 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
If we turn a dynamo at such a rate that a coil passes
through a magnetic field 50 times every second, we shall
obtain an alternating current with a frequency of 50
cycles a second. Through whatever magnetic leakage
there may be, electric waves will travel out into the sur-
rounding space, and these waves will also have a fre-
quency of 50 cycles a second. If we picture the radiation
as consisting of photons, then the frequency of the pho-
tons will still be 50, and this frequency must be just as real
in time as that of the turbines which drive the dynamo.
It is much the same with wave-length of photons.
When electric waves are sufficiently long, we can map
them out with a spark-gap. We may find, for instance,
that we have to walk 50 feet to pass from one crest to the
next. If we picture the radiation as photons, we must
suppose their wave-length to be 50 feet, and this wave-
length would seem to be just as real a length in space as
the 50 feet we have to walk in order to measure it.
This may seem to suggest that the wave-lengths of pho-
tons are real, although we have just seen that the wave-
lengths of electrons cannot be. We shall soon see that
there is no real contradiction; a want of reality pervades
all and everything, creeping in from a quite unexpected
direction a direction, at any rate, which must seem
very surprising to a mind brought up to think in terms of
the objective concepts of the older physics.
The Nature of Electron Waves
We have obtained a complete mathematical specification
of electron waves, but this tells us nothing as to the true
nature of the waves themselves. Out of the waves which
we find to be connected with the electrons and protons
WAVE-MECHANICS 211
of the atom, mathematical theory can reconstruct the
wave-lengths of the photons which the atom ought to
emit, and finds a perfect agreement with observation.
This tells us something about the wave-lengths, but tells
us nothing about the waves except their lengths. We
have little but conjecture to help us discover of what the
waves actually consist.
It was at first conjectured that they consisted of elec-
tricity. The most directly observable property of the
electron is that it carries a charge of electricity of un-
varying amount it seems to be deprived of most of its
other supposed properties, such as minuteness, hardness,
sphericity, by the wave-mechanics. Thus when it was first
suspected that the electron had a structure, it was natural
to think of this as a structure of electricity. Yet there are two
distinct reasons why this concept cannot be maintained.
In the first place, it is a universal property of every
kind of wave to scatter through space. We may, for
instance, picture a proton at any one instant as a packet
of waves, occupying a diameter of a hundred millionth
part of a centimetre, which is roughly the diameter of the
hydrogen atom, but the waves will rapidly spread so as to
occupy more space than this. Ehrenfest has calculated
that such a bundle of waves would double its linear di-
mensions in a ten million millionth part of a second, so
that obviously such a system of waves would soon grow
too big to shew the spatial properties of a proton. A
smaller bundle of waves would expand even more rapidly.
Mathematical theory shews that it is quite impossible
to devise a system of waves which shall not scatter at all.
Suppose, however, that we could devise a system of waves
which would not scatter to any appreciable extent, while
212 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
a proton or electron was pursuing an undisturbed path
through empty space. Even so, the waves must scatter
as soon as the particle interacts with other matter; we
have direct experimental evidence of this in the wave
patterns they form on a photographic plate. Thus, if the
wave structure of a proton or an electron merely repre-
sented its electric charge, this would be scattered as soon
as the particle encountered matter. Yet observation
shews that this does not occur; electrons and protons
maintain their identity, and preserve their charges intact.
The second objection is even more directly fatal. Let
us consider what will happen to the waves of one electron
when it meets another electron, and the two exert electric
forces on one another. Again the motion of each electron
must conform both to the old mechanics and to Heisen-
berg*s conditions. The old mechanics tells us that the
total energy, which consists of the sum of the kinetic
energies of the two moving particles with the potential
energy added on, retains a constant value which we may
again denote by E. This is expressed by the equation
im( 2 + * 2 + a; 2 ) + m V 2 + v'* + w'*) = E - V 9
where the accented symbols m\ u' 9 v' 9 w' refer to the
second particle. We can now represent Heisenbergfs
L
further conditions by replacing m'u' by -^ , etc., and
2m 5x
we obtain, in place of our previous wave-equation (F) of
p. 202, the new equation
-
dx* dy* dz* dx'* dy'* d
...... (O).
WAVE-MECHANICS 213
This equation still represents the propagation of waves,
but no longer in the ordinary space of three dimensions,
having x,y, z as co-ordinates. The waves are propagated
in a six-dimensional space having #, j?, , #', j?', z f for co-
ordinates. In the same way, if a million electrons met,
their waves would be propagated in a space of three
million dimensions. Such a space can only be regarded
as a mathematical fiction, and as we cannot suppose
waves to be more real than the space through which they
are propagated, the waves must be of the same nature.
We have seen that the waves of a single electron are
propagated in a space of only three-dimensions. We
might be tempted to identify this with the space of every-
day life, and conclude that the waves were real, were it
not for the possibility of this electron meeting a second
electron. When two electrons meet, they meet on an
equal footing, so that neither of their sets of waves can
claim a greater reality than the other. If we are asked to
say which set of waves is real, we can only perform a
judgment of Solomon, and declare that both are fictitious.
And this makes it impossible that the waves should con-
sist of electricity, or indeed of anything else which exists
in our ordinary everyday space.
Yet before leaving this as a final statement of truth, we
shall do well to consider precisely what we mean by
"fictitious".
Photon Waves
The waves of a photon are of course the ordinary light-
waves of the undulatory theory. If the light is of fre-
quency ?, the equation which governs their propagation is
/d* + d* + d* \ , + 47rV , __
\dx 2 dy* dz 2 ) c*
214 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
in which ^ is any component of electric or magnetic force
or any linear combination of components. This can be
shewn to be precisely identical mutatis mutandis with
Schrodinger's equation (F) (p. 202) for the propagation
of the electron waves of a single electron.
But when two photons meet, the equation of wave-
propagation is not identical mutatis mutandis with Schro-
dinger's equation (G). In fact it is still equation (H).
The reasons for the divergence here is of course that
photons do not interact when they meet, whereas electrons
do; this again can be traced back to the fact that photons
do not carry electric charges as electrons do. Thus, al-
though the waves of a million electrons need a space of
three million dimensions for their proper representation,
a space of three dimensions suffices for the waves of a
million photons. Now we may properly identify this
latter space with the space of our everyday life. For this
is the space in which we see the sun, moon and stars,
which again is the space in which the photons from the
sun, moon and stars travel, and ultimately reach us.
This is precisely the space of equation (H).
Thus we may say that photon waves can be represented
in our ordinary everyday space this indeed is the
definition of this space but that electron waves cannot
be so represented.
Let us, however, proceed somewhat further with our
comparison or contrast of electron waves with photon
waves. on p. 159 we discussed an experiment in which
monochromatic light was passed through two pin-holes
and made to form a pattern of light and dark bands
by interference. If the pattern is formed on a sensitive
photographic plate, chemical action will occur at places
WAVE-MECHANICS 215
where the pattern is light, but none where it is dark. Let
us now picture our monochromatic light as a shower of
photons, all having the same wave-length and so also the
same momentum. We have seen that photons do not
admit of localisation at single points of space; they are
merely free vibrations of the laboratory (p. 166) or else
the waves of such vibrations combined into wave packets
(p. 205).
Suppose, however, that we press the bullet aspect of
radiation to the illegitimate extreme of supposing that
each photon can be localised at a particular point of space.
Then, to make our picture consistent, we must suppose
that no photons fall on our screen where the interference
pattern is absolutely dark; they all fall where it is light.
Indeed, we must suppose that the number which falls on
any small area of the screen is precisely proportional to
the total illumination of the screen. We can even dis-
pense with the screen altogether, and speak of the number
of photons in a small volume of empty space; this num-
ber will of course be proportional to the total amount of
light-energy in the volume of space in question. To see
that this is a legitimate and necessary extension of our
ideas, we need only imagine a small screen placed at the
far end the end away from the light of the small
piece of space in question. This will catch the photons,
much as a fish-net catches the fish swimming into it, and
it is easy to see that the light-energy per unit volume of
space is exactly proportional to the number of photons
in this unit volume.
Electrical theory, however, teaches us to regard energy
as being spread continuously through space, not con-
centrated in the isolated points which happen to be
216 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
occupied by photons. How are we to reconcile this with
our supposition that the energy is merely the aggre-
gate energy of individual photons occurring at isolated
points?
The ordinary theory of gases (p. 156) points the way.
It shews us a gas as a number of bullet-like projectiles
its molecules. The mass of the gas is concentrated wholly
in the few points of space which happen to be occupied by
molecules. Nevertheless when we speak of the density of
the gas, we suddenly change our picture; we form, so to
speak, an out-of-focus picture in our minds in which the
separate molecules are blurred into a continuous cloud,
and what we describe as the density of the gas is merely
the density of this blurred cloud, which we see spread
continuously through space.
When we put this picture back into sharp focus, we
see the separate molecules again. We see] that the true
density of matter varies abruptly from point to point it
is large here, where there happens to be a molecule, and
zero at an adjacent point where there is no molecule.
Yet our fohner conception of a density which varied con-
tinuously from point to point still retains a perfectly pre-
cise and clear-cut meaning. It is this: if we take a tiny
fragment of space surrounding a point P, the chance of
our finding a molecule inside it is exactly proportional to
the density at P.
So, when we picture a beam of light as a shower of
bullet-like photons, we must suppose that the density of
light-energy at each point of space gives a measure of the
chance of our finding a photon there. In ordinary elec-
trical theory the density of light-energy is shewn to be
E 2 + H 2 , where E and Hare the electrical and magnetic
WAVE-MECHANICS 217
forces measured in suitable units.* Thus in our photon-
picture of light, we may interpret E and H as quantities
which between them give a measure of the probability of
our finding a photon at a particular spot in space.
If we take Schrodinger's equation which governs the
propagation of electron waves, and make the changes ap-
propriate to the transition from an electron to a photon,
we obtain, as we have seen, the equation of propagation
of electric disturbances, of which waves of light form a
special case. Thus Schrodinger's quantity ^ must in some
way be analogous to the quantities which specify electric
disturbance i.e. to electric and magnetic force. These
latter provide us with a measure of the probability of
finding a photon at a particular spot when we picture
photons as being localised at points of space, and in the
same way $ must provide a measure of the probability
of finding an electron at a particular spot when we
picture electrons as being localised at points.
Mathematical theory discloses the exact relation be-
tween # and the probability in question. The propaga-
tion of electric disturbance is determined by the equation
where E and H are the electric and magnetic force,t i is
the square root of 1, aodjij* jz> ji are symbols whose
exact meaning does not matter at the moment. They are
* In the more ordinary units, the density of energy is of course
t Actually E f iH stands for the six-vector X + to, *" + % + nr
X -f ao, T -f #, -f i% and the equation must be read as a vector
equation. Hie vanishing of the four components of the vector on the left
then give Maxwell's eight equations exactly.
218 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
a sort of geometrical square roots of 1, being unit
vectors drawn in the directions of the axes of x 9 y, a and r
respectively, where r = id.
We may compare this with the equation for the propa-
gation of electron waves, which Dirac has reduced to
the form
Here ^ is the symbol which appears in Schrodinger's
equation, and m is the mass of the electron, this intro-
ducing a new term which did not appear in the photon
equation above. Again E^ E% E^ Ei are symbols whose
exact meaning does not matter at the moment. Like
ji9J*>j*9J* they are square roots of 1, but being matrices
they no longer admit of simple geometrical interpretation.
This re-affirms the fact already noticed (p. 214), that
photon waves can be represented in space and time,
whereas electron waves cannot.
A comparison of the two equations immediately sug-
gests that ^ for an electron is the analogue of E + iH for
a photon. We have already seen (p. 179) that ^ will have
an imaginary part as well as a real part, so that we may
replace ^ by ^i + t^* Then ty\ is analogous to E and fa
to T, so that fa 2 + fa 2 is analogous to E 2 + H* which, as
we saw, gives a measure of the chance of finding a photon
at a particular spot of space, when we picture photons
as existing at spots in space.
Waves of Probability
Reasons of this kind led Born to conjecture that, if we try
to locate electrons at spots in space, the value of fa 2 + fa*
WAVE -MECHANICS 219
at any particular spot in space will give a measure of the
probability of our finding an electron there. Such a
statistical interpretation is in keeping with the statistical
origin of the wave-mechanics. As Heisenberg's relation
was obtained from statistical data, our working model
of this relation is a priori likely to be only of statistical
significance.
We can test the truth of the foregoing conjecture in
various ways, and it emerges triumphantly from all.
To fix our ideas, let us return to the experiments we
have already discussed, in which a current of electricity
passes through a thin metal film, and emerges on the
other side with the attributes of waves. We have to sup-
pose, as on p. 200, that the oscillation-characteristic was
inherent in the electrons of the current from the outset,
and that as soon as the stream impinged on the film these
oscillations gave rise to waves. The stream accordingly
emerged from the film with the characteristics of a group
of waves. There would be crests and troughs giving rise
to places of great wave-intensity, and quiescent regions
of small or zero wave-intensity. If we picture the current
as a shower of point-electrons, then there would be many
electrons at places where the wave-intensity was great,
few electrons where it was small, and no electrons at all
at places of complete quiescence, and the same would
remain true after the current had emerged from the film.
This exactly explains the pattern formed on the photo-
graphic plate.
Now let us gradually reduce the strength of our electric
current until it almost vanishes, and let us consider what
happens in an interval of time so short that only one
electron passes. Broken electrons and fractions of elec-
220 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
trons are never found in nature, so that to keep our pic-
ture consistent with the known facts of nature, we must
suppose that our single electron is not broken up by the
experiment, but retains its identity, and emerges from the
experiment, as it went in, a single particle charged with
electricity. Thus it can only interact with a single particle
of the sensitised plate at one single point. It cannot form
a complete pattern; only a shower of electrons can do this.
The light and dark of the pattern previously formed by a
whole shower have, however, given a sort of graphical
representation of the probabilities of any individual
electron striking particular spots. Thus when our solitary
electron comes along, there is no chance at all of its
striking a spot where the previous pattern was dark; a
million million electrons have already taken their chances
of hitting such a spot, and not a single one succeeded in
doing so, so that the chance that this isolated traveller will
do so is nil. But there is a finite chance that the electron
will strike any area which was bright in the previous pat-
tern, and this chance is proportional to the total bright-
ness of the area in question. Before performing the
experiment with the single electron, we can only say that
the chances of such and such a result are so and so, the
various probabilities being determined by the waves
specified by the Schrodinger equation.
In this way electron waves become reduced to mere
diagrammatic representations of probabilities, and this
explains at once why they need a space having three times
as many dimensions as there are electrons. When, how-
ever, there is only one electron, or a shower of electrons
whose motion is indistinguishable from one another, only
three dimensions are needed for our diagram, and it is
WAVE -MECHANICS 221
natural to think of this as constructed in ordinary space,
In this sense we may think of the Schrodinger waves of a
single electron as existing in ordinary space, although we
must always remember that they are mere mathematical
waves, and possess no physical reality.
Ordinary material waves, such as waves of sound or
ripples on the surface of water, spread their energy about
until finally it is diffused through the whole of the space
accessible to the waves. The total amount of energy
remains the same throughout, the process of wave-propa-
gation merely altering its distribution in space.
The conjecture we are now considering endows elec-
tron waves with an analogous property. on passing from
material waves to electron waves, we replace energy by
the chance of finding an electron. Just as the total energy
of the material wave remained constant throughout, so of
course does the total probability in the electron wave,
since the aggregate of all the probabilities at the different
points of space must always be exactly equal to the total
number of electrons.
When a material wave meets a surface of another sub-
stance, part of it may be reflected and part of it trans-
mitted, the total energy of the two new waves being
exactly equal to that of the old. In the same way, when
an electron meets a material surface, its probability wave
breaks up into two parts, a transmitted wave and a re-
flected wave, which represent the probabilities of the
electron being transmitted and reflected respectively.
