Science and hypothesis

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Science and Hypothesis is the most famous of Henri Poincaré's four philosophical works . The book covers

  • maths;
  • the properties of space (including non-Euclidean geometry);
  • the physical knowledge of his time (classical mechanics, relativity of movements, energy, thermodynamics);
  • nature (hypotheses in physics, role of probabilities, optics, electricity and electrodynamics, end of the classical idea of ​​matter)

and the relationships that exist between them.

expenditure

The book was published in Paris in 1902 by Flammarion in the Bibliothèque de philosophie scientifique series , and in 1904 in a German translation by Lisbeth Lindemann-Küssner . The German translation contains detailed comments by Ferdinand Lindemann and the fourth edition was last published in 1928. The 1914 edition was later digitized by Springer Vieweg . A new English translation was published by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2017 .

content

The book gives an insight into Poincaré's way of thinking. He emphasizes, among other things, that definitions are based on conventions; only feedback with experiments can decide whether they make sense. Seen in isolation, mathematically, for example, neither Euclidean nor non-Euclidean geometry is "correct". Nor could he follow Cantor's set theory. On the other hand, echoes of the formalism in the manner of Hilbert's approach can be recognized.

Quotes

Mathematicians do not study objects, but relationships between objects; It is therefore irrelevant to replace these objects with others as long as the relationships do not change. They don't care about the thing, they only care about the shape.

There is no absolute space and only perceive relative movements; however, mechanical facts are usually given as though there was some absolute space to which they could be related.

There is no such thing as absolute time; to say that two durations are equal is an assertion that has no meaning in itself and that can only be acquired by convention.

We are driven to the following definition, which is only an admission of helplessness: the masses are coefficients that it is convenient to introduce into the calculations.

These two sentences, "the earth is turning" and "it is more convenient to assume that the earth is turning," have one and the same meaning; and there is nothing more in one than in the other.

literature

Markus Mühling: Einstein and religion: the interrelationship between religious and ideological contents and scientific theories of Albert Einstein in his development . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011, ISBN 978-3-525-56989-4 , pp. 183-197.

Web links