Optics and Electricity
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Poincaré, Henri and Halsted, George Bruce
Fresnel's Theory.—The best example[5] that can be chosen of physics in the making is the theory of light and its relations to the theory of electricity. Thanks to Fresnel, optics is the best developed part of physics; the so-called wave-theory forms a whole truly satisfying to the mind. We must not, however, ask of it what it can not give us.
The object of mathematical theories is not to reveal to us the true nature of things; this would be an unreasonable pretension. Their sole aim is to coordinate the physical laws which experiment reveals to us, but which, without the help of mathematics, we should not be able even to state.
It matters little whether the ether really exists; that is the affair of metaphysicians. The essential thing for us is that everything happens as if it existed, and that this hypothesis is convenient for the explanation of phenomena. After all, have we any other reason to believe in the existence of material objects? That, too, is only a convenient hypothesis; only this will never cease to be so, whereas, no doubt, some day the ether will be thrown aside as useless. But even at that day, the laws of optics and the equations which translate them analytically will remain true, at least as a first approximation. It will always be useful, then, to study a doctrine that unites all these equations.
The undulatory theory rests on a molecular hypothesis. For those who think they have thus discovered the cause under the law, this is an advantage. For the others it is a reason for distrust. But this distrust seems to me as little justified as the illusion of the former.
These hypotheses play only a secondary part. They might be sacrificed. They usually are not, because then the explanation would lose in clearness; but that is the only reason.
In fact, if we looked closer we should see that only two things are borrowed from the molecular hypotheses: the principle of the conservation of energy and the linear form of the equations, which is the general law of small movements, as of all small variations.
This explains why most of Fresnel's conclusions remain unchanged when we adopt the electromagnetic theory of light.
Maxwell's Theory.—Maxwell, we know, connected by a close bond two parts of physics until then entirely foreign to one another, optics and electricity. By blending thus in a vaster whole, in a higher harmony, the optics of Fresnel has not ceased to be alive. Its various parts subsist, and their mutual relations are still the same. Only the language we used to express them has changed; and, on the other hand, Maxwell has revealed to us other relations, before unsuspected, between the different parts of optics and the domain of electricity.
When a French reader first opens Maxwell's book, a feeling of uneasiness and often even of mistrust mingles at first with his admiration. Only after a prolonged acquaintance and at the cost of many efforts does this feeling disappear. There are even some eminent minds that never lose it.
Why are the English scientist's ideas with such difficulty acclimatized among us? It is, no doubt, because the education received by the majority of enlightened Frenchmen predisposes them to appreciate precision and logic above every other quality.
The old theories of mathematical physics gave us in this respect complete satisfaction. All our masters, from Laplace to Cauchy, have proceeded in the same way. Starting from clearly stated hypotheses, they deduced all their consequences with mathematical rigor, and then compared them with experiment. It seemed their aim to give every branch of physics the same precision as celestial mechanics.
A mind accustomed to admire such models is hard to suit with a theory. Not only will it not tolerate the least appearance of contradiction, but it will demand that the various parts be logically connected with one another, and that the number of distinct hypotheses be reduced to minimum.
This is not all; it will have still other demands, which seem to me less reasonable. Behind the matter which our senses can reach, and which experiment tells us of, it will desire to see another, and in its eyes the only real, matter, which will have only purely geometric properties, and whose atoms will be nothing but mathematical points, subject to the laws of dynamics alone. And yet these atoms, invisible and without color, it will seek by an unconscious contradiction to represent to itself and consequently to identify as closely as possible with common matter.
Then only will it be fully satisfied and imagine that it has penetrated the secret of the universe. If this satisfaction is deceitful, it is none the less difficult to renounce.
Thus, on opening Maxwell, a Frenchman expects to find a theoretical whole as logical and precise as the physical optics based on the hypothesis of the ether; he thus prepares for himself a disappointment which I should like to spare the reader by informing him immediately of what he must look for in Maxwell, and what he can not find there.
Maxwell does not give a mechanical explanation of electricity and magnetism; he confines himself to demonstrating that such an explanation is possible.
He shows also that optical phenomena are only a special case of electromagnetic phenomena. From every theory of electricity, one can therefore deduce immediately a theory of light.