Just as the total energy remains unaffected in a material
wave, so does the total probability here. This circum-
stance endows the Schrodinger waves with many of the
attributes of material waves, although it naturally does
222 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
not provide the slightest justification for supposing that
they are material waves.
It may at first seem strange that a probability should be
propagated in so distinct a wave-like form, with a defi-
nite wave-length and period of oscillation. It seems less
strange when we notice that a probability field must con-
form to the theory of relativity and so may be treated
precisely in the way in which we treated the supposed
structure of an electron on p. 203. With this in mind, we
see at once that probabilities must necessarily be propa-
gated in waves, the whole group of waves travelling
with exactly the known speed of die electron.
We do not of course solve the whole problem of the
nature of these waves by describing them as waves of
probability; before our task is finished, we must specify
the meaning of probability with far greater precision
than has yet been done.
The mention of a probability in ordinary life implies
that our knowledge is in some way imperfect. We speak,
let us say, of the "probability" of a good channel crossing
as we travel in the train to Dover, although we should not
do so if we knew the state of the sea. one man may say,
"The sea is only rough one day in three this month, so
that the odds are two to one that we shall have a good
crossing". Another may say, "The odds are better than
that, for the weather forecast predicts a smooth sea, and
it is right 95 times out of 100". A third may say, "It is
practically certain, for I saw this morning's telegram at
the Meteorological Office saying there was a smooth sea
and no wind". These estimates of probability are all
different, and yet they can all be correct; this is possible
because probability involves two things, a future event
WAVE -MECHANICS 223
and present knowledge. We have interpreted the system
of Schrbdinger waves as giving a definite estimate of the
probability of a future event, and must proceed to in-
quire: Relative to what present knowledge is this a true
estimate of probability?
Let us first notice that as our knowledge increases, the
probability of a smooth sea or any other event continually
approximates to either zero or unity; it gradually changes
into a certainty, either one way or another. The meteoro-
logical expert who is armed with the latest telegrams need
hardly use the word probability at all; he can say with
practical certainty either that the sea will be smooth, or
that it will be rough.
In physics we may need to speak of the probability of a
future event, or of the result of an experiment, for either
of two reasons it may be that we have inadequate
knowledge of present conditions, or it may be that even
when present conditions are fully known, there is still
uncertainty about the future in other words, the prin-
ciple of the uniformity of nature may fail.
Subjective Probability
on the former alternative, the probability of a specified
future happening, or result to an experiment, is a sub-
jective probability; if we have different amounts of
knowledge as to present conditions, your estimate of the
probability may be different from mine, and yet we may
both be right. on the latter alternative, the probability
is wholly objective; even nature herself does not know the
result of the experiment until after it has happened. The
question "What is the probability of a specified result?**
admits of only one answer.
224 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
The former was the only alternative which the nine-
teenth-century physicist would have admitted at all. He
would have dismissed the second as preposterous, as
indeed the scientific layman still does. Unaccustomed to
thinking beyond the apparent determinism of the natural
events which make up his everyday experience, he un-
consciously assumes that a similar determinism must
permeate nature even down to its most small-scale opera-
tions, and denounces any alternative as illogical or
contrary to the laws of nature often with much heat
and emotion.
Let us again concentrate on the particular instance of
the single electron shot at the thin metal film. The lay-
man in science, like the physicist of the old school, would
probably say its path would be determined by the ob-
stacles it met in the film. If he played billiards, he would
know that when one ball hits another a slight difference
in the path before impact may make a very great differ-
ence in the path after impact. So he might argue that,
as we could not know the exact circumstances of the
collision between the electron and the atom or atoms
which deflected it, we could not know the final path of
the electron and so could only speak of the "probabilities"
of one path or another.
This interpretation of probability will not stand
scrutiny, since the wave-length underlying the pattern
does not depend on the spacing of atoms in the film, but
solely on the speed of the electron.
Objective Probability
The second alternative, which postulates indeterminacy in
nature, although foreign to nineteenth-century thought,
WAVE-MECHANICS 225
has a far longer history than the former. When the
more intelligent of our remote ancestors said that the
prospects of a fair crossing depended on the whims of
Poseidon and Boreas, they did little more than personify
nature and attribute indeterminacy to her. Even up to
the time of Newton, the concept of indeterminacy played
a large part in science. The experiment of letting a
shower of electrons fall on a metal film has its optical
counterpart in the falling of a beam of light on the surface
of a transparent substance. Some of the light is reflected,
and some transmitted, so that when moonlight falls on the
surface of the sea, some enters our eyes and we see a re-
flection of the moon, while the remainder lights up the
depths of the sea so that the fishes too can see the moon.
If we picture the moonlight as a shower of photons, then
clearly some photons must undergo reflection at the sur-
face of the water, while others do not. If, however, the
beam is reduced to a single photon, then since photons are
indivisible the whole beam must go either one way or the
other, and we shall only be able to speak of the "proba-
bility" of its being reflected or transmitted.
Newton, who regarded a beam of light as a shower of
bullet-like corpuscles, encountered a similar difficulty,
and met it by imagining that the molecules which formed
the surface of the water suffered from "alternate fits of
easy transmission and of easy reflection".
It is not clear what precise degree of absence of deter-
minism may have been implied in this. Whatever it was,
it left science when the corpuscular theory of light gave
place to the undulatory, only to reappear in the pres-
ent picture which envisages a beam of light as a shower
of indivisible protons. Like its predecessor, the light-
226 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
corpuscle, a photon may follow one path or another, but
cannot distribute itself over two paths, and once again its
choice becomes, to all appearances, a matter of proba-
bility.
Instances of a similar apparent want of determinism
have recently appeared in other departments of physics.
A conspicuous instance is provided by radio-active trans-
formation. In 1903 Rutherford and Soddy found that
radio-active substances disintegrate in a way they de-
scribed as "spontaneous" the rate of decay cannot be
expedited or retarded by any known physical process.
Each year a certain fraction of all the atoms of radium in
the world disintegrate into simpler atoms, the individual
atoms being to all appearances selected by pure chance
and nothing else. If anything else could select them, it
ought to be possible to concentrate the selecting agency
on one special sample of radium and expedite its dis-
integration. So far no such selecting agency has been
discovered, and theoretical considerations make it highly
probable that, apart from extreme heat such as cannot be
produced on earth, none such can exist.
In 1917 a theoretical investigation by Einstein seemed
to shew that spontaneous processes of this kind must
pervade the whole of nature. He began by supposing
that atoms could only exist in certain distinct states
the suppositions which had previously been made by
Bohr (p. 53), and subsequently received experimental
confirmation in the experiments of Franck and Hertz
and that they absorbed or emitted energy by complete
photons in passing from one state to another. He then
shewed that ordinary temperature radiation (p. 150)
could be interpreted as an assemblage of photons pro-
WAVE -MECHANICS 227
duced in this way, but only on certain conditions. Many
of the photons observed in the radiation could be ac-
counted for by the interaction between the radiation
itself and the atoms of the substance, but Einstein shewed
that a residue remained, which could only be accounted
for on the supposition that the atoms fell spontaneously
from one of their possible states to another. Thus even
the familiar everyday phenomena of temperature radia-
tion seem to call for some sort of action which is incon-
sistent with a strict determinism.
Einstein is of the opinion that these particular phe-
nomena are consistent neither with indeterminism nor
with causality as at present understood. He says:*
"Indeterminism is quite an illogical concept. ... If I say
that the average life-span of a radioactive atom is such and
such, that is a statement which expresses a certain order
(Gesetzlichkeii). But this idea does not of itself involve the idea
of causation. We call it the law of averages; but not every
such law need have a causal significance. At the same time
if I say that the average life-span of such an atom is indeter-
mined in the sense of being not caused, then I am talking
nonsense. . . .
"When Aristotle and the scholastics defined what they
meant by a cause, the idea of objective experiment in the
scientific sense had not yet arisen. Therefore they were con-
tent with defining the metaphysical concept of cause. And
the same is true of Kant. Newton himself seems to have
realized that this pre-scientific formulation of the causal prin-
ciple would prove insufficient for modern physics. . . . Now
I believe that events in nature are controlled by a much stricter
and more closely binding law than we suspect to-day, when we
speak of one event being the cause of another. Our concept
here is confined to one happening within one time-section.
* Where is Science going? by Max Planck (1933), pp. 202, 203.
228 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
It is dissected from the whole process. Our present rough way
of applying the causal principle is quite superficial. We are
like a child who judges a poem by the rhyme and knows
nothing of the rhythmic pattern. Or we are like a juvenile
learner at the piano, just relating one note to that which im-
mediately precedes or follows. To an extent this may be very
well when one is dealing with very simple and primitive com-
positions; but it will not do for the interpretation of a Bach
Fugue. Quantum physics has presented us with very com-
plex processes and to meet them we must further enlarge and
refine our concept of causality".
Professor Weyl of Gottingen, writing on the meta-
physical implications of science, expresses the same
opinion*:
"These considerations force upon us the impression that
the law of causality as a principle of natural science is one
incapable of formulation in a few words, and is not a self-
contained exact law. Its content can in fact only be made
dear in connection with a complete phenomenological descrip-
tion of how reality constitutes itself from the immediate data
of consciousness".
Even though a certain measure of indeterminism may
appear necessary to explain certain small-scale phe-
nomena, the principle of the uniformity of nature still
prevails so long as nature is only studied in appreciable
amounts. Even the tiniest bit of matter we can perceive
through our senses contains billions of atoms, and if each
of these is free to go to the right or left as it pleases, the
laws of probability secure that, as far as our senses can
tell, half will go each way. For this reason, our everyday
experience will never shew us any violations of the so-
* The Open World (1932), p. 43.
WAVE -MECHANICS 229
called law of the uniformity of nature, and the man whose
thoughts are guided only by intuition or instinct, or who
holds to the common-sense view of nature, is certain to
be a determinist.
We shall return to a discussion of this question after
obtaining further evidence in the next chapter.
CHAPTER VII
INDETERMINACY
We have seen that our whole knowledge of the external
world of physics may be pictured as arising from the im-
pact of photons of energy either on our sense organs or
on our physical instruments. As these photons occur in
such profusion and variety, it might have been hoped
that they would give us an almost perfect knowledge of
the outer world.
Yet, as a means of acquiring knowledge, photons suffer
from one very serious limitation. They are indivisible; no
experiment has ever revealed a fraction of a photon or
given any reason for supposing that energy can be either
emitted or absorbed in fractions of photons. Thus the
only means which are at our disposal for the study of
physical nature suffer from a certain coarse-grairiedness.
This is of little consequence as regards direct study by
our senses, since these are even more coarse-grained.
Each sense has its perceptions limited by a certain
"threshold of sensation", and if the stimulus of a physical
effect falls below this, the sense in question registers
nothing at all. We cannot experience the sweetness of a
single molecule of sugar, nor the smell of a single molecule
of musk; neither can we hear a bell at more than a certain
limit of distance, nor see a star which is below a certain
limit of faintness. In general we cannot experience a
single photon; thousands at least are necessary to attain
the threshold of sensation.
230
INDETERMINACY 231
Our physical instruments have in a sense a similar
"threshold of sensation", this being the arrival of a sin-
gle complete photon. Like all other physical structures,
they accept energy and momentum only by complete
photons.
The Uncertainty Principle
Thus the most refined piece of information we can obtain
about any piece of the universe is that conveyed by the
arrival of a single photon. This transfers to our instru-
ment energy and momentum which it has brought with
it from the fragment of the external world in which it
originated. Now just as a shot gives a backward kick to
the gun from which it is fired, so a photon gives a back-
ward kick to the atom which sends it out, and through
this atom to the fragment of the universe which we are
trying to study. Thus it may give us accurate news of the
universe as it was, but the kick it gave to the universe in
leaving it to bring us news makes the news out of date
before it reaches us; we receive news only of an old uni-
verse which has already passed away.
It might be thought that as photons carry all possible
amounts of momentum ranging from zero upwards, we
could obtain as accurate information as we pleased by
employing photons of small momentum. This is, in the
abstract, true; in practise it only shifts the difficulty. For
photons of small momentum have such long periods of
oscillation that we cannot fix the instant to which their
information refers with any great precision; it is like try-
ing to time a hundred yards race with a grandfather clock
that only ticks seconds.
Thus we are confronted with the dilemma that one
kind of photons are so energetic that they give the uni-
232 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
verse a violent kick before leaving it, and so give us in-
exact information about its present condition, while the
other kind are so slow in telling their story when
they arrive that they cannot give us exact informa-
tion in respect of time. Intermediate kinds fail jin both
respects.
Science has found no way out of this dilemma. on the
contrary, it has proved that there is no way out. What
is known as Heisenberg's "principle of indeterminacy"
or "uncertainty principle" shews that so long as we can
only explore nature by complete photons, there is no
hope of obtaining information which is perfectly exact
with respect to both time and space. Exactness in either
direction is obtained at the price of inexactness in the
other; we can only prevent the shoe pinching at one place
by letting it pinch at another.
Exact mathematical discussion shews that, as we try
one kind of photon after another, the product of the two
errors can never fall below a certain minimum value. If
the experiments are designed and performed with perfect
skill, the product of the two errors is the same for all kinds
of photons, and is equal to this mtefrniim value.
For instance, to obtain a complete knowledge of the
motion of a particle, we need two data the exact
instant at which the particle passes an assigned landmark
in our apparatus, and the exact speed with which it is
moving as it passes this landmark. If we agree to measure
the speed of our particle in terms of its momentum, then
we find that the product of the errors in position and mo-
mentum can never be less than Planck's constant h. We
have already noticed how this quantity dominates the
whole of atomic physics. We come upon it here as speci-
INDETERMINACY 233
fying the coarseness of the probe, the photon, with which
we are trying to penetrate the outer world.
In centimetre-gramme-second units, the value of h is
6-55 X 10" 27 and the mass of an electron is 9 X lO" 27 .
Thus the product of the uncertainties in the position and
speed of an electron, measured in the same units, is 0-73.
For instance, if, by letting it make a flash on a screen, or
by any other means, I discover that an electron is within
a hundredth of a centimetre of a certain point, then the
speed of its motion will necessarily be uncertain to at
least 73 centimetres a second the rate of a slow walk.
We have so far pictured an electron as a particle, but
we can also picture it in terms of Schrodinger waves. If
the two pictures specify the same object, we ought of
course to be able to derive precisely the same "principle
of uncertainty" from the wave picture as we have already
derived from the particle picture. We shall now see that
this can be done.
When we regard an electron as a system of waves, their
wave-length depends on the speed of the electron in the
way already described. Thus the problem of measuring
this speed with exactness reduces to that of specifying a
wave-length with exactness. Abstract mathematics shews
that this cannot be done unless we have an infinite num-
ber of waves at our disposal; with fewer waves the con-
cept of wave-length has no exact meaning. If we have
a Tnillion waves at our disposal, we can measure their
wave-length to within something like a millionth part of
its amount, but to speak of measuring it more accurately
than this is meaningless.
We can illustrate this point of pure mathematics by the
difficulties which arise when we try to measure the wave-
234 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
length of a finite train of waves in the laboratory. For
simplicity let us suppose they are wireless waves, and that
we allow them to fall on an ordinary wireless receiving
set, which can be tuned to any wave-length we please.
Any train of waves will set up disturbance by resonance
over a wave-band of finite width. As we lengthen the
train of waves, the interference with neighbouring wave-
lengths diminishes, but it does not completely disappear
until the train of waves is made infinitely long. only
then can we say that the waves have a clearly defined
wave-length.
It follows that we cannot specify the speed of motion
of an electron with perfect precision unless it is repre-
sented by an infinitely long train of waves. But since we
have seen that the waves represent the probabilities of
finding the electron in different positions in space, the
electron may be anywhere along the whole length of the
train, and an infinitely long train of waves implies an
uncertainty of infinite amount as to the position of the
electron.
