IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB866089057

Roger Boscovich and the Quantum Mechanical Combination of Dynamic and Statistical Laws (2015)

Peter Lukan (Author)

Almagest
Volume: 6
Issue: 1
Pages: 64-78

URI: http://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/abs/10.1484/J.ALMAGEST.5.107464

DOI: 10.1484/J.ALMAGEST.5.107464

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Natural laws Atomism Physics Quantum mechanics Statistical mechanics Dynamics 18th century Aristotle Boscovich, Ruggiero Giuseppe

In this article I firstly examine Boscovich’s attitude towards laws of nature, which can be best inferred from his magnum opus Theoria philosophiae naturalis (1758) and from De continuitatis lege (1754). Secondly, I give an account of a contemporary view on laws on nature by Weingartner and Mittelstaedt, who recognize two types of laws, dynamic and statistical. Focussing on the latter type of laws, I present a short overview of their gradual establishment and stress Boscovich’s remarkable contribution in this regard. The establishment of statistical laws, which were in his time not recognized as such, played a key supporting role for the emerging modern scientific theory of atomism, of which Boscovich was one of the pioneers. This association of statistical laws and atomism had an impact on the formation of quantum mechanics, which can be understood as combining both types of natural laws. I conclude the article with an epistemic reflection, arguing that this duality of laws is to some extent implicit in Boscovich’s distinction, which he makes in De continuitatis lege, between the potential and actual, concepts which he acquired from Aristotle but modified by connecting them to the concepts of continuity and discreteness.

...More

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB866089057/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Marko Uršič; (2015)
Boscovich’s Distinction between the Potential and the Actual Space from the Standpoint of Modern Search for the Union of Mind and Nature (/isis/citation/CBB056648170/)

Article David M. Rogers; (2019)
Range separation: the divide between local structures and field theories (/isis/citation/CBB974572915/)

Chapter Sylla, Edith Dudley; (2008)
The Origin and Fate of Thomas Bradwardine's De proportionibus velocitatum in motibus in Relation to the History of Mathematics (/isis/citation/CBB000760473/)

Chapter Celeyrette, Jean; (2008)
Bradwardine's Rule: A Mathematical Law? (/isis/citation/CBB000760472/)

Article Luca Guzzardi; (2017)
Ruggiero Boscovich and “the Forces Existing in Nature” (/isis/citation/CBB965336372/)

Article DiSalle, Robert; (2013)
The Transcendental Method from Newton to Kant (/isis/citation/CBB001320267/)

Article Stan, Marius; (2013)
Kant's Third Law of Mechanics: The Long Shadow of Leibniz (/isis/citation/CBB001320270/)

Article Rowlinson, J. S.; (2005)
Einstein: The Classical Physicist (/isis/citation/CBB000651781/)

Article Muller, Karis; (2007)
Point Atomism, Space and God, 1760--80 (/isis/citation/CBB000760726/)

Article Abiko, Seiya; (2000)
Einstein's Theories of the Fluctuation and the Thermal Radiation--The First Quantum Theory through Statistical Thermodynamics (/isis/citation/CBB000102483/)

Book Mehra, Jagdish; (2001)
Golden Age of Theoretical Physics (/isis/citation/CBB000102021/)

Book Tavel, Morton; (2002)
Contemporary Physics and the Limits of Knowledge (/isis/citation/CBB000201565/)

Book Rickles, Dean; (2008)
The Ashgate Companion to Philosophy of Physics (/isis/citation/CBB001024230/)

Chapter Navarro, Luis; (2001)
Física cuántica y física estadística, ¿un matrimonio de conveniencia? (/isis/citation/CBB000101986/)

Article Smith, Sheldon; (2013)
Kant's Picture of Monads in the Physical Monadology (/isis/citation/CBB001211303/)

Article Anders, John; (2013)
Problēmata Mēchanika, the Analytics, and Projectile Motion (/isis/citation/CBB001200188/)

Article Gregory, Andrew; (2001)
Aristotle, Dynamics and Proportionality (/isis/citation/CBB000773916/)

Article De Groot, Jean; (2009)
Modes of Explanation in the Aristotelian “Mechanical Problems” (/isis/citation/CBB000932570/)

Book Päs, Heinrich; (2014)
The Perfect Wave: With Neutrinos at the Boundary of Space and Time (/isis/citation/CBB001422070/)

Article Stephen Howard; (2017)
Why Did Leibniz Fail to Complete His Dynamics? (/isis/citation/CBB448929987/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}