The converse unfortunately is not true; from a complete explanation of light, it is not always easy to derive a complete explanation of electric phenomena. This is not easy, in particular, if we wish to start from Fresnel's theory. Doubtless it would not be impossible; but nevertheless we must ask whether we are not going to be forced to renounce admirable results that we thought definitely acquired. That seems a step backward; and many good minds are not willing to submit to it.
When the reader shall have consented to limit his hopes, he will still encounter other difficulties. The English scientist does not try to construct a single edifice, final and well ordered; he seems rather to erect a great number of provisional and independent constructions, between which communication is difficult and sometimes impossible.
Take as example the chapter in which he explains electrostatic attractions by pressures and tensions in the dielectric medium. This chapter might be omitted without making thereby the rest of the book less clear or complete; and, on the other hand, it contains a theory complete in itself which one could understand without having read a single line that precedes or follows. But it is not only independent of the rest of the work; it is difficult to reconcile with the fundamental ideas of the book. Maxwell does not even attempt this reconciliation; he merely says: "I have not been able to make the next step, namely, to account by mechanical considerations for these stresses in the dielectric."
This example will suffice to make my thought understood; I could cite many others. Thus who would suspect, in reading the pages devoted to magnetic rotary polarization, that there is an identity between optical and magnetic phenomena?
One must not then flatter himself that he can avoid all contradiction; to that it is necessary to be resigned. In fact, two contradictory theories, provided one does not mingle them, and if one does not seek in them the basis of things, may both be useful instruments of research; and perhaps the reading of Maxwell would be less suggestive if he had not opened up to us so many new and divergent paths.
The fundamental idea, however, is thus a little obscured. So far is this the case that in the majority of popularized versions it is the only point completely left aside.
I feel, then, that the better to make its importance stand out, I ought to explain in what this fundamental idea consists. But for that a short digression is necessary.
The Mechanical Explanation of Physical Phenomena.—There is in every physical phenomenon a certain number of parameters which experiment reaches directly and allows us to measure. I shall call these the parameters q.
Observation then teaches us the laws of the variations of these parameters; and these laws can generally be put in the form of differential equations, which connect the parameters q with the time.
What is it necessary to do to give a mechanical interpretation of such a phenomenon?
One will try to explain it either by the motions of ordinary matter, or by those of one or more hypothetical fluids.
These fluids will be considered as formed of a very great number of isolated molecules m.
When shall we say, then, that we have a complete mechanical explanation of the phenomenon? It will be, on the one hand, when we know the differential equations satisfied by the coordinates of these hypothetical molecules m, equations which, moreover, must conform to the principles of dynamics; and, on the other hand, when we know the relations that define the coordinates of the molecules m as functions of the parameters q accessible to experiment.
These equations, as I have said, must conform to the principles of dynamics, and, in particular, to the principle of the conservation of energy and the principle of least action.
The first of these two principles teaches us that the total energy is constant and that this energy is divided into two parts:
1º The kinetic energy, or vis viva, which depends on the masses of the hypothetical molecules m, and their velocities, and which I shall call T.
2º The potential energy, which depends only on the coordinates of these molecules and which I shall call U. It is the sum of the two energies T and U which is constant.
What now does the principle of least action tell us? It tells us that to pass from the initial position occupied at the instant t0 to the final position occupied at the instant t1, the system must take such a path that, in the interval of time that elapses between the two instants t0 and t1, the average value of 'the action' (that is to say, of the difference between the two energies T and U) shall be as small as possible.
If the two functions T and U are known, this principle suffices to determine the equations of motion.
Among all the possible ways of passing from one position to another, there is evidently one for which the average value of the action is less than for any other. There is, moreover, only one; and it results from this that the principle of least action suffices to determine the path followed and consequently the equations of motion.
Thus we obtain what are called the equations of Lagrange.
In these equations, the independent variables are the coordinates of the hypothetical molecules m; but I now suppose that one takes as variables the parameters q directly accessible to experiment.
The two parts of the energy must then be expressed as functions of the parameters q and of their derivatives. They will evidently appear under this form to the experimenter. The latter will naturally try to define the potential and the kinetic energy by the aid of quantities that he can directly observe.[6]