Let us now pass to the other extreme, and imagine an
infinitely short train of waves to pass over the receiving
set. The set sees nothing in such a train of waves but a
mere sudden disturbance, which disappears the instant it
has come into being. As every wireless expert knows,
such a disturbance affects all wave-lengths indiscrimi-
nately, and so cannot be said itself to have any definite
wave-length. An infinitely short train of waves of this
kind represents an electron whose position can be speci-
fied with precision, but we see that its wave-length, and
so also the momentum and speed of its motion, are com-
pletely indefinite.
INDETERMINACY 235
A mathematical discussion of intermediate cases leads
to exactly the principle of indeterminacy already ex-
plained. Greater precision in momentum implies greater
uncertainty in position, and vice-versa; the product of the
two uncertainties can never be less than Planck's constant
h, and, under the most favourable circumstances, is
exactly equal to h.
Interpretation of the Wave Picture
It is not surprising that the particle picture and the wave
picture lead to the same "principle of uncertainty"; there
would have been something wrong had they not done so.
Yet they lead to this principle in very different ways.
When we use the particle picture of an electron, the
uncertainty refers to the knowledge of nature we obtain
through experiments on nature. When we use the wave
picture, we find that the uncertainty is inherent in the
picture itself. In brief, the particle picture tells us that
our knowledge of an electron is indeterminate; the wave
picture that the electron itself is indeterminate, regardless
of whether experiments are performed upon it or not.
Yet the content of the uncertainty principle must be
exactly the same in the two cases. There is only one way
of making it so; we must suppose that the wave picture
provides a representation, not of objective nature, but
only of our knowledge of nature.
Earlier in our book we saw nineteenth-century science
trying to explore nature as the explorer explores the desert
from an aeroplane. The uncertainty principle makes it
clear that nature cannot be explored in this detached
way; we can only explore it by tramping over it and
disturbing it; and our vision of nature includes the clouds
236 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
of dust we ourselves kick up. We may make clouds of
different kinds, but the uncertainty principle shews that
there is no way of crossing the desert without raising a
cloud of some kind or other to obstruct our view. The
wave picture depicts the blurred view of nature that we
see through these dust clouds, so that, as we shall shortly
see, there are as many wave pictures as there are ways of
raising a dust cloud.
If we turn our thoughts back to the origins of the wave
picture, we can see why all this must be. This picture was
introduced to provide us with a sort of working model
of Heisenberg's equation, and this equation was con-
cerned solely with observables that is to say, not with
objective nature but with our observation of nature.
Heisenberg attacked the enigma of the physical universe
by giving up the main enigma the nature of the objec-
tive universe as insoluble, and concentrating on the
minor puzzle of co-ordinating our observations of the
universe. Thus it is not surprising that the wave picture
which finally emerged should prove to be concerned
solely with our knowledge of the universe as obtained
through our observations.
Electron Waves as Waves of Probability
This interpretation of the wave picture explains a great
deal that would otherwise seem very mysterious, and
gives greater precision to the discussions of our previous
chapter.
We there described the waves of the wave picture as
"waves of probability", but were unable to assign any
precise meaning to the term. Let us now suppose that we
perform an experiment to find the speed and position, of a*
INDETERMINACY 237
moving electron. An experiment of one type may fix its
position with great accuracy but its speed with great
uncertainty; the electron so observed appears in the wave
picture as a short train of waves. An experiment of an-
other type may fix the speed with great accuracy but the
position with great inaccuracy; the electron is now repre-
sented by a long train of waves. The same electron may
be represented by two different wave pictures, not be-
cause it is itself different in the two cases, but because
our knowledge of it is different in the two cases. Thus the
waves represent subjective probabilities.
Suppose our experiments tell us that an electron is at
such-or-such a point in space, subject to a certain inde-
terminacy, and is moving with such-or-such a speed,
again subject to a certain indeterminacy.
We may represent our lack of precise knowledge as to
the position of the electron by substituting a fog for the
latter; our knowledge is that the electron is somewhere
inside the fog. If we knew the precise speed of the
electron, we could let the fog move forward at this precise
speed, and the electron would always lie inside the fog.
We cannot, however, know the precise speed, but only
know that it lies within certain limits, as for instance
between 50 and 55 miles a second. To represent this,
we must regard our fog as being made up by the super-
position of a number of separate individual fogs, and let
these individual fogs move forward at the various speeds
within these limits one at 50 miles a second, another at
51 miles a second and so on. We shall then know that at
every instant the electron lies somewhere within the
fogginess produced by all these fogs. Let us notice that
the area of fogginess continually increases; this means that
23S THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
our knowledge of the position of the electron continually
gets more and more vague. This is faithfully represented
in the wave picture, because it is a general property of
waves to spread. The electron itself retains its identity
throughout, but the fog representing not the electron,
but our knowledge of it must perforce continue to
spread until it ultimately pervades all space.
For many purposes the weight of a massive body may
be supposed concentrated in a single point, which we call
the centre of gravity of the body. So also, for many
purposes, we may suppose the whole electron to be con-
centrated at the centre of gravity of the fog. For instance,
Ehrenfest has shewn that, when the waves of the fog travel
as directed by Schrodinger's equation, the centre of
gravity of the fog will describe precisely the same curved
path in an electric field as a single point-electron would
describe.
Let us now imagine that our moving electron meets a
metal film. Each small fragment of our fog will break up
into a system of waves, in the way we have already
explained, and the aggregate of all these systems of waves
constitutes the wave pattern of the electron, such as we
see in fig. 2 of the frontispiece. This new wave pattern is
more extended in space than the original fog, because our
uncertainty as to the position and motion of the electron
has been increased by a further uncertainty as to its
conduct in passing through the metal film.
Light-waves as Waves of Probability
We can discuss light and light-waves in a precisely
similar manner. We can picture light as consisting of
photons, and these photons have wave pictures just as
INDETERMINACY 239
electrons have; they are neither more nor less than the
ordinary waves of the undulatory theory of light. When
we picture photons as localised at points, we have already
seen (p. 217) that these waves must be interpreted as
waves of probability the probability of finding the
photon at a given spot. It is rather surprising to discover
that we must take the further step of regarding them as
mere diagrammatic representations of our knowledge as
to the whereabouts of photons, yet a simple instance,
which has been discussed by Einstein and Ehrenfest, will
shew that such is the case.
A photon which meets the surface of a transparent
substance may be either reflected or transmitted. For the
sake of simplicity, let us suppose that the chances of the
two events are equal. This means that when the wave-
system of the photon falls on the reflecting surface, it will
divide into two beams of equal intensity, one reflected and
one transmitted. These are of course beams of ordinary
everyday light. After a few seconds interval, these two
beams may be a million miles apart, which means that
on our present knowledge we cannot fix the position of
our photon to within a million miles.
A new experiment will, however, clear up some at least
of our uncertainty. Let us calculate the path of the re-
flected ray by geometrical means, and place across it a
screen which will register a spot of light if the photon
strikes it. Up to this moment, our knowledge of the
doings of the photon has been represented by two beams
of light-waves; one is just about to fall on the screen, the
other is a million miles away. We watch the screen. If it
does not light up, we know that the photon has chosen the
other path, and is a million miles away. If it does light
240 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
up, we see that the photon has chosen this particular path,
and this new knowledge completely transforms the system
of waves. We now know for certain that the photon is not
at any point on the distant beam, because it is here, and
the whole system of distant waves disappears for ever; it
is completely annihilated. on the other hand, the beam
of light we are watching becomes contracted to a point
the point which lighted up on our screen.
It is at first very startling and not a little puzzling to
reflect that by the mere act of watching a screen here we
can annihilate light-waves a million miles away. Old-
fashioned physics told us that light-waves were waves of
energy, so that the act of looking at a screen here has
apparently destroyed energy a million miles away. Even
if the total energy is conserved, our action has removed
the energy from there to here, and this at infinite speed,
although we used to be told that energy could not travel
faster than light.
The paradox disappears as soon as we treat the light-
waves as waves' of probability, their extension in space
defining the uncertainties of our knowledge. The waves
are no longer waves of energy, but of the chance of find-
ing energy. When there are billions of billions of photons
in the field, the total measure of the chance of finding
energy is, for all practical purposes, the same thing as the
measure of the energy we shall find, and we need not
trouble to distinguish between the two. When there is
only one photon involved, the distinction becomes im-
portant. What is transferred now is not energy, but the
chance of finding energy, which in turn depends on our
knowledge as to the whereabouts of the energy. This
may well be transferred, not with the speed of light
INDETERMINACY 241
which is finite, but with the speed of thought, which is
infinite.
As this is one of the most difficult parts of the new
quantum theory, let us try to illustrate it by a very pro-
saic illustration. Suppose I am anxious to meet my
relative John Smith, who is owing me a sum of money,
and that all I know of him for certain is that he left his
home in London three days ago for an unspecified desti-
nation. My knowledge as to the whereabouts of John
Smith is represented by a fog which extends over all those
parts of the earth's surface which are within three days'
travel of London. I next find that a passenger named
John Smith sailed on the Majestic three days ago for New
York, and the fog becomes particularly dense in mid-
Atlantic, three days out from land. I hurry to a cable
office to communicate with the Majestic in the hope of
getting a reply which will inform me, with the speed of
light, whether my relative is in mid-Atlantic or not. But,
on my way, I run into John Smith himself. This simple
act not only concentrates all the fog into one spot in space,
namely that at which my relative is standing; it also
abolishes the fog in the Atlantic, and does this far more
promptly than a wireless message, travelling with the
speed of light, could do. It can do this because the fog
is not a material fog, such as delays shipping; it consists of
knowledge knowledge about John Smith.
So, in the last resort, the waves which we describe as
light-waves, and those other waves which we interpret
as the waves of an electron and a proton, also consist of
knowledge knowledge about photons, electrons and
protons respectively. We can see now why modern
science does not need the old material ether, millions of
242 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
times more dense than lead, for light-waves to travel
through.
The Waves of the Hydrogen Atom
Let us now revert to electron waves, and consider what
happens when an electron, originally moving freely
through space, combines with a proton to form a hydro-
gen atom. If we knew its original path with fair accuracy,
the electron may be represented by a fairly compact
packet of waves when it first comes under the attraction
of the proton. In accordance with the principles already
explained, this wave packet will describe a curved path
round the proton (p. 238), and will continually increase
in extent as it does so (p. 238). The general principle
that waves continually spread shews that there is only one
end possible the wave packet must ultimately fill the
whole of space. Throughout all these changes, as also
when the final state is reached, the electron waves will
conform to Schrodinger's equation. This equation has
many solutions, which will of course represent many
different kinds of waves. Some will represent permanent
unchanging systems of waves, and these are found to
specify the possible permanent states of the hydrogen
atom.
It is a comparatively simple problem to discover all the
solutions of this type. Such solutions are found to exist
for certain values of the energy E in equation (F) of p. 202,
and for no others. Thus the hydrogen atom can only
exist permanently in certain discrete states specified by
their different amounts of energy precisely as was first
postulated by Bohr, and was subsequently confirmed by
the experiments of Franck and Hertz. These amounts of
energy are of course easily calculated, and the lines of the
INDETERMINACY 243
hydrogen spectrum are found to correspond exactly to
transitions from one of them to another, so that the tri-
umph of wave-mechanics is complete.
It may be of interest to try to understand something
of the geometrical disposition of these waves. Bohr's
earlier theory, as we have already seen (p. 53), supposed
the hydrogen atom to consist of a charged particle an
electron describing a circular orbit round another
charged particle the nucleus. The electron was sup-
posed to be confined to orbits possessing certain definite
amounts of energy, and so also definite diameters; it was
as though certain grooves were cut in space, and the
electron was compelled to run round and round in the
same groove except on the comparatively rare occasions
when it jumped from one groove to another.
Wave-mechanics also finds that the electron-nucleus
combination can only have these particular amounts of
energy. But the electron is no longer a particle; it is a
system of waves running round and round the nucleus,
somewhat as waves might run round and round in a
circular trough of water, except for the quite important
difference that troughs of water have clearly defined
boundaries, whereas these waves have not. If, notwith-
standing this, we like to imagine the waves imprisoned in
troughs, then we find that these troughs must be of cer-
tain definite diameters such that the complete circum-
ference of a trough may be occupied by one, two, three or
any other exact number of complete waves, but never by
a fractional number of waves. This condition makes the
diameters of the troughs very nearly the same as the
diameters of the orbits which Bohr had previously calcu-
lated from his simpler theory, namely, 1, 4, 9, 16, ... times
244 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
the diameter of the normal atom in its normal state of
lowest energy.
With a view to understanding this, let us consider a
very simply hypothetical hydrogen atom which ad-
mittedly has not much relation to actual facts. Let us
suppose that its electron is in some way constrained
rather as imagined in Bohr's first theory perpetually
to move round the nucleus in a circle of always the same
radius a. If the atom is beyond the reach of our experi-
ments, as for instance an atom in Sirius, our knowledge of
the position of its electron will consist of the single fact
that this is at a distance a from the nucleus. We cannot
know which point of its orbit it will occupy at any instant,
and neither can we know the orientation of this orbit in
space. Thus our knowledge of the position of the electron
is represented by a thin shell of fog, forming a sphere of
radius a surrounding the nucleus.
If we suppose that the electron is constrained to move
in one or other of a number of circular orbits, having
radii a, i, c, ... , our knowledge will be represented by a
number of thin shells of fog having radii 0, b, c, ...
Let us now go one step farther in the direction of
reality. An electron which is describing a circular orbit
of radius a may be deflected, without loss or gain of
energy, into an elliptical orbit, in describing which it will
be alternately inside and outside its original circular orbit.
Its distance from the nucleus will range between a(l + e)
and a(\ *), where e is the quantity known as the ec-
centricity of the ellipse. As this can have any value
between and 1, the distance of the electron from the
nucleus may be anything between and 2a. Thus if we
know nothing about the electron except that it is describ-
INDETERMINACY 245
ing an orbit of specified energy, our knowledge will be
represented by a fog, which will extend through the whole
of a sphere of radius 2a, but no farther, and will be par-
ticularly dense at a distance a from the nucleus. If the
electron can describe an orbit having any one of a num-
ber of specified energies, our knowledge will be repre-
sented by the superposition of a number of fogs lying
inside the spheres of corresponding radii.
Such a system of fogs does not differ very widely from
the probability diagram furnished by the wave-mechanics
for the actual hydrogen atom, except for one very im-
portant point of difference. An electron moving in an
orbit of specified energy can never move to more than a
certain distance from the nucleus, whereas the probability
diagram of the wave-mechanics extends throughout the
whole of space. In brief, this diagram tells us that there
is always a finite probability that the electron will reach
points which would be entirely beyond its reach, because
of insufficient energy, if it were an ordinary charged
particle moving in space and time. This illustrates a
complication which is not peculiar to the hydrogen
spectrum, nor even to the more general problem of atomic
structure, but permeates the whole of the new quantum
theory. It seems as though, if an electron waits long
enough, it will always be able to violate the law of con-
servation of energy by reaching places which its energy
does not entitle it to reach. Gamow has suggested that
the disintegration of radio-active nuclei may be due to
this cause.
This makes it clear that if the conservation of energy is
to remain in our picture of nature, we must attach a wider
meaning to energy than we have done hitherto. We have
246 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
so far thought of the energy of an electron as due to the
position of a particle in space and its motion through
space, and this in spite of our having seen that an electron,
when inside an atom, cannot be represented in space and
time. There is no obvious difficulty in taking a wider
view of energy, and imagining that the electron can draw
on energy which also cannot be represented in time and
space. Heisenberg's equation has already shewn that the
real electron has a greater complexity than mere position
in space; if we know that its total energy has a certain
value, and try from this to find its position in space, the
complexity of its wave pattern shews us how many
answers we may receive to our question. We may regard
this wave pattern as representing the projection into
space and time of all the configurations which have a
given total energy.
