Forces and Fields 12+

📓 Forces and Fields by Mary Hesse is a history of physics surrounding the question: “How do bodies act on one another across space?” Hesse illustrates this through various answers, discussing period of transition in fundamental physics in which new concepts and ideas have been introduced and made scientifically testable, and makes a certain philosophical interpretation of science from the beginning. Some topics include the logical status of theories, primitive analogies, mechanism in Greek science, the Greek inheritance, Corpuscular Philosophy, The Theory of Gravitation and The Theory of Relativity, as well as others. Mary B. Hesse (born 1924) was a contemporary English philosopher of science. She is now professor emerita of the philosophy of science at Cambridge University. Her publication Models and Analogies in Science is a widely cited and accessible introduction to the topic. Hesse argues, contra Duhem, that models and analogies are integral to understanding scientific practice in general and scientific advancement in particular, especially how the domain of a scientific theory is extended and how theories generate genuinely novel predictions. Examples of such models include the famous billiard ball model of the dynamical theory of gases and models of light based on analogies to sound and water waves. Hesse thinks that, in order help us understand a new system or phenomenon, we will often create an analogical model that compares this new system or phenomenon with a more fa...