Styles of physical thinking versus mathematical ones (Q1408668): Difference between revisions

The author looks for specific features of physical reasoning, i.e., ``a cognitive activity that one could consider as specific to physics'' (p.\ 273). The role of mathematics in physics is seen in providing the way of seizing the measures of physical quantities and in structuring physical knowledge. Nevertheless, although it is impossible to dissociate physics from mathematics, physical reasoning should not be regarded as a special kind of mathematical reasoning. A ``deep act of physical research'' is, according to the author, ``the introduction of a new quantity. The circumstances of this act include in general the background of some model(s) together with some mathematical requirements on the range and the algebraic properties of the quantity to be introduced'' (p.\ 274). This hypothesis is illustrated by two historical case studies. The first concerns R.\ Clausius' introduction of the concept of entropy in 1854 being a mathematical representation of what he regarded as the true contents of Carnot's theorem. The second example concerns W. Heisenberg's setting the initial stage of quantum mechanics in matrix formulation. He faced the problem of providing a systematic way to associate (infinite) sequences of numbers (amplitudes) to a physical quantity in quantum theory. Both breakthroughs, the author concludes, ``depended crucially on the requirement of the consistency of the mathematical representation of the relevant physical quantities'' (p.\ 286).