Objective and Subjective Waves
Yet clearly this wave pattern is wholly objective, and at
first this may seem to be at variance with our earlier
statements that a wave pattern represented subjective
knowledge. But it is easy to see that there is no conflict,
and that our former interpretation of the electron waves
as diagrammatic representations of subjective knowledge
leads to precisely the result we have just reached. For,
although we may at first have fairly precise knowledge
which limits the position of an electron to a small region
of space, yet uncertainties increase with the passage of
time, so that our knowledge of this position gets con-
tinually vaguer; the electron waves spread. Finally, after
a time which we may treat as infinite, they fill all space.
And as the position from which an electron started an
INDETERMINACY 247
infinity of time ago can have no possible influence on the
positions it may occupy now, the present electron waves
are entirely independent of our knowledge, and so form
an objective system.
We can illustrate this very simply by considering an
electron in an otherwise empty universe. The wave-
equation for such an electron is formally similar to the
equation which governs the flow of heat in a solid of in-
finite extent. Thus our uncertainty of knowledge, which
was at first localised within a small volume of space,
spreads like heat through a solid. Just as the solid finally
reaches a state of uniform temperature, which is inde-
pendent of the spot from which the heat started, so the
system of waves in wave-mechanics finally attains uni-
form intensity everywhere throughout space, and this
independently of the earlier movements of the electron.
This merely means that, no matter where the electron
started, all positions for it are equally likely after an
infinite time. In fact we could only predict its position
after infinite time if we had known its original position
and speed with infinite precision, and the uncertainty
principle keeps this pair of data for ever beyond our reach.
This final system of waves is of course wholly objective;
it cannot represent subjective knowledge for the simple
reason that we no longer have any. Or, to put the same
thing in another way, it represents the fact that our
knowledge is nil.
Another very simple solution of the wave-equation is
of the form
248 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
and this represents waves advancing in the direction
/, m, n, with speed V. This may be taken to represent an
electron, or a current of electricity, advancing in the
direction I, m, n, with a speed c 2 /V. In choosing this
solution to represent any particular electron, we assume
we know that the electron is travelling with components
of velocity which are precisely lc*/V 9 etc. The uncer-
tainty principle now tells us that we must pay for this
precision in our knowledge of the momentum of the elec-
tron by accepting an infinite uncertainty in the position of
the electron, which of course is precisely what the solu-
tion also tells us, since the waves are of uniform intensity
throughout space. Here again we have a wholly objec-
tive system of waves.
Such systems of waves, extending uniformly through
the whole of space, provide the only strictly objective
representations of electrons or electric currents. Com-
binations of them give the concentrated wave packets
which we observe and designate as electrons the
electrons of our observation. But if we ask mathematics
to tell us how to build up such a wave packet i.e. to
provide us with the wave specification of a single electron
moving freely in space there is no answer. Or rather,
strictly speaking, the answer takes the form of a further
question "Tell me first how much you know about the
electron, and I will answer your question. If you know
nothing, my only answer will be that I too know nothing".
All the observational knowledge which has been put into
the quantum theory and wave-mechanics proves to be of
no avail to elicit what an electron is objectively.
The situation changes as soon as we put a second body,
as for instance a proton, into this space. Since the two
INDETERMINACY 249
particles attract one another, the electron, quite apart
from any detailed knowledge on our part, is more likely
to be in the neighbourhood of the proton than elsewhere.
The wave-system now wraps itself symmetrically round
the proton, displaying the various possibilities and
relative likelihoods that we have already discussed. We
now have an objective system of waves, and it appears
that an electron can only be objectively specified when
it is anchored to a proton or other material frame of
reference; otherwise it merely fills all space uniformly.
An objective electron localised in an empty universe is as
meaningless as objective time or rather we can attach
to either as many meanings as we please.
Thus, if our wave picture of nature is to be wholly
objective, it must contain no reference to isolated elec-
trons or protons, but only to such combinations of these
as can produce events which can affect our senses. on
limiting our picture to these, we obtain a system of waves
which is completely objective, in the sense that we must
imagine them existing whether we experiment to discover
their existence or not. The waves do not admit of repre-
sentation in space and time, and so cannot be said to
possess any physical reality.
Yet, in spite of this want of physical reality, this wave
picture is in many respects more true to nature, and so is
presumably more fundamental, than the particle picture
which depicts nature as concrete objects existing in space
and time. This is especially true of the more refined
problems of atomic structure and spectral lines. Just as,
in optics, the ray picture gives a rough approximation,
but a wave picture is needed to exhibit the finer details of
phenomena, so here the particle picture will often give a
250 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
rough approximation to a truth which the wave picture
explains with perfect precision. The following illustra-
tions may serve to typify a whole mass of highly technical
knowledge.
The spectra of the alkali metals consist entirely of
"doubled 53 lines pairs of lines which are quite distinct
and yet very close together such as the well-known
D lines of sodium. Two Dutch physicists, Uhlenbeck and
Goudsmit, tried to explain this doubling by supposing
that the electrons of the particle picture spun round on
their axes as they described their orbits in the atom. This
gave the electrons slightly different energies according as
they spun in the same direction as their orbital rotation,
like the earth, moon and planets, or in the opposite
direction, like the outermost satellites of Jupiter and
Saturn, and the single satellite of Neptune. Further, the
amounts of spin required to account for the doubling of
the spectral lines agreed exactly with that needed to ac-
count for the Zeeman effect the rearrangement of
spectral lines that occurs when the incandescent gas is
placed between the poles of a powerful magnet.
Thus the particle picture could be made true to nature
by supposing the electrons to be spinning. Nevertheless
such spins seemed very artificial until it was found, a few
weeks later, that they were a necessary consequence of the
wave picture. Just as light-waves admit of different
kinds of polarisation, which we can represent in the
particle picture of light by different spins of the photons
(p. 158), so electron waves admit of different kinds of
polarisation, which we may represent in the particle
picture of matter by different spins of the electrons.
Yet this does not place the two pictures quite on the
INDETERMINACY 251
same footing. For we see that if the wave picture of
matter is fundamental, all the electrons in the particle
picture must necessarily be spinning. on the other
hand, if the particle picture is fundamental i.e. if
nature really consists of particles, and the waves merely
provide a diagrammatic representation of our imperfect
knowledge of their positions there is no obvious reason
why the particles should spin at all. Both pictures explain
the facts, but the explanation of the particle picture
appears artificial, while that of the wave picture appears
natural, and indeed inevitable.
At a later stage the experiments of Stern and Gerlach
provided what amounts to an experimentum crucis, enabling
us to decide between the particle picture and the wave
picture. In the particle picture, the spin of the electrons
turned each atom into a small magnet,.so that if a shower
of atoms is passed between the poles of a fixed magnet, the
atoms ought to be affected differently, according to the
directions in which the axes of the spin were pointing, and
the shower of parallel-moving atoms would be spread out
into a broad continuous band. The wave picture, on the
other hand, predicts that the shower would be divided
into two quite distinct showers, corresponding to the two
directions of polarisation of the electron waves. The
experiments quite definitely confirmed the predictions of
wave-theory.
The failure of the particle picture in this and similar
cases is of great interest. For the particle picture implies
the possibility, and the wave picture the impossibility, of
representation in space and time. So long as we were
concerned only with the simplest constituents of nature,
electrons, protons and photons, the two pictures appeared
252 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
to possess equal validity. As soon as we pass to the more
complex structure of the atom, the wave picture acquires
a definite pre-eminence. Thus the wave picture begins to
appear as the true picture of reality, and the particle
picture merely as a clumsy approximation to the truth, an
approximation obtained by trying to force into a frame-
work of space and time a structure which does not admit
of representation in space and time.
This implies that our interpretation of the wave picture
as a diagram of the probabilities of finding particles at
various spots can no longer be regarded as final. For
obviously the true picture of nature must admit of a direct
interpretation, without reference to a less perfect picture.
The particle representation has served its purpose when
it has led us to the wave picture, and may henceforth be
disregarded as mere scaffolding.
Thus it is through the wave picture of matter that we
must approach reality, and the abandonment of a space-
time representation of nature would seem to be the first
step on the journey.
It is a difficult step to take. Our knowledge of the
external world is brought us by photons which travel in
a setting of space and time, with the result that from our
earliest days we have thought of objective nature itself as
also existing in space and time. Our thoughts have
become space-time bound, and can get no grip on con-
cepts outside space and time. Thus no progress has been
made along the new road as yet, and we are still com-
pelled to discuss nature in terms of the partial pictures
of waves (incomprehensible) and of particles (inac-
curate).
INDETERMINACY 253
Determinism
As the new theory of quanta and the theory of wave-
mechanics are believed to agree exactly with observa-
tion, and so perhaps to contain the final mathematical
truth about nature, they ought to be capable of throwing
some light on the question of determinism.
We have seen how our knowledge about nature can be
visualised, part by part, in a number of different pictures,
although no single picture enables us to visualise the
whole truth at once. Of these partial pictures, there are
for instance the picture which depicts electrons as parti-
cles and that which depicts them as waves. There are
again the corresponding pictures for light, one depicting
it as waves and the other as photons.
Let us consider the wave picture first. This assumes its
simplest form in the case of radiation. The wave-equa-
tions become the ordinary equations of Maxwell for the
propagation of electric action, and are to all appearances
completely deterministic. That is to say, if we know elec-
tric conditions at any one instant, we are able, through
these equations, to determine these conditions throughout
all future time. The wave-equation of an electron implies
an exactly similar determinism. If we know the value of
$ throughout space at any one instant, these equations en-
able us to calculate its value through all subsequent time.
Yet this does not mean that nature is completely deter-
ministic, since, on the only interpretation we have yet
been able to devise, both the $ of Schrodinger's equation
and the electric forces of the Maxwell equations are not
determined by nature but by our knowledge of nature.
If the distinction between nature and our knowledge of
254 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
nature were to disappear in any special case, as it does,
for instance, when we are discussing an assemblage of an
immense number of photons, then of course the wave-
equations would shew that there was complete determin-
ism in respect of the special phenomenon in question.
Other cases of this kind are the two final steady states
we have just discussed, but in these our knowledge is not
perfect but nil. In both cases there is unmistakable deter-
minism, but it is of a very trivial kind. Objectively it is
expressed in the sentence: "When a piece of the universe
can change no more, its future course is unalterably
determined"; subjectively by the equally useless sen-
tence: "If we begin by knowing nothing, and perform no
new experiments, we shall continue to know nothing
throughout all time".
It is often overlooked that the wholly deterministic
wave-equation does not, and cannot, take the whole of
nature for its province. Although this is hard to realise,
wave-mechanics has no more knowledge of the existence
of separate atoms than the undulatory theory of light has
of the existence of separate photons. The original analy-
sis of Heisenberg, let us recollect, was not concerned with
a succession of photons emitted from a number of distinct
atoms, but with a stream of radiation of origin unknown
and unspecified. Out of this emerged entities p and q
which were made analogous to the momentum and co-
ordinate of an electron in an atom by the crude device
of adjusting a constant so as to secure agreement when
the atom was of very large radius. But the atom in which
this electron moved was no real atom such as could exist
in nature; it was rather a sort of statistical atom a com-
posite photograph of all the atoms in the world which
INDETERMINACY 255
conformed to certain specified conditions as much an
abstraction as the "economic man 5 * of the political
economist. Wave-mechanics tries to give a concrete
picture of this atom, but inevitably this is still a com-
posite photograph, and because of this it extends over the
whole plate and is very blurred.
Just because the wave-mechanics deals only with prob-
abilities and statistical assemblies, its apparent deter-
minism may be only another way of expressing the law of
averages. The determinism may be of a purely statistical
kind, like that relied on by an Insurance Company, or the
Bank at Monte Carlo.
This being so, there is no assignable reason why the
apparent determinism of the wave-equation should not
conceal a complete objective indeterminism. In the
mathematical problem known as the "random walk", we
imagine that a traveller walks 20 miles a day, but with
no causal relation between the directions of his walks
on successive days we can, for instance, imagine his
throwing a stick up in the air at random every morning,
and letting the direction of its fall determine the direction
of his walk for the day. A mathematical formula can of
course be obtained to exhibit the chances of his being at
various points at successive nightfalls. If we now reduce
the unit of time from a day to a second, so that his every
step is indeterminate, we find that the probabilities
spread out in waves, much as in Schrodinger's equation;
the spread of the waves conforms to a strict determinism,
although the underlying physical cause is a complete
indeterminism.
In the same way the apparent determinism of the wave
picture may conceal any amount of true objective in-
256 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
determinism in matters of detail, such as appears to be
necessary to account for radioactive disintegration and
the atomic jumps by which Einstein obtains the statistical
law of black-body radiation.
Let us now turn to the particle picture. We have
already seen that this shews no determinism, and, as
Bohr has pointed out, it is impossible that it should. We
cannot include determinism in our picture of nature
unless we have an experimental technique for discover-
ing that it exists in nature. Now this requires that if we
picture nature in terms of particles whether photons or
electrons and protons existing in time and space, we
must possess a means of discovering the positions and
velocities of these particles with complete accuracy. This
is precisely what the uncertainty principle denies us.
Thus a picture which represents nature as consisting of
particles in time and space cannot at the same time
exhibit determinism.
This brings us to the point of cleavage between the
old classical theories and the new quantum theory. The
classical theory represented nature as situated wholly in
time and space, and at the same time governed by a strict
determinism. The newer theories, which alone agree
completely with observation, shew that we can retain
either the space-time representation of the older pictures
of nature or the strict determinism, but never both. Deter-
minism and representation in space and time are like the
old man and the old woman of the string-hygrometer;
when one comes in, the other goes out. Heisenberg has
exhibited the contrast between the present view and the
old in the following scheme:*
* The Physical Principles oj the Quantum Theory, p. 65.
INDETERMINACY 257
Classical Theory Quantum Theory
Causal relationships of phe- Either:
nomena described in terms of Phenomena described in terms
space and time of space and time (but uncer-
tainty principle)
Or:
Causal relationship expressed
by mathematical laws (but
physical description of phe-
nomena in space and time
impossible)
The kind of indeterminacy implied in the first alterna-
tive on the right is a natural consequence of the atomicity
of the particle picture. We cannot foretell the future
because we can never know the present with complete
certainty.
It is very unfortunate that the same word "indeter-
minacy" is so often used to express both this and the
indeterminism of quite different type which may be in-
herent in nature itself; here we cannot foretell the future
because nature herself does not know what is going to
happen.
In addition to the indeterminacy of the former kind,
which necessarily occurs when we picture nature as
particles, we have seen that our picture of nature may
also contain indeterminacy of the second kind which
ought thus to be present whether we picture it as waves
or particles.
Yet it may be argued that if we go far enough back, we
must come upon a cause at last'; the direction in which the
travellers' stick fell was not really undetermined, but de-
pended on the force of his throw, which in turn depended
258 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
on whether he was feeling vigorous, and this in turn on
whether the journey of the day before had lain through
easy or fatiguing country, and so on indefinitely. If we
are to introduce such considerations into our description
of nature, it will perhaps take some such form as the
following.
