Search:

Home | Science

The Progress of Science
By: Marcel Lafaoe

Read More About Science

Progress consists in the reconciling of apparent contradictions. Unity and differentiation, heredity and variability, are apparently opposed. Yet a mammal is more truly a unit than an organism that suffers little from being cut in two because each part can do the work of all. A civilised state with interdependent specialised interests suffers from the incapacity or rapacity of its classes more than a company of Fuegans, each of whom can supply all his own wants.

Science is progressing in this way. Biology cannot advance without chemistry, geology leans on physics, and this interdependence is due to specialisation, to differentiation. In organisms and states intercommunication is essential to preserve this corporate life. Without nerves and blood-vessels an amoeba may possibly get on fairly well. Fuegans do not require railways or telephones. Science requires its blood-vessels and nerves, its railways and telephones. Each member requires what is elaborated by others to be collected and sorted and distributed for its use. It is most important that' the work done in physical science in innumerable laboratories should be collected, digested, distributed for the information of the biologist, the chemist, the geologist.

The study of the properties of each kind of matter as related to energy and the ether has bearings on every department of science and on every kind of practice ; on agriculture and medicine the practical applications of biology, and on manufactures and engineering the practical application of physics and chemistry. Whether we are using the ether to transmit energy to ploughs, or measuring the irregular energy of the tissues of a patient by a thermometer, or taking nails out of wheat with magnets, or determining the physical changes produced in materials by small amounts of impurities, we require to understand physical science, and any day some advance in it may be of service in practice.

The connections, the railways, the nerves, in this department, are fairly well supplied by the technical journals, but on the purely scientific side there is risk that an undue development of specialisation, without sufficient nourishment and communication from other parts, may lead to local turgescence and inflammation, to the injury of the system and the ultimate atrophy of the parts.

In treating of the connections of physical science with other branches of science, we may either divide physical science in some systematic way, and study the connections of each division with other sciences, or begin by consideringthe other branches of science and see how each is connected with physical science. Without some systematic and rational method, we are sure to omit outlying and unfamiliar parts of any subject of investigation.

It is possible in the compass of a short article to go over only a very small number of the various connections between physical science and science in general, and no one individual could do justice to the theme ; it is only possible here to make some suggestions as to methods of systematic division of the subject, and to point out a very few of the connecting links that at present cry for strength. Physical science may generally be described as the study of the properties of matter, energy, and ether. It is divided from chemistry by being the study of each kind of matter by itself, while chemistry studies the actions of different kinds of matter upon one another. Of course no real line can be drawn, and the enumeration of the objects of physical study is for the purpose of dividing the subject itself rather than for the purpose of dividing it from other subjects.

The properties of matter and energy, of energy and ether, and of ether and matter, are the subjects of investigation in physical science. The matter and energy region is subdivided into (1) pure dynamics of solids and fluids, that branch where mathematics reigns supreme, whether we study the motions of the planets, or of vortex rings, where we deal with regular and reversible kinetic and potential energy ; and (2) the study of irregular motions of heat and turbulence, the kinetic theory of gases and the turbulent motion of a liquid, the first and second laws of thermodynamics, the laws of specific and latent heats, of temperature and entropy, viscosity, and the limits of elasticity.

This subdivision into energy as regular and irregular is fundamental, and pervades the whole of science ; it bears on cosmology when we study the action of tide production and tidal retardation of rotation, the circulation of water up the air and down the mountains and its erosions and grindings ; it bears on chemistry when we study chemical equilibrium and heat of chemical action ; it bears on biology when we study the regular production of mechanical work, of electric currents, of nervous stimuli, and when we study the production of heat, the viscous resistance to Mow of fluids. The relations of ether and energy are comprised in the study of electro-magnetism and light. As yet we know little about the relations of irregular energy and ether, and still less how this bears on cosmology, chemistry and biology. The bearings of electro-magnetism and light on the other branches of science are too many to enumerate and too familiar to be worth enumerating.

We are yet only on the threshold of what is to be known. The connections of matter and ether are even more obscure. Why do most vegetable substances turn the plane of polarisation of light one way and animal substances the other way ? Why is terrestrial magnetism so irregular, so variable ?

Article Source: http://www.depositarticles.com

Marcel is interested in the sciences, and likes to share his knowledge with others.

Please Rate this Article

 

Not yet Rated

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Science Articles Via RSS!
Additional Articles From - Home | Science
Sign Up for a free account.
Our other websites
All about SEO
Beauty Tips Forum
Submit Articles
Member Login
Top Authors
Most Popular Articles
Submission Guidelines
Ezine Notifications
Article RSS Feeds
Sitemap
New Stuff
About Us
Developer
Good shopping portal
Link to Us
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service

counter easy hit

Powered by Article Dashboard