ARCHIMEDES OR THE FUTURE OF PHYSICS TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW _For a full list of this Series see the end of this Book_ ARCHIMEDES OR THE FUTURE OF PHYSICS BY L. L. WHYTE LONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. To LOTTE Made and Printed in Great Britain by M. F. Robinson & Co. Ltd. at the Library Press, Lowestoft CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I THE SCIENCES CONVERGE 7 II A MODERN DUEL: EINSTEIN AND EDDINGTON _v._ BERGSON AND WHITEHEAD 22 III TIME IN ASTRONOMY AND PHYSICS 37 IV AN EVOLUTIONARY EXPERIMENT 47 V PHYSICS AND THE HUMAN MIND 66 VI THE FUTURE OF THE SCIENCES 79 NOTES 95 ARCHIMEDES OR THE FUTURE OF PHYSICS CHAPTER I _The Sciences Converge_ One of the most fascinating features in the history of thought is that on several occasions an important new idea has come simultaneously to independent minds. Thus after Euclid’s geometry had remained without a rival for two thousand years the conception of an alternative non-Euclidean system was reached separately by Gauss, Lobatschewsky, and Bolyai during the years 1820-30. Bolyai’s father, while ignorant of the fact that Gauss had already made the same discoveries, wrote to his son urging him to publish his results and used the following prophetic words: “There is some truth in this, that many things have an epoch, in which they are found at the same time in several places, just as the violets appear on every side in the spring.” Another example of the simultaneous emergence of an idea in the minds of different thinkers is given by Darwin in his introduction to the _Origin of Species_. He there calls attention to the fact that in 1794-5 the broad idea of the evolution of species--though not its cause--was simultaneously formulated by Goethe in Germany, St Hilaire in France, and his own grandfather, Dr Darwin, in England. Moreover Darwin himself had the remarkable experience of finding in an essay submitted to him in 1858 by A. R. Wallace a complete summary of his own unpublished theory of natural selection as the chief cause of the evolution of species.