We set out to build a conjectural picture of the external
world, the only rule of the game being that this picture is
to account for our sense-impressions, exactly and down to
the smallest detail, and yet is to be objective in the sense
of not explaining merely the sense-impressions of a single
individual. Each sense-impression is caused by a transfer
of energy from the external world to the nerve terminals
of our bodies. This transfer is invariably by photons,
which, in the new science as in the old, can be adequately
represented as travelling in space and time. Thus we
naturally begin our conjectural picture of nature by con-
structing a mental framework of space and time, against
which to draw our picture. Going one stage farther, we
find that the photons which cause our sense-impressions
originate in events. We now find that if our picture is to
be objective in the sense just explained, these cannot be
represented as localised in space and time separately, but
they can still be localised in the blend of space and time
we describe as space-time. So long, then, as we do not
insist on dividing space-time up into space and time
separately, the framework remains adequate for the
picture. But these events are the interactions of material
objects, electrons and protons and their combinations,
and we find that these cannot be adequately depicted as
existing in space and time. Thus our space-time frame-
work proves inadequate for the representation of the
INDETERMINACY 259
whole of nature; it is suited to form a framework for but
little more than our sense-impressions, which is precisely
the purpose it was originally constructed to serve. We are
thus led conjecturally to think of space and time as a sort
of outer surface of nature, like the surface of a deep
flowing stream. The events which affect our senses are
like ripples on the surface of this stream, but their origins
the material objects throw roots deep down into the
stream. When we say a brick is three-dimensional we
mean merely that we can only establish contact with it,
through our senses, in three dimensions of space. Ripples
come from the brick to us in three dimensions of space,
but this in no way limits the real existence of the brick
to these three dimensions.
Two surface-ripples may appear exactly similar, and
may yet be caused by very different happenings down in
the depths of the stream, so that the similarity of their
appearance provides no guarantee that they will behave
in the same way. For this reason we cannot expect the
ripple-phenomena on the surface of the stream to shew a
strict determinism, nor to conform otherwise than statis-
tically to the law which we describe as the "uniformity of
nature". The fact that the surface-phenomena of space-
time shew a want of determinism leaves the question of
whether real objective nature is deterministic or not com-
pletely open.
Space-time is not the framework of the world of nature,
but of the world of our sense-perceptions, and when we
represent objects beyond our senses in space-time, their
apparent absence of determinism may be merely the
price we pay for trying to force the real world of nature
into too cramped a framework. So, when birds fly
CHAPTER VIII
EVENTS
Thermodynamics
The province of atomic physics is to discuss the nature of
particular events, and it has been very successful in shew-
ing us how it is that certain kinds of events occur, while
others do not. Yet this can give us but little information
as to what is happening to the universe as a whole. An-
other branch of physics, known as thermodynamics, takes
this problem in hand; it does not concern itself with
individual events separately, but studies events in crowds,
statistically. Its province is to discuss the general trend
of events, with a view to predicting how the universe as
a whole will change with the passage of time.
The science of thermodynamics had its origin in
severely practical problems relating to the efficiency of
engines, but it was sqon extended to cover the operations
of nature as a whole. All this happened in the days when
nature was assumed, without question, to be mechanical
and deterministic. In what follows, we shall not treat
nature as mechanical, but for the moment we shall
treat it as though it were strictly deterministic.
on a deterministic view of nature, the universe never
has any choice; its final state is inherent in its present
state, just as this present state was inherent in its state
at its creation. It must inevitably move along a single
road to a predestined end, like a train rolling along a
single-track line, on which there are no junctions of any
261
CHAPTER VIII
EVENTS
Thermodynamics
The province of atomic physics is to discuss the nature of
particular events, and it has been very successful in shew-
ing us how it is that certain kinds of events occur, while
others do not. Yet this can give us but little information
as to what is happening to the universe as a whole. An-
other branch of physics, known as thermodynamics, takes
this problem in hand; it does not concern itself with
individual events separately, but studies events in crowds,
statistically. Its province is to discuss the general trend
of events, with a view to predicting how the universe as
a whole will change with the passage of time.
The science of thermodynamics had its origin in
severely practical problems relating to the efficiency of
engines, but it was soon extended to cover the operations
of nature as a whole. All this happened in the days when
nature was assumed, without question, to be mechanical
and deterministic. In what follows, we shall not treat
nature as mechanical, but for the moment we shall
treat it as though it were strictly deterministic.
on a deterministic view of nature, the universe never
has any choice; its final state is inherent in its present
state, just as this present state was inherent in its state
at its creation. It must inevitably move along a single
road to a predestined end, like a train rolling along a
single-track line, on which there are no junctions of any
261
262 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
kind. Thus if a super-experimentalist could discover the
exact position and the exact speed of motion of every
particle in the universe at any single instant, a super-
mathematician would be able to deduce the whole past
and the whole future of the universe from these data.
Experimental physics has not yet been able to provide
such data, and the uncertainty principle shews that it
never will be. Yet a super-mathematician, who had un-
limited time at his disposal, might calculate out all the
different pasts and futures which would result from all
conceivable sets of data in other words from all con-
ceivable present states.
He might commence his labors by making a diagram
in which to map out all possible states of the universe,
just as all points in England are mapped out in an
ordinary geographical map. He could start from any
particular point in this diagram and trace out, by mathe-
matical calculation, the whole future of a universe which
started from the state represented by this point. He
could represent this future by a line through the point,
which would run through his diagram much as a railway
line is represented by a line running across the map of
England. He could take point after point in his diagram
in turn, and represent the development of a universe
which started from each point by a line, until his whole
diagram was filled with lines. These lines would repre-
sent all the lines of development which were possible for
the universe. If the universe was strictly deterministic, as
we have so far supposed, the diagram would look like the
map of a country covered with single-track lines of rail-
way, with no junctions of any kind. If, on the other hand,
strict determinism does not prevail in the universe, there
EVENTS 263
may be any number of junctions and connecting tracks
between the different lines.
Let us imagine that a perfect diagram of this kind is
at our disposal, as it would be in theory at least if
we had a perfect knowledge of the laws of nature. No
matter how perfect the diagram is, we are still unable to
gain a detailed knowledge of our future from it, because
we do not know our present position on the map. This
makes it impossible to identify the particular track on
which we are travelling, so that we can neither say what
part of the diagram it will traverse next nor where it will
end. Yet it may be possible to discover in what kind of
country it ends, and this is the information we really
want. It is information of this kind that the science of
thermodynamics can provide.
Imagine that we suddenly waken up from a state of
unconsciousness to discover we are on a British railway.
We have no means of knowing where our journey will
end. Yet if we have a physical map of Great Britain with
us, we may notice that only a few hundred acres out of
55 million lie as much as 4000 feet above sea-level.
Although we cannot say where our journey will end, there
are obviously very long odds that it will end at a height
of something less than 4000 feet above sea-level. If a
barometer in our compartment indicates that we are
already as much as 4000 feet above sea-level, then there
are very long odds that the general trend of our journey
will be downhill.
It is to considerations of this kind, rather than to exact
knowledge, that we must turn for guidance in our efforts
to study the evolution and final end of the universe. As
certain knowledge is beyond our reach, we must be
264 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
guided entirely by probabilities. Yet the odds we en-
counter in calculating these probabilities prove always to
be so immense that we may, for all practical purposes,
treat long odds as certainties. Because the number of
particles electrons and protons in the universe is of
the order of 10 79 , we find that high powers of 10 79 enter
into all our odds, and, this being so, we need not trouble
to differentiate too carefully between probabilities of such
a kind and certainties.
Entropy
Thermodynamics is much concerned with a quantity
known as "entropy". This plays much the same part in
our diagram of the universe as height played in our
imaginary railway map of Great Britain, except that
small entropy corresponds to great height, and vice-versa;
thus entropy does not correspond so much to height above
the level of the sea, as to depth below the top of the
highest mountain. The highest mountain in Great
Britain rises to 4400 ft. above sea-level, and as most of
Great Britain is only a little above sea-level, most of it is
at a depth, in this sense of the word, of nearly 4400 ft.
the maximum depth possible. In the same way, we find
that most of the configurations which figure in our map of
the universe are at the maximum entropy possible all,
indeed, except for minute regions whose sizes are pro-
portional to inverse powers of 10 79 .
At the moment we cannot justify this statement because
we have not yet defined " entropy". And there is no need
to justify it, because the best definition of "entropy"
makes the statement true of itself and automatically. It
is convenient to define "maximum entropy" as specifying
EVENTS 265
the condition which is commonest in our map of the
universe, and then, having done this, to define entropy in
general in such a way that the more common condition is
always of higher entropy than the less common. Thus
we define entropy to be a measure of the "commonness"
of a given state in our map.*
With this definition we find that, just because the
numerical factors involved are so immense, conditions of
"maximum 55 entropy are not only more common, but
incomparably more common, than those whose entropy is
less, and so it is all down the ladder. Because of this,
it is practically certain that each state of the universe will
be succeeded by a state of higher entropy than itself, so
that the universe will "evolve" through a succession of
states of ever-increasing entropy, until it finally reaches a
state of maximum entropy. Beyond this it cannot go; it
must come to rest not in the sense that every atom in it
will have come to rest (for maximum entropy does not
involve this), but rather in the sense that its general
characteristics cannot change any more.
Yet if someone asserts that this will not happen, and
that the universe will move to a state of lower entropy than
the present, we cannot prove him wrong. He is entitled
to his opinion, either as a speculation or as a pious hope.
All we can say is that the odds against his dream coming
true involve a very high power of 10 79 in his disfavour.
Thermodynamics is accustomed to disregard all such
infinitesimal chances and forlorn hopes, and announces
its laws as certainties. We must nevertheless always bear
in mind that there is a small risk of failure attached to
* If W is the "commonness" of a certain state, the mathematician
defines the entropy of this state as k log W, where is the gas-constant.
266 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
every such law. The famous "second law of thermo-
dynamics" asserts that the entropy of a natural system
always increases, until a final state is attained in which the
entropy can increase no further; a fuller statement of the
law would be that the chances of the entropy doing other-
wise are negligibly small.
The Final State of Maximum Entropy
We now see that the question of discovering the final state
of the universe is merely that of discovering how far the
entropy of the universe can increase without violating the
physical laws which govern the motions of its smallest
parts. There was no need to take the physical properties
of matter into account in defining entropy, but we must
do so before we can discover the state in which the en-
tropy is a maximum.
The process is usually very complicated, but two simple
instances may illustrate the general characteristics of a
state of maximum entropy. They do not refer to the
universe as a whole, but merely to minute portions which
have been selected for their simplicity and familiarity.
Let us pour some red ink into water, and leave the ink
and the water to diffuse into one another. We know,
before the event occurs, that the final state will be one in
which they are uniformly mixed to form a homogeneous
pinkish fluid, and as this state of uniform mixture is
invariably the. final state, we know that it must be the
state of maximum entropy.
Again, let us put a kettle of cold water over a hot fire.
We know, before we perform the experiment, that the
final state will be one in which all the water is turned into
steam. This also must be a state of maximum entropy.
EVENTS 267
Just as the red ink diffused itself equally through all parts
of the water in attaining a state of maximum entropy, so
the heat of the fire tends to diffuse itself equally through
coal, kettle, and water.
These instances have shewn us two final states in which
the entropy is a maximum. They illustrate a very wide
and very general principle the final state of maximum
entropy avoids concentration, whether of special sub-
stances (as with the ink) or of energy (as with the heat
of the fire) . The "commonest state" is one in which both
substance and energy are uniformly diffused, just as the
commonest state in which we find a concert audience is
that in which tall people and short, dark and fair, and
so on, are uniformly diffused.
General considerations of this kind can tell us some-
thing at least as to the final end of the universe, but they
cannot indicate the road by which it will be reached. All
they can tell us is that the road is practically certain to be
one of increasing entropy throughout; and the better we
understand entropy, the more this statement will convey
to us. It is not impossible for the entropy to decrease, but
it is almost infinitely improbable that it should do so.
For instance, when the ink and water have once be-
come thoroughly mixed, the state of maximum entropy
has been attained; the ink-water mixture cannot change
its general characteristics any further without a decrease
of entropy. Yet the molecules of ink and water still jostle
one another about, and change places as they do so. It is
quite conceivable that their random motions should take
diem into a configuration in which all the ink molecules
are found at one end of the vessel, and all the water
molecules at the other. The entropy of such a configu-
268 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
ration is far below the maximum possible, so that the
odds against the molecules of ink and water assuming such
a configuration are immense. Yet it is important to
notice that no law of nature prohibits it. Indeed, if we
had an infinite number of vessels of ink and water, the
unexpected would be bound to happen in a few of them
just as, if an enormous number of hands of bridge are
played, there are bound to bd*a few deals in which each
player gets one complete suit, in spite of the immense a
priori odds against such an event occurring in a single
individual case. The event is bound to occur either if an
enormous number of players play bridge for a short time
or if a single party of players play for an enormous time.
In the same way we may say that a complete separation of
the ink and water is bound to occur, either if we have an
infinite, number of vessels containing the mixture, or if a
single vessel exists for an infinite time.
Similar considerations apply to our other miniature
universe of fire, kettle and water; the water in the kettle
may freeze as the result of being put over a hot fire. To
prove this, we need only notice that there is a possible
state of this group of objects in which the water exists
in the form of ice, and the fire is even hotter than before
because there is less heat in the kettle and its contents.
If we map out all the configurations of the system, this
particular configuration must appear on the map, so that
we cannot know for certain that it will not be the end
of the journey. We know, however, that when we put a
kettle of ice on the fire the normal event is for it to turn
into a kettle of water. This shews that the entropy of the
water-configuration is higher than that of the ice-con-
figuration, and this in turn shews that although it is
EVENTS 269
possible for a kettle of water to freeze when placed over
a hot fire, it is almost infinitely improbable that it will
do so on any single occasion. If even the most credible
of witnesses told us a kettle of water had frozen when he
put it on a hot fire, we should not believe him, although
there is nothing in the laws of nature to prohibit such an
occurrence; indeed these very laws assure us that the
event must occasionally happen. Yet such occasions must
from the nature of things be so very rare, that we should
think it far more likely that our informant had gone
crazy, had been deceived, or was lying, than that he had
been present at one of them.
These examples have both illustrated cases in which the
individual atoms and molecules are left to perform ran-
dom motions under the play of blind forces. If the atoms
and molecules receive any kind of guidance, the result
may be very different. Suppose that, instead of ink, we
pour oil into our water. We no longer expect the final
result to be a uniform mixture; we know that we shall
find all the oil on top and all the water below. An
arrangement which is inconceivably improbable for ink
and water is found .to be the most probable of all for oil
and water; indeed, exact calculation confirms that a state
of practically complete separation is the state of maximum
entropy in the case now under consideration. The reason
for the change is that the force of gravity differentiates
between the molecules of oil and of water. When we say
that oil is of lower specific gravity than water, we mean in
effect that the earth's attraction draws particles of water
downward with a force greater than it exerts on equal-
sized particles of oil. Because it continually drags these
latter particles down with a smaller force, it encourages
270 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
them to move upwards through the water. When we mix
oil and water, we are not handing over their molecules
to be the playthings of a blind chance, but rather to a
chance over-ridden by the selective action of gravitation.
There is blind interplay of the molecules of oil between
themselves and of the molecules of water between them-
selves, but the cross interplay is controlled by gravitation.
Suppose, for instance, that we divide our vessel into two
equal divisions, each holding a pint, by a horizontal
membrane with a small pinhole in it. Let us mix a
pint of oil and a pint of water as thoroughly as possible,
and fill our vessel on both sides of the membrane with
this quart of mixed liquid. After a sufficient time, we
shall of course find that all the oil has passed into the
upper half, while all the water has passed into the lower
half; our careful mixing has been undone, and this by
very simple means. Whenever a particle of oil in the
lower half met a particle of water in the upper half at the
pinhole the only place at which they could meet the
force of gravity urged them to change places, and such
interchanges have continually increased the amount of oil
in the upper half and that of water in the lower half, until
complete separation has been effected.
The Sorting Demon of Maxwell
If we performed a similar experiment with our previous
mixture of water and red ink, no such action would take
place in the ordinary course of nature, since gravity makes
no distinction between liquids of the same specific gravity.
