The logic of modern physicsBridgman, P. W. (Percy Williams)
Philosophy
The logic of modern physics
Bridgman, P. W. (Percy Williams)
Physics -- Philosophy
This somewhat detailed analysis of the concept of length brings out
features common to all our concepts. If we deal with phenomena outside
the domain in which we originally defined our concepts, we may find
physical hindrances to performing the operations of the original
definition, so that the original operations have to be replaced by
others. These new operations are, of course, to be so chosen that they
give, within experimental error, the same numerical results in the
domain in which the two sets of operations may be both applied; but we
must recognize in principle that in changing the operations we have
really changed the concept, and that to use the same name for these
different concepts over the entire range is dictated only by
considerations of convenience, which may sometimes prove to have been
purchased at too high a price in terms of unambiguity. We must always be
prepared some day to find that an increase in experimental accuracy may
show that the two different sets of operations which give the same
results in the more ordinary part of the domain of experience, lead to
measurably different results in the more unfamiliar parts of the domain.
We must remain aware of these joints in our conceptual structure if we
hope to render unnecessary the services of the unborn Einsteins.
The second feature common to all concepts brought out by the detailed
discussion of length is that, as we approach the experimentally
attainable limit, concepts lose their individuality, fuse together, and
become fewer in number, as we have seen that at dimensions of the order
of the diameter of an electron the concepts of length and the electric
field vectors fuse into an amorphous whole. Not only does nature as
experienced by us become different in character on its horizons, but it
becomes simpler, and therefore our concepts, which are the building
stones of our descriptions, become fewer in number. This seems to be an
entirely natural state of affairs. How the number of concepts is often
kept formally the same as we approach the horizon will be discussed
later in special cases.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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