Article
ID: CBB843016617

Abstractive and Hypothetical Methodologies of Energetics: Physical Sciences between Mechanics and Chemistry in Victorian Britain (2022)

unapi
Mechanics Chemistry Physics 19th century Great Britain Rankine, William John Macquorn Ostwald, Friedrich Wilhelm Duhem, Pierre Kelvin, William Thomson, Baron

This paper analyzes methodologies of energetics in Victorian Britain. William Rankine classified the method of physics into two categories: abstractive and hypothetical. The abstractive method was regarded as important in energetics because natural phenomena regarding unobservable natural agencies could only be analyzed by measurable physical quantities without any hypotheses. Lord Kelvin persistently tried to elaborate mechanical models to understand the physical phenomena of energy, because his ideas came from mechanics and thermodynamics. In particular, the study of the second law of thermodynamics introduced a shift from the material theory of heat to the mechanical theory of heat, and enhanced the importance of mechanical interpretation. He persisted with the mechanical model, but he treated energy itself as abstractive. Pierre Duhem, however, rejected their conventional mechanistic interpretations as hypothetical. Wilhelm Ostwald's physical chemistry can be classified under Rankine's abstractive method; however, they were derived from different academic disciplines. Ostwald considered himself a descendant of Michael Faraday. Both were chemists, and their research approaches differed from those of mechanistic physicists such as Kelvin. Ostwald, as well as Faraday, rejected mechanistic interpretations as being insufficient for representing chemical phenomena. These differences in method derived from a gap between the approaches of traditional mechanistic physics and post-mechanistic physical chemistry. British energetics developed between these two traditional streams of mechanics and chemistry.

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Authors & Contributors
Bordoni, Stefano
Achinstein, Peter
Brakel, Jaap van
Bud, Robert
Capecchi, Danilo
Chiappin, José R. N.
Journals
Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
Foundations of Chemistry
Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science
Annals of Science: The History of Science and Technology
European Physical Journal H
History of Science
Publishers
ENS Editions
Guaraldi
Concepts
Physics
Mechanics
Chemistry
Philosophy of science
Thermodynamics
Methodology of science; scientific method
People
Duhem, Pierre
Kelvin, William Thomson, Baron
Maxwell, James Clerk
Ostwald, Friedrich Wilhelm
Boltzmann, Ludwig
Mach, Ernst
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
20th century, early
Early modern
Places
Great Britain
Europe
Leipzig (Germany)
United States
Prague (Czechia)
England
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