Yet suppose an intelligent being of microscopic size were
placed at the pinhole, armed with a tiny shutter with
which he could close the aperture when he wished, and
EVENTS 271
was given instructions to open it only for molecules of
ink passing upwards or for molecules of water passing
downwards in brief his task would be to perform a
selective action like that which gravity performs for oil
and water. It is clear that after a long enough time the
ink and water will be as thoroughly separated as the oil
and water had previously been, although this time the
separation would have been produced not by gravity
but by intelligence.
The intelligent microscopic being we have just de-
scribed was introduced into science by the Cambridge
physicist Clerk Maxwell, and is generally described as
"Maxwell's demon". The demon, we must notice, in no
way sets himself in opposition to the laws of mechanics.
We do not know how often he finds it necessary to open
and close his microscopic shutter. The natural motions
of the molecules may conceivably be such that he finds no
occasion to close it at all. Then everything will go on
precisely as though the demon had not been called on to
help, the ink and water separating out under their own
natural random motions. Yet the odds against such an
occurrence are unthinkably large. As each separate
molecule comes into view, the demon must ask himself the
question "To act or not to act?", and then put his de-
cision into practice. A prolonged run of decisions all in
the same sense will be as improbable as a prolonged run of
heads or of tails when we spin a coin. Thus it is exceed-
ingly unlikely that our demon will find that no action is
needed time after time; the normal event will be that he
will need to open and close his shutter millions of times.
Even so, he expends no energy in so doing, and each time
the shutter is closed against a molecule, we may reflect
272 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
that had the path of the molecule in question been a
hair's-breadth to right or left, it would have bounced off
the membrane without the demon touching his shutter.
Although the demon does not interfere with the opera-
tion of the laws of nature, yet he exercises a selective
effect, and by this alone he can cause any system to pass
to a state of lower entropy. Natural forces, left to their
own blind interplay, are practically certain to increase
the entropy, but it is the play of the laws of probability
rather than of the laws of nature that produces this result.
The demon has not been told to circumvent the laws of
nature, but the laws of probability; he can so to speak
load the dice from moment to moment, and obtain any
result he wants provided this does not violate the laws
of nature the conservation of mass, of energy, and so
forth. When red ink and water are mixed, he cannot
increase the total amount of either or both; all he can do
is to disentangle them, as one might sort out a heap of red
and white beads, or again as a railway shunter divides up
a goods train by moving the switches in different ways for
different wagons. When a kettle of water is placed over
a fire, he cannot add to the total amount of heat, but he
can, if he wishes, increase the heat of the fire by subtract-
ing heat from the kettle. His accomplishments are
limited to robbing Peter to pay Paul, whereas unaided
nature would leave Peter and Paul to fight it out or
perhaps to toss up for it time after time.
Quite general considerations shew that the universe as
a whole has a very long way to go before coming any-
where near its final state of maximum entropy. In this
final state, concentrations of radiation and of temperature
will equally have disappeared, so that radiation will be
EVENTS 273
distributed uniformly throughout space, and the tempera-
ture will be everywhere the same. At present, the density
of radiant energy out in the farthest depths of space cor-
responds to a temperature of less than one degree above
absolute zero; in the interstellar spaces of the galactic
system, to three or four degrees only; near the earth's
orbit to about 280 degrees; at the sun's surface to about
6000 degrees; at the sun's centre to perhaps 40 or 50
million degrees. The universe can always increase its
entropy by equalising these temperatures; as for instance
by letting energy flow from the sun's hot centre to its
cooler surface, by letting it then stream out into space,
past the earth's orbit, into the cold and dark of interstellar
and intergalactic space. There can be no end to the in-
crease of entropy until these regions are all at the same
temperature, with radiant energy diffused uniformly
throughout space. Then, and then only, will the universe
have reached its final state, a state in which the tempera-
ture will everywhere have fallen too low for life to exist
the perfect quiet and perfect darkness of eternal night.
The Activities of Life
A general survey of the universe as a whole suggests that
it is rapidly moving towards such an end. The sun is
dying, pouring out some 250 million tons of its substance
in the form of radiation each minute, thereby lowering
its own heat and raising that of empty space. Other stars
tell the same story; we find no evidence of sorting demons
sitting on their surfaces to turn the heat back into their
hot interiors. Yet a being from another universe who
scrutinised this earth of ours with sufficient care might
notice signs which led him to wonder whether there
274 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
might not be local exceptions to the general increase of
entropy. For instance, regarded from the purely physical
point of view, gold is a fairly ordinary metal; natural laws
shew it no favour nor special treatment. Yet our visitor
might notice that the world's total supply of gold, which
had originally been fairly uniformly scattered throughout
parts of the earth's crust, tended to become highly con-
centrated in a few small regions, in a way which would
seem to set the demands of the second law of thermo-
dynamics utterly at defiance. Again, the law does not
approve of fires occurring at all, although it admits that
accidents will happen. It insists, however, that these
accidental violations are most likely to occur when the
weather is hot and dry. Yet our observer would not only
detect innumerable fires on earth, but would notice that
they occurred most frequently when it was cold and
damp; he would see more in those parts of the surface of
the earth which were covered with winter snow than in
those which were parched with equatorial or summer
heat. on the other hand, he might notice that small
accumulations of ice were especially in evidence when the
weather was hot and sultry.
The odds against all these events occurring in the
normal course of a nature which had not been tampered
with would be of the same order as the odds against a
kettle of water freezing when placed on a hot fire. Thus
no picture of nature can claim to be complete, unless it
contains some means by which the statistical laws of
nature may be evaded if not throughout the whole of
nature, at least in chosen spots on our own earth. Our
visitor might perhaps conjecturally attribute these eva-
sions to the activities of innumerable sorting demons.
EVENTS 275
A statistical survey of the more violent offences com-
mitted against the second law of thermodynamics would
shew that the hotbeds of crime are precisely those places
we describe as centres of civilisation. Inanimate matter
obeys the law implicitly; what we describe as life succeeds
in evading it in varying degrees. In fact it would seem
reasonable to define life as being characterised by a
capacity for evading this law. It probably cannot evade
the laws of atomic physics, which are believed to apply
as much to the atoms of a brain as to the atoms of a brick,
but it seems able to evade the statistical laws of probabil-
ity. The higher the type of life, the greater is its capacity
for evasion. And the observed evasions so closely re-
semble the results that would be produced by an army
of sorting demons, that it would seem permissible to
conjecture that life operates in some similar way.
So long as nature was believed to be mechanistic, and
therefore deterministic, such a conjecture was hardly per-
missible the sorting demons would have interfered with
the predestined course of nature.
on the other hand, modern physics can adduce no
such objection to the conjecture; the only determinism
of which it is at all sure is of a merely statistical kind.
We still see the actions of vast crowds of molecules or
particles conforming to determinism this is of course
the determinism we observe in our everyday life, the basis
of the so-called law of the uniformity of nature. But no
determinism has so far been discovered in the motions of
the separate individuals; on the contrary, the phenomena
of radio-activity and radiation rather suggests that these
do not move as they are pushed and pulled by inexorable
forces; so long as we picture them in time and space, their
276 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
future appears to be undetermined and uncertain at every
step. They may go one way or another if nothing in-
tervenes to direct their paths; they are not controlled by
pre-determined forces, but only by the statistical laws
of probability. If an unknown something intervenes to
guide them, they may transfer their allegiance from the
laws of probability to the guiding something, as the
molecules of the oil-water mixture did to the force of
gravitation. There seems no longer to be any reason why
this something should not be similar to the action of sort-
ing demons, the volitions of intelligent minds loading the
dice in their own favour, and so influencing, so to speak,
the motions of the molecules when they are in doubt
which path to take provided always that volitions
and molecules are not too dissimilar in their nature for
such interaction to be possible.
Space-time and Nature
We can also look at the matter in the alternative way de-
scribed on p. 257. We have just been picturing nature as
an assemblage of particles set in a framework of space and
time. Yet we have seen elsewhere that such a framework
is not suited for the arrangement of the whole external
world, but only for the photons by which it sends messages
to our senses. Because these messages arrive in a frame-
work of space-time, we must not conclude that the whole
external world exists within the confines of the same
framework. Our observational knowledge of the outer
world is limited by the aperture of our senses, and these
form blinkers which prevent our seeing beyond space
and time just as our telescope may prevent us seeing
more than a small angle of the sky. But the events we see
EVENTS 277
in space and time may have their origin outside space and
time just as the curve in the tail of the brilliant comet
we see in our telescope may have its origin in the sun
which lies outside the field of the telescope. The recent
developments of theoretical physics suggest that this may
be the case with many of the phenomena of physics.
It has proved impossible to find any description of elec-
trons and protons in space and time such as shall fully
account for the phenomena originating in them.
This has led us to think of space-time as a sort of
surface-layer of the universe; the sources of events appear
in this space-time surface in the form of material protons
and electrons, but they have their roots in a deeper
stratum. Thus although no causality may be discernible
while we limit our vision to the surface of things, yet if we
could take the whole of reality into view, we might see
cause and effect inter-related, events following clearly
specified laws, and not occurring merely as illustrations of
the laws of probability. The gardener plants a dozen
trees which, so far as he can see, are exactly similar; he
has been told that only fifty per cent, of trees of this
species thrive, and this is confirmed when he finds that,
out of his dozen trees, six thrive and six fail. Yet he does
not attribute their different fates to the laws of proba-
bility, but to happenings in the soil beyond his vision.
He digs down and finds wire-worms at the roots of the
six failures. The wire-worms play much the same sort of
part as we have imagined the sorting demon to play in
our space-time picture, or as we have conjectured that
our volitions and intelligences might play. Residing be-
yond the stratum of time and space, they can influence
events, which also have their roots outside time and space,
278 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
and so exercise some control over the happenings in time
and space.
Conjectures of the kind bring us to a region of thought
in which human predilections are deeply concerned.
Some who are eager to find a place for virtue, beauty
and other "values" in the scheme of things are very
ready to hail any evidence of indeterminism in nature as
almost affording a proof of human free-will. Others re-
fuse to admit the possibility of indeterminism even in
nature, and insist that we, like all nature, are mere cogs of
a machine which is running down to its predetermined
end.
Apart from extremists, a number of moderate men still
adopt an attitude of extreme caution, and even suspicion,
towards any attempt to reconcile human free-will with
the scheme of physical science. Many quote recent
investigations in physiology and psychology as providing
evidence, not against the possibility of free-will, but
against its probability. Others regard the present
situation in physics as a mere transitory phase. For
instance, Planck, who has given much thought to this
question, writes, with reference to the impact of quan-
tum ideas on the fundamental laws of physics: *
"Some essential modification seems to be inevitable; but
I firmly believe, in company with most physicists, that the
quantum hypothesis will eventually find its exact ｅxpression
in certain equations which will be a more exact formulation
of the law of causality 9 *,
and is prepared to extend the operation of this law to
human activities:
* Where is Science going? by Max Planck (1933), pp. 143, 155.
EVENTS 279
"The principle of causality must be held to extend even
to the highest achievements of the human soul. We must
admit that the mind of each one of our greatest geniuses
Aristotle, Kant or Leonardo, Goethe or Beethoven, Dante
or Shakespeare even at the moment of its highest flights
of thought or in the most profound inner workings of the
soul, was subject to the caused fiat and was an instrument
in the hands of an almighty law which governs the world".
Einstein is reported as expressing similar opinions:*
"I am entirely in agreement with our friend Planck in re-
gard to the stand which he has taken on this principle. He
admits the impossibility of applying the causal principle to the
inner processes of atomic physics under the present state of
affairs; but he has set himself definitely against the thesis that
from this Unbrauchbarkeit or inapplicability we are to conclude
that the process of causation does not exist in external reality.
Planck has really not taken up any definite standpoint here.
He has only contradicted the emphatic assertions of some
quantum theorists and I agree fully with him. And when you
mention people who speak of such a thing as free will in nature
it is difficult for me to find a suitable reply. The idea is of
course preposterous. . . .
"Honestly I cannot understand what people mean when
they talk about freedom of the human will".
Weyl, on the other hand, after explaining how the
limits to determinism, if any, will be found by passing
along the road from the large scale phenomena of astron-
omy and physics, which necessarily appear deterministic
(p. 230), to the small scale phenomena at the far end of
the road, continues: f
"We firmly believe today that we have touched these limits
in quantum mechanics. . . .
* L.c. pp. 210, 211.
t The Open World, pp. 35, 43.
280 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
"At the same time 'fate' as expressed in the natural laws
appears to be so weakened by our analysis that only through
misunderstanding can it be placed in opposition to free will".
I do not think that either the facts of physical science
or their interpretation within the legitimate province of
physical science are in dispute among men of science;
on the contrary, I believe we are all in agreement. Dif-
ferences only arise when physicists take to speculation
either about the future progress of science (as Planck does
in the above quotation), or about the ultimate problem of
human free-will, which of course lies beyond the province
of physics. The famous dictum of Schopenhauer "Man
can do what he wills, but cannot will what he wills"
contains two distinct statements. The latter has to do
with happenings on the mind side of the mind-body
bridge, which are not the concern of physics. The former
is the concern of physics. In brief, it was believed to be
in conflict with nineteenth-century physics, but is not in
conflict with the physics of to-day; whether it will be
in conflict with the physics of to-morrow remains to be
seen.
Nevertheless, the most we can say is that crevices have
begun to appear in what used to be considered the im-
pregnable closed cycle of physical science. Whether the
volitions of the human mind can pass through these and
affect the operations of nature must in the last resort
depend on whether the two are sufficiently alike to in-
teract a keyhole is useless unless we have a key of the
same nature as the lock. It may still be, as Descartes
maintained, that mind is too dissimilar from matter ever
to be able to influence it.
EVENTS 281
Mind and Matter
A century after Descartes, we find Berkeley maintaining
that we had no right to say that matter was different from
mind. With no knowledge of matter except such as
comes to us through the perceptions of our minds, what
warrant can there possibly be for supposing the two are of
unlike natures ? Matter outside our minds produces ideas
inside our minds; causes must be of like nature to their
effects, and "after all, there is nothing like an idea but an
idea". Thus Berkeley argued that matter must be of the
same general nature as an idea, like the matter we see in a
dream. To say that mind cannot influence matter now
becomes as absurd as to say that mind cannot influence
ideas.
A later school of philosophy shewed how this argument
could be turned against its author. Even if matter and
mind were of similar nature, how did we know they were
of the nature of mind rather than of matter? The science
of that time claimed to know a great deal about matter,
but admittedly knew very little about mind; thus it was
said that the scientific picture of matter must also portray
mind and its operations. And this picture was that to
which we have so often referred a jumble of mechan-
ical atoms moving blindly along their pre-arranged paths
to predestined ends.
The logic of this argument stands, but not the premised
picture of matter. In so far as science now draws any
picture at all of matter, it is one which seems in every
way closer in mind.
To some extent this must be the case. The old science
which pictured nature as a crowd of blindly wandering
282 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
atoms, claimed that it was depicting a completely objec-
tive universe, entirely outside of, and detached from, the
mind which perceived it. Modern science makes no such
claim, frankly admitting that its subject of study is pri-
marily our observation of nature, and not nature itself.
The new picture of nature must then inevitably involve
mind as well as matter the mind which perceives and
the matter which is perceived and so must be more
mental in character than the fallacious picture which
preceded it.
Yet the essence of the present situation in physics is not
that something mental has come into the new picture of
nature, so much as that nothing non-mental has survived
from the old picture. As we have watched the gradual
metamorphosis of the old picture into the new, we have
not seen the addition of mind to matter so much as the
complete disappearance of matter, at least of the kind
out of which the older physics constructed its objective
universe.
The Einstein-Heisenberg policy of concentrating on
observables might well have been adopted in the first
instance as a mere matter of scientific technique; it was an
obvious precaution to make as few assumptions as possible
about unobservables, and so lessen the risk of unjustified
assumptions and wasted work.
