The logic of modern physicsBridgman, P. W. (Percy Williams)
Philosophy
The logic of modern physics
Bridgman, P. W. (Percy Williams)
Physics -- Philosophy
help, the thing travelling point of view is a positive embarrassment
when we try to picture by means of it the essentially twofold nature of
the elementary quantum act.
Another plausible argument for light as a thing travelling may be
deduced from our principle of connectivity. Imagine a dark lantern with
a shutter that can be opened or closed so as to emit a momentary flash
of light, a distant mirror, and a receiving instrument near the source.
One of the properties of light that we always assume is that no
permanent trace of the act of emission is left behind in the source. The
most minute examination of all the details of the lantern and its
surroundings at some time after the emission of the flash has not yet
shown any phenomenon that betrays a remembrance of the emission of the
flash, unless perhaps we measure the total energy or momentum and have
some way of knowing what the energy or momentum would have been if the
flash had not been emitted, and in any event we cannot specify the
moment in past time when the signal was emitted. In the same way we
cannot tell from an examination of a mirror whether it has at any time
in the past reflected a beam of light. Consider now two systems, each
consisting of a source and a mirror distant 3 x 10^10 cm., identical in
all respects, except that in one a light signal was flashed from the
source 1.5 seconds ago, and in the other only 0.5 seconds ago. According
to our hypothesis, the most complete examination of source and mirror in
either system fails to show the slightest difference, but nevertheless
there is something essentially different about the two systems, for in
one a light signal arrives at the screen in 0.5 seconds, and in the
other not until 1.5 seconds. This violates what we have suggested might
be regarded as the cardinal and most general principle of all physics,
the principle of essential connectivity, which states that differences
between two systems must be associated with other differences. A most
obvious and simple way of maintaining our principle is merely to point
out that the system really included more than we investigated: the
system properly consists of source, mirror, screen, and all intermediate
space, so that if we had examined intermediate space we should have
found light there in transit in different positions in the two systems,
thus correlating with the differences in subsequent history. This
argument appeals to me as perhaps the strongest that can be advanced for
the view of light as a thing travelling. But it seems in no way
conclusive. Our principle of essential connectivity made no mention of
the time concept, but we have somehow smuggled it in making the
application above. We sought to give a complete description of our
system at some one instant of time, and this involved spreading the time
concept over space. This itself is a questionable operation and may be
done in different ways. But, more important, what is the justification
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