STS3301 Paper Week 9
Response to readings, week 9, Poincaré, Einstein, Galison, for STS 3301
In which the author Finds himself critical of An opalescence
In chapter 9 of Science and Hypothesis, Poincaré stated that a scientist should be just as happy to have a theory definitively disproved as to have it definitively proven, because either is definitive progress. [S+H, Ch IX, Section "The Rôle of Hypothesis", p. 134] Consistent with this, as cited in Galison, Poincaré argued for Lorentz' Nobel Prize, explaining that Lorentz was at least marking ether theory for proof or falsification, trying to fasten provable effects to the theory, and identifying what was true in the theory whether or not there really was an ether.
Galison proposes that his book will go beyond the separated fields of "intellectual history," "social history," and "biography or microhistory." Many of the connections in the book, however, are tenuous. Galison travels along to coal mines and the Andes, leaving the story disjointed and hoping by redundancy of a few claims of connection to make the connection real. I don't envy Galison his task, since Poincaré in his published works, such as Science and Hypothesis, does not seem to want to leave a smoking gun. But such is the nature of a (modern?) scientist: careful not to over-hypothesize, not to make a slip of the tongue or of the quill, not to choose sides in dogmatic or religious debates. Of all the scientists we've read, Faraday seems to be the model of this kind of scientist who most successfully tries to sweep away any priori considerations that are not useful to the physical task at hand. Where Poincaré is explicit is in what he is doing in science: he is choosing convention as necessary, as in accomplishing his goals of winning a mathematics prize, determining longitude, and considering electrodynamics. Boltzmann made these same claims, though with more cynicism, in describing the path to physical understanding starting with the fluff of mechanics.
Another problem I have with Galison's tri-point "critical opalescence" is that it still doesn't have enough dimensions. Galison claims that in history, when B follows A, A may not cause B, nor may it force B, but B chaotically follows A with seemingly chaotic inputs via thought and technical work. [p. 39] What I like the least about critical opalescence is the assumption that there is a great of boundary between states of technical and philosophical. Why not break the boundaries much further? Why separate "geodesy, philosophy, and physics"? [p. 212] Galison's method would be justified if Poincaré made a big deal out of the boundaries. Or, maybe the test for Galison is to try his method on another history.
Can all progress in physics be seen through this opal lens?
Galison's book itself, beyond the claim of critical opalescence, is a telling tale, with great insight into Poincaré's experience. Perhaps the CO explanation was an afterthought rather than his tuning fork?
Galison paints an accurate portrait of Poincaré embodying the confidence necessary to escort physics from pre-relativity to post-relativity, pre-ether to post-ether, as someone who made explicit the path behind and ahead. I say escort, not move, because I see these men of action we've been studying not as agents of free will, but cogs in the great system. The "action" mentioned in many books and articles of the past weeks' readings.
In ECPM, is Einstein painted as more of "a free-floating monad who seized this or that 'resource' from philosophy, mathematics, or physics to solve particular problems"? [p. 42] Galison claims one of Einstein's sources is Hertz. [p. 230] No, not a monad, Einstein's path is tied to his job at the patent office, despite more independent work on the ether. Galison's evidence is Einstein's lack before 1902 of any concern about time, specifically. [p. 231, p. 243]
While we are considering Mach again, as a "resource" for Einstein, let us not allow the confusion between Mach's intended meaning of "economy" and economics. I believe some students in the class assumed Mach was making an analogue between social economics and economy of physical philosophy, but I see Mach as merely using the word to describe the value of simplicity and the appropriateness of discarding useless parts of theories, medieval or otherwise. Such a view is consistent with Galison's interpretation of Mach on "idle metaphysical conception." [p. 237]