Such a policy might have resulted in either of two
ways. If the phenomena of observation were evidence of
an objective nature existing in its own right, the proce-
dure might have been expected first to co-ordinate the ob-
servables and then to throw some light on the real nature
of the unobservables behind them. If, on the other hand,
nature was largely or wholly subjective, the procedure
EVENTS 283
might have been expected to disclose this fact. Actually
the result has come nearer to the latter alternative than
to the former. The observables do not appear to owe
their existence to our supposed unobservables existing in
the reality behind them so much as to our conscious
minds observing them from in front. Electrons, protons,
and their varied arrangements seem as unable to provide
true primary qualities as were the older mass, motion and
extension in space of Locke and Descartes; the theory of
quanta seems to dethrone the former as effectively as the
theory of relativity dethroned the latter. Thus the pro-
cedure of concentrating on observables appears to be
leading to results different from those which might have
been anticipated if the unobservables had existed in their
own right; it seems to lend a new meaning to the dictum
"Esse est percipi" of the philosophy of an earlier age.
Such considerations as these undoubtedly introduce a
markedly subjective tinge into all discussion of the present
situation in mathematical physics. We must, however,
be on our guard against taking a wrong turning at this
point of our discussion. Even if our assumed unobserv-
ables electrons and protons should prove to be
wholly subjective, this would not prove that all nature is
subjective. Our unobservables are at best mere guesses.
These particular unobservables may have been bad
guesses, mere creations of our own imagining, but this
does not shew that others might not have been good
guesses. Perhaps the proper interpretation of the situa-
tion is merely that we must look for new unobservables.
It is not difficult to know where to look. We have
already seen that the particle picture, which treats matter
as consisting of electrons and protons, fails, in some re-
284 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
spects, to represent the true properties of matter; the
wave picture, on the other hand, is nowhere known to
fail, and so may provide the true gateway to reality
(p. 252). Now the waves of this picture are of course
unobservables; it may be that a study of these, rather than
of electrons and protons, will lead us to the true objective
reality behind appearances. Our attempt to relate these
waves to particles introduced subjectivity, but this may
have entered from the particle side and not from the wave
side of the attempted relation. We have so far interpreted
waves as specifying the probabilities of particles existing
at points in space-time; we may equally well interpret
them as specifying the probabilities of happenings at
points in space-time the spot of light on the screen, the
blackening of the photographic plate by the impact of the
supposed "electron".
Indeed, if these waves are to lead us to an objective
reality, we must associate them with happenings rather
than with particles, since we have already seen (pp. 199,
249) that they have no objective existence for particles to
which nothing is happening beyond bare existence. The
quantum theory seizes the photons from a source of radia-
tion at the moment of their emergence into space-time,
analyses them and tries to refer them to the motion of an
assumed electron (p. 183) under the electric attraction of
a nucleus. Yet this procedure leads to no objective speci-
fication for the assumed electron when it is away from the
electric field; we found that we could only make our pic-
ture of matter objective by leaving isolated electrons and
protons out of it altogether; these seem to acquire objec-
tive reality only when combined to form an atom, and so
to produce events (p. 248), just as our individual space
EVENTS 285
and time are found only to acquire objective reality when
they are combined to form a four-dimensional space-time.
It may be objected that, as nothing is put into the
theory except our knowledge of radiation, we can hardly
expect a positive knowledge of objects to emerge. Yet if
the electron and proton had permitted of separate objec-
tive specifications, we might have expected to be able to
distinguish the two ingredients separately in the specifi-
cation of the combination. It has not proved possible to
do this; the quantum theory does not encourage us to
regard the combination as the juxtaposition of two parti-
cles, but merely as a source of radiation issuing into
space-time.
We cannot explain the situation away by saying that
the uncertainty principle makes objective specifications
impossible; this is putting the cart before the horse. The
impossibility of objective specifications is inherent in the
wave picture, so that if, as we now suppose, the wave
picture is fundamental, the uncertainty principle is the
consequence, and not the cause, of this impossibility.
This inevitably raises doubts as to whether the isolated
electron and proton have any existence at all in reality.
The theory of relativity raises the same doubts, although
in a somewhat different form. For, after experimental
physics has reduced the supposed matter to its ultimate
constituents, electrons and protons, the theory of rela-
tivity finds it necessary to carry the resolution further.
According to the older physics, a particle of matter was
characterised by continued existence in time. The theory
of relativity represents this continued existence by a con-
tinuous line in space-time, and then resolves this line
into its points, each of which represents an "event" the
286 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
existence of the particle at a single instant of time. Space-
time is warped at every point, and in particular at the
points along this line. Yet the warping at these points
does not differ in essential character from that elsewhere.
If the particle had no extension in space beyond that of a
mere point, we might find a sharp edge or ridge of warp-
ing, but we have seen that we cannot assign to the
elementary particles either a definite localisation or a
sharply defined boundary; the wave picture of a particle,
whatever else it may be, is never a point. Thus the
"world-line" of a particle is, strictly speaking, not a line
at all, but is a continuous and unbounded curved region,
and must logically be separated into small curved spots
the particle resolves itself into events. Most of these
events are unobservable; it is only when two particles
meet or come near to one another that we have an ob-
servable event which can affect our senses. We have no
knowledge of the existence of the particle between times,
so that observation only warrants us in regarding its
existence as a succession of isolated events.
It may be objected that all nature goes on as though
these particles had a real existence, and this provides pre-
sumptive evidence that they have. A similar argument
might of course be adduced to prove the real existence of
photons; we have seen that the evidence for their existence
is of the same general type as that for electrons (p. 154),
and that a large part of nature can be explained by sup-
posing photons to have a real existence (p. 155). Indeed
it is easy to imagine beings in intergalactic space, where
matter is rare, endowed with electric senses in place of our
material senses, who would regard photons as the primary
constituent of reality and matter as something outside the
EVENTS 287
general course of nature. Yet we have seen that photons
are merely combinations of free vibrations, so that if the
wave picture is fundamental, photons cannot be said to
have a real existence of the kind which we used to attrib-
ute to electrons. And, if photons must be dismissed 'from
the realm of reality, it is hard to find any reason for
retaining electrons and protons.
It becomes important at this stage to make a clear dis-
tinction between existence and identifiable existence.
For instance, the pounds, shillings and pence of our bank
accounts have a real existence, but not an identifiable
existence; we cannot say they are Bank of England notes
of numbers so and so. In physics it is the same with
energy; it would for instance be meaningless and silly to
say that the energy which is now lighting my room is
identical with that with which Samson pulled down the
pillars of the house in Gaza; energy has no identifiable
existence. Again it is the same with electrons. When
two dogs A y B engage in a dog-fight, two damaged dogs
C, D emerge of slightly altered appearance; but it is al-
ways possible to say, for instance, that C was A and D was
B. But when two electrons meet in an encounter, this is
not the case; the identification is not only impossible in
practise but is meaningless in theory. The mere assump-
tion that it is possible leads to difficulties and wrong re-
sults in physics. Yet when electrons and protons are
combined to form an atom, this atom appears to retain an
identifiable existence, at least through long periods of
time. It is not meaningless to say to-day that certain
atoms of gold formed part of Cleopatra's crown, but it is
meaningless to say that certain electrons formed part of
the pearl she drank. No doubt it is often convenient to
288 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
regard events as strung on to electrons and protons, like
beads on a thread, but the manner of stringing is merely
a matter of subjective choice; I may string them in one
way, and you in another, and both ways are equally
valid. Thus the events must be treated as the funda-
mental objective constituents, and we must no longer
think of the universe as consisting of solid pieces of matter
which persist in time, and move about in space.
on some such grounds as these it is possible to conjec-
ture, with Leibnitz, that matter as ordinarily understood,
the matter of solid objects and hard particles, has no
existence in reality, and only appears to exist through
our observing non-material things in a confused way
through the bias of our human spectacles. Events and
not particles constitute the true objective reality, so that a
piece of matter becomes, in Bertrand RusselPs words,
"not a persistent thing with varying states, but a system of
inter-related events. The old solidity is gone, and with it the
characteristics that, to the materialist, made matter seem more
real than fleeting thoughts 55 .
This at once takes all force out of the popular objection
that mind and matter are so unlike that all interaction is
impossible. With matter resolved into events, the objec-
tion is no longer tenable. We see the territory on both
sides of the mind-body bridge occupied by events, and as
Bertrand Russell says:*
"The events that happen in our minds are part of the
course of nature, and we do not know that the events which
happen elsewhere are of a totally different kind".
There is then no longer any reason, on these grounds,
why the two should not interact. This of course brings us
* Outline oj Philosophy, p. 311.
EVENTS 289
to something which is very like Berkeley's famous argu-
ment, clad in modern dress, and supported by scientific
knowledge. It obviously follows that, to quote Russell
again,*
"the world presented for our belief by a philosophy based
upon modern science is in many ways less alien to ourselves
than the world of matter as conceived in former centuries".
The Mathematical Pattern
Einstein has written: f
"In every important advance the physicist finds that the
fundamental laws are simplified more and more as experi-
mental research advances. He is astonished to notice how
sublime order emerges from what appeared to be chaos.
And this cannot be traced back to the workings of his own
mind but is due to a quality that is inherent in the world of
perception".
Weyl has made a similar comment, writing: J
"The astonishing thing is not that there exist natural laws,
but that the further the analysis proceeds, the finer the details,
the finer the elements to which the phenomena are reduced,
the simpler and not the more complicated, as one would
originally expect the fundamental relations become and the
more exactly do they describe the actual occurrences".
We have had ample evidence of this tendency toward
simplicity in the present book. We have seen Hero's
simple synthesis of the two laws of Euclid gradually ex-
panding in scope until it embraces almost all the activities
of the universe, and yet maintaining its original simplicity
of mathematical form throughout. Phenomenal nature
*!,.*. p. 311.
t Introduction to Where is Science going? p. 13.
J The Open World, p. 41.
290 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
is reduced to an array of events in the four-dimensional
continuum, and the arrangement of these events proves
to be of an exceedingly simple mathematical kind. The
discovery of the pattern underlying the arrangement
might have been expected to suggest some reason why this
special arrangement prevailed rather than another. It is
as though we had set out to study the fundamental texture
of a picture and had found this to consist of regularly
spaced dots, as in a half-tone print. We are not con-
cerned with the meaning of the picture as a whole, which
may be moral or aesthetic or anything else; this is not the
province of science. We are concerned only with the
fundamental texture of the picture, which might con-
ceivably have told us something as to its physical nature,
something for instance as to the substance on which the
picture was printed. But science has so far been unable to
discover anything about the dots except the exceeding
simplicity of their arrangement.
This simplicity is of a mathematical kind; it seems to
admit of a very simple mathematical interpretation and
of no other, as though, in Boyle's phase, mathematics is
the alphabet of the language in which nature is written.
The words of this language may or may not be mental in
their meanings; the immediate point is that, even in the
alphabet, we can discover no reality different in kind
from that we associate with a mere mental concept
These mental concepts are not of the kind that we associ-
ate with the work of the engineer or the poet or the moral-
ist, but with the thinker who works with pure thought
alone as his raw material, the mathematician at work in
his study.
Space provides an obvious instance of this. The con-
EVENTS 291
cept of a finite space reduces the science of astronomy to
law and order, just as the concept of a finite surface for
the earth reduces the science of geography to law and
order. It is easy to make a model of the earth's surface.
We merely take any spherical object, and its surface
the transition from matter to something which is not
matter gives us our model. But we cannot make a
model of a finite space in the same way, because we
cannot imagine a layer of transition from space to some-
thing which is not space. Anyone who mentions the
finiteness of space in his writings or lectures is besieged
with questions as to what lies beyond the finite space. It
is impossible, we are told, to think of finite space as a
physical reality. If we try to do so, we are at once asked
what is outside the space. What can there be except
more space? and so on ad infinitum, which proves that
space cannot be finite.
If we give up trying to attach any sort of reality to
finite space except that of a purely mental concept, our
way immediately becomes clear. Our everyday thoughts
are never concerned with more than a finite part of space,
so that finite space as a framework for mental processes
is farm liar to us all.
It seems likely that to bring law and order into the
phenomena of nature, we shall further have to suppose
that the finite space is expanding, and this raises similar
questions. What can space expand into, except more
space? Yet if it does so, the space which expands cannot
be the whole of space, and so on as before, whence it
follows that the whole of space cannot be expanding.
Thus we cannot attribute any reality to the space of the
universe, except again as a mental concept; any attempt
292 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
to assign a degree of reality different from this to space
leads only to confusion and contradictions.
It may be urged that this does not prove anything new,
since we already know that space cannot have any objec-
tive reality except as one constituent of the continuum.
But similar considerations apply to the continuum itself,
the one entity in which science absorbs all others, and to
which alone an objective reality seems possible. We find
that we must picture this also as limited, so that unless
we treat this also as a mere mental concept, we are con-
fronted with the question as to what lies beyond the
limits. Yet when we so treat it we find we have reduced
the whole of nature to a mental concept, since the
texture of nature is nothing but the texture of the space-
time continuum.
Some may dissent from Einstein's view that this sim-
plicity of pattern is inherent in the world of perception,
and may claim that it is due to the way in which our
minds perceive. A thoroughgoing Kantian would argue
that our minds act as lawgivers to nature, prescribing to
the external world the ways in which its phenomena shall
be perceived by us. The fact that only unbent pennies
are found in an automatic machine does not prove that
the outer world consists of unbent pennies, but merely that
the machine has a selective mechanism which will only
accept unbent pennies. In this same way our minds may
have a selective action for simple mathematical laws.
on such a view our supposed laws of nature become a
mere specification of our own mental processes, telling us
little or possibly nothing about nature, but certainly
something about ourselves. Yet, if so, what precisely do
they tell us ? That our minds run naturally and inevitably
EVENTS 293
to matrices, tensors, four-dimensional geometry, and all
the various square roots of minus one? Every schoolboy
will dismiss such a suggestion as grotesque, and the
physicist will certainly concur. If our minds had been
thrusting mathematical properties on to nature, we
should have designed a more readily intelligible nature
than that described in the present book; we may feel just
as sure that the repellently difficult matrices and tensors
and the brain-racking constructions of four-dimensional
geometry come to us from the external world, as the
child is sure about the pin which runs into its finger. And
if this is so, the same must be true of the simplicity of
arrangement of events in the continuum.
Moreover, if the mathematicians merely impress their
own mathematical laws on to nature, why cannot the
artist, the poet or the moralist do the same and meet with
equal success? Why is not the artist able to say "the
sunset will now turn a little more green, or purple; this is
necessary to keep it quite perfect as the light decreases"
or "the star will appear at the centre of the crescent
formed by the new moon, for this is the most aesthetic
arrangement of a star and a crescent" ? We know that
such predictions are worthless. The cloud on the western
horizon does not produce the sunset hues by conforming
to the canons of art, but by moving in accordance with
certain concepts of pure mathematics, and the only way
to discover the future of the sunset is to solve the mathe-
matical problem of finding which order of events makes
an interval in the continuum continually a minimum.
Finally, if our mathematical minds mould nature to
their own laws now, why did they not do so before the
twentieth century? It can hardly be supposed that the
294 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
inherent qualities of the human mind underwent a
revolutionary change when Planck published his famous
paper in 1 900. If the new knowledge expresses a property
of the human mind rather than of nature, surely some
learned metaphysician might have foreseen that only a
mathematical picture could ever be successful, and in so
doing have saved science all the misguided effort of trying
to draw pictures of other kinds. For three centuries
science had projected mechanical ideas on to nature, and
made havoc of a large part of nature by so doing.
Twentieth-century science, projecting the ideas of pure
mathematics on to nature, finds that they fit as perfectly,
and as uniquely, as Cinderella's slipper fitted her foot.
We can hardly explain this away by saying that we have
merely shaped the foot to fit the slipper, for so many other
slippers were tried first and no amount of ingenuity could
get the foot into them.
The fact that the mathematical picture fits nature
must, I think, be conceded to be a new discovery of
science, embodying new knowledge of nature such as
could not have been predicted by any sort of general
argument. If we could translate our knowledge from the
language of phenomena into the language of reality, the
word "mathematical" would, I think, have some sort of
translation in the latter language; it would not drop away
as having represented a mere form of apprehending
phenomena. And if this is so, it would seem to suggest
that reality must have something of a mental nature
about it.
The Road to Ultimate Reality
Yet the fact that the search for a physical reality under-
lying the mathematical description of nature has so far
EVENTS 295
fatted does not of course imply that the search must for
ever fail. We must admit it as conceivable that the
further advances of science may yet clothe our present
mathematical abstractions in new dresses of physical
reality, and possibly even of material substance. It is
not easy to imagine how formulae in which V 1 plays
such a prominent part can admit of such an interpreta-
tion, yet with the surprising and kaleidoscopic changes of
recent years still fresh in our minds, we cannot disregard
the possibility. It is, however, so far out of the range of
our vision at the present moment, that it is idle to specu-
late as to what the new dress may be. It may perchance
restore mechanical properties to nature, space-time may
prove to be a real substantial island floating in something
which is not space-time, and so on nothing can be
ruled out as impossible.
Or it may be that no such substantial or material dress
will ever be found, and that our knowledge of the uni-
verse will for ever remain similar in kind to our present
knowledge, a knowledge of our perceptions expressed as a
group of mathematical formulae stamped with the stamp
of the pure mathematician the kind of formulae which
result from the operation of thought working within its
own sphere. In such an event, there may or may not be a
non-mental reality behind the form; if there is, it will be
beyond our scientific capacity to imagine.
All these possibilities are in the field, since all refer to
the future and the unknown. Our positive knowledge of
the road along which science is travelling is confined to
that which lies behind it. We cannot say how much
farther, if at all, the road extends in front,, or what the
far end of it is like; at best we can only guess.
296 THE NEW BACKGROUND OF SCIENCE
Some may think that the most plausible conjecture is
that the end of the road will be like what is at the half-way
house, or perhaps more so. We have already described
recent progress in physical science as resulting from a con-
tinuous emancipation from the purely human point of
view. Our last impression of nature, before we began to
take our human spectacles off, was of an ocean of mecha-
nism surrounding us on all sides. As we gradually discard
our spectacles, we see mechanical concepts continually
giving plaice to mental. If from the nature of things we can
never discard them entirely, we may yet conjecture that
the effect of doing so would be the total disappearance of
matter and mechanism, mind reigning supreme and alone.
Others may think it more likely that the pendulum will
swing back in time.
Broadly speaking, the two conjectures are those of the
idealist and realist or, if we prefer, the mentalist and
materialist views of nature. So far the pendulum
shews no signs of swinging back, and the law and order
which we find in the universe are most easily described
and also, I think, most easily explained in the language
of idealism. Thus, subject to the reservations already
mentioned, we may say that present-day science is favour-
able to idealism. In brief, idealism has always main-
tained that, as the beginning of the road by which we
explore nature is mental, the chances are that the end also
will be mental. To this present-day science adds that,
at the farthest point she has so far reached, much, and
possibly all, that was not mental has disappeared, and
nothing new has come in that is not mental. Yet who
shall say what we may find awaiting us round the next
corner?
INDEX
o-particles, 147
Absolute time and space, 94 ff., 1 09,
141, 173, 175
velocity, 94
Action, 123 ff., 128
at a distance, 111 ff., 118
principle of least, 122 ff., 124 ff.
Activities of life, 273 ff., 274
Alkali metals, spectra of, 250
Analysis of light, 20, 28, 30
Animism, 33, 224
Anthropomorphic views of nature,
33, 43, 225
Aristarchus of Samos, 48
Aristotle, 122, 227
Atomic physics, 52
Atomism, 15 ff.
Atoms, 15, 16, 180 ff., 242
nucleus of, 17
spectra of, 166 ff.
structure of, 17, 180 ff., 245
0-particles, 147
Berkeley (Bishop), 15, 281, 289
Black-body radiation, 150, 156, 157
Bohr, N., 5, 53, 54, 169, 170, 242,
256
correspondence principle, 181
quantum restrictions, 169, 181,
191, 244
theory of spectra, 53, 54, 168,
170, 176, 203, 243
Born, M., 193, 218
Boyle, R., 290
Bradley, F. H., 4, 40, 68, 109, 143
-/-radiation, 155
Causality, 36, 227, 228, 257, 278 ff.
Change, meaning of, 108
Common-sense, 41, 114
view of nature, 1, 42, 114, 229
Compton, A. H., 153
Continuum, 100, 101, 292
curvature o 117, 128, 129 ff.,
292
Copernicus, 48, 49
Cornford, F. M., 73
Corpuscular theory of light, 22,
23 ff., 83, 122, 159, 225, 286
Correspondence principle of Bohr,
181
Cosmic radiation, 155
Coulomb's law, 100
Curvature, of continuum, 117, 128,
129 ff., 292
of space, 132,135
Dalton, J., 16
de Broglie, L., 193 ff., 203
waves, 203, 206 ff.
Democritus, 15
Demon, sorting, 270, 271, 275, 277
Descartes, causality, 38
mind and matter, 37, 75, 281
primary qualities, 14, 75, 283
space and ether, 75, 97
vision, 11
de Sitter, W., 138
Determinism, 36, 43, 227, 253 ff.,
275
Differential co-efficient, 194
Dirac, P. A. M., 43, 44, 56, 184, 218
Eddington, A. S., 136
Ehrenfest, P., 211, 238, 239
Einstein, A., 5, 42, 56, 65, 84, 93,
94, 97, 118, 144, 226, 227, 239,
279, 282
determinism, 227, 279
free will, 279
gravitation, 117 ff.
quanta, 152, 239
radiation, 227
relativity, 3, 50, 51, 84, 93, 101,
117, 138
unitary field-theory, 126
universe, 127 ff., 138, 144
Electron, 17, 21, 147, 148, 286, 287,
288
frequency of, 200, 207
297
298
INDEX
Electron, polarisation of, 250
spinning, 250
wave properties o 54, 66, 199,
207, 210 ff., 220, 221, 236, 241,
248, 284
Entropy, 264 ff.
Ether, luminiferous, 75, 76, 77,
171, 175, 242
Euclid, 119, 126
Events, 11, 101, 102, 261 ff., 284
Evolution, astronomical, 137, 138
in nature, 107, 142
Expanding Universe, 130 ff., 291
Faraday, M., 84
Format's principle, 120
Fitzgerald, G. F., 89, 90
Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction, 89
Force (mechanical), 34, 35
Franck and Hertz, 53, 168, 226, 242
Free vibrations, 162, 164, 166, 189,
287
Free will, 36, 278
Frequency, 151
Fresnel, 23
Galileo, 34, 123, 190
Gamow, 245
Gases, theory of, 16, 146, 155, 156
Generalised theory of relativity,
50 ff., 117
Gerlach, Stern and, 251
Gilbert, W. S., 90
Goudsmit, 250
Gravitation (Einstein), 50, 51, 117
(Newton), 49, 51, 100, 116
Greek science, 34, 48, 73, 74
Greek views of nature, 3"frrvsmj 34
atomism, 15
time and space, 73
Harmonics, 163, 167
Heisenberg, W., 3, 5, 42, 170 ff.,
193, 196, 197, 203, 256, 282
Helium atom, 17, 54, 147
Hero of Alexandria, 119, 126, 289
Hertz (Franck and), 53, 168, 226,
242
Hesiod, 74
Homer, 33, 73, 74
Huygens, 35
Hydrogen atom, spectrum, 52, 54,
167, 181
structure, 17, 52, 242, 243
structure (wave-mechanics), 242,
245
Idealism, 15, 68, 296
Indeterminacy, 230 ff., 257
Heisenberg's principle of, 232.
236,282
Indeterminism, 227, 228, 257
Intensity of radiation, 156
Interference (of light), 120, 215
Interval, in continuum, 101, 102,
104 ff.
principle of least, 125, 293
Jowett, B., 73
Kant, L, causality, 227
epistemology, 292
space, 73, 97, 129
Kelvin, Lord, 60
Kepler, J., 49
Kinetic theory, of gases, 16, 146,
of radiation, 155
Laplace, P. S., 58
Lavoisier, 16
Leibnitz, 38, 288
Lemaitre, G., 130, 137, 144
Leverrier, U.J.J.,50
Life, .activities of, 273, 274
Light, nature of, 19, 22, 24 ff., 63,
66,83,241
particle-theory of, 23, 24 ff., 83,
122, 189, 225 .
quanta of Einstein, 152
reflection of, 18, 119
undulatory theory of, 19, 23ff.
63, 83, 120, 122, 160, 241
Local time of Lorentz, 91, 93, 94
Locke, primary qualities, 14, 283
Lorentz, H. A., 86, 87, 88, 89, 90,
91, 92, 93, 100
Lorentz-transformation, 86, 91, 97,
204
Magnetic Induction, 86, 91, 92
Materialism, 31, 64, 260
INDEX
299
Matrix (in mathematics), 178, 182,
293
Matter, 11, 12, 112, 288
primary qualities of, 13, 284
reality of, 288
secondary qualities of, 13
structure of, 16 flf., 112, 146
Maupertuis, 123
Maximum Entropy, states of, 266,
273
Maxwell, J. C., electromagnetic
theory, 84, 86, 253
sorting demon of, 270, 271, 274,
277
theory of gases, 16, 146, 155, 156
Mechanical views of nature, 35, 43,
64, 170, 171, 190, 191, 294,
295
Mercator projection, 114 ff., 127
Mercury, motion of planets, 50
Michelson-Morley experiment,
80 ff., 93, 139
Mind-body bridge, 12, 280
Minkowski, H., 97, 99, 100
Molecule, 15, 16
Monochromatic light, 20
Morley (see Michelson)
Nature, mechanical views of, 35,
43, 64, 170, 171
objective, 1, 4, 67, 249, 282 ff.,
284
subjective, 2, 4, 65, 67, 68, 283 ff.,
284
uniformity of, 7, 35, 229
Nebular motions, 136
Newton, Isaac, 43, 97, 119, 225
astronomy, 35, 49
determinism, 225, 227
gravitation, 49, 51, 100, 116
mechanics, 14, 35, 43, 44, 123,
190, 191
optics, 23, 225
relativity, 77, 85, 88
Observables and Unobservables,
170, 282, 283, 284
Osculations of a solid, 188 ff.
Particle picture, indeterminacy of,
255, 256, 257
Particle picture, of electron, 251.
284, 285, 286
of radiation, 22, 122, 159, 166
Pearson,|Karl, 56
Phase of vibrations, 121, 180
Philosophical theories, idealist, 15,
67, 68, 296
materialist, 31, 64, 260
mentalist, 15, 296
objective, 1, 67, 68, 282
realist, 68, 296
subjective, 2, 67, 68, 282
Photography, 151
Photon, 25 ff., 52, 83, 152, 173, 174,
214 ff., 286, 287
frequency and wave-length of,
210
waves of, 210, 214, 215, 238, 241
Planck, M., 150, 278, 279, 280, 294
constant of, 190, 232 ff.
determinism, 278, 279
free will, 278
law of radiation, 156
quanta, 150
Plato, change, 109 ff.
space, 74, 140, 141, 144
time, 109, 110
PoincarS, H., 42
Poisson-brackets, 184 ff.
Polarisation, of electrons, 250
of radiation, 158, 250
Primary qualities, 13, 14, 15, 20 ff.,
75, 283
Probability, 223 ff., 252
objective, 224
subjective, 223, 237
waves of, 62, 218, 236, 252
Proton, 17, 21
frequency of, 201, 207
wave properties of, 54, 66, 198,
207
Pythagoras, 48
Quantum theory, 52, 54, 150, 189,
257, 278, 279
Quotations t
Bradley, F. H., 4, 40, 68, 109 ff,
143
Cornford, F. M., 73
Descartes, 38 ff.
Dirac, P. A. M., 44, 56
300
INDEX
Quotations (cont.):
Einstein, A., 56, 227 ff., 279,
289
Heisenberg, W., 3, 256 ff.
Huygcns, 35
Jowett, B., 73
Newton, I., 43 fit, 77, 85
Pearson, Karl, 56
Planck, M., 278 ff.
Plato, 74, 144 ff.
Russell, Bertrand, 288, 289
Schopenhauer, 280
Sidgwick, H., 96
Weyl, H., 228, 279, 289
Whitehead, A. N., 40 ff.
Radiation, 25, 26, 149, 154
black-body, 150, 156, 157, 227,
256
Radioactivity, 226, 227, 245, 256
Radium, 226, 227
Rainbow, analogy of, 2, 109
mechanism of 3, 13, 20, 47
Random walk, problem of the, 255
Realism, 68, 296
Reflection of light, 19, 119, 150
Relativity, 1, 3, 14, 15, 50, 93, 285
generalised (gravitation), 50, 51,
mass, momentum and energy,
152, 199, 200, 209
Newtonian, 77, 85, 88
restricted, 93, 117
Retina of eye, 28, 71
Ritz, principle of, 167, 168
Rotations of atoms and molecules,
189
Russell, Bertrand, 288, 289
Rutherford, Lord, 226
Schopenhauer, 280
Schrodinger, E., 193, 203
equation of, 203, 217, 218, 220,
238, 255
equation of (atom), 242
equation of (particle), 247
Secondary qualities, 13
Sensation, threshold of, 230
Sense-impressions, 6, 11, 21, 276,
Senses, operation of, 8, 21, 27, 29
Shadows, 23
Soddy, F., 226
Sorting demon of Maxwell, 270 ff
Space, 96, 139, 140, 214, 290 ff.
curvature of, 113
Euclidean, 113ff.
rudimentary views of, 70, 96, 214
Space-like intervals, 105
Space-time, 101, 252
representation in, 252
Spectra, atomic, 52, 166 ff., 180
Spectroscope, 20, 31
Spuming electron, 250
Spontaneous disintegration (radio-
active), 226
Statistical atom, 183, 188
Stefan's law, 157
Stern and Gerlach, 251
Sunlight, nature of, 18, 23, 26 ff.
Temperature radiation, 150, 156,
157, 227, 256
Thermodynamics, 261 ff.
Thomson, G. P., 198
Thomson, J. J., 147
Threshold of sensation, 230
Time-like interval, 105
Time, rudimentary views of, 70 ff.,
96
synchronisation, 78
Uhlenbeck, 250
Uncertainty principle of Heisen-
berg, 232, 235, 285
Undulatory theory of light, 19,
23 ff., 63, 83, 120, 122, 160,
Uniformity of Nature, 7, 35, 229
Unitary field theory (Einstein),
126
Universe (Einstein), 127 ff., 138,
expanding, 130ff.,291
Unobservables, 170, 174, 175, 263,
283, 284
Vision, act of, 11, 28
Wave-equation, of electron, 202,
217 ff., 247
of photon, 213 ff.
INDEX
301
Wave-length, 20, 26
of electron, 198, 199
of photon, 213 ff.
Wave-mechanics, 54, 193
Wave packet, 205, 242, 248
Wave picture, of particles, 194,
235 ff., 247, 284
of photons, 210, 213 ff., 238, 241
Weyl, H., 228, 279, 289
Whitehead, A. N. t 40 ff.
White light, 18
Wiener, N., 193
Wireless transmission, 26, 30, 31,
79
World-line, 101 ff., 286
X-radiation, 151, 155
Zeeman effect, 250
Zero-interval, 105
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