The Principles of Mathematical Physics
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Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure. (Worth every penny!)***Contents: I. The History of Mathematical Physics1.1 The Past and the Future of Physics.1.2 The Physics of Central Forces.1.3 The Physics of the Principles.1.4 Utility of the Old Physics. II. The Present Crisis of Mathematical Physics2.1 The New Crisis.2.2 The Principle of Relativity.2.3 Newton's Principle.2.4 Lavoisier's Principle.2.5 Mayer's Principle. III. The Future of Mathematical Physics3.1 The Principles and Experiment.3.2 The Role of the Analyst.3.3 Aberration and Astronomy.3.4 Electrons and Spectra.3.5 Conventions Preceding Experiment.3.6 Future Mathematical Physics. ***An excerpt from the beginning of: I. The History of Mathematical PhysicsThe Past and the Future of Physics.What is the present state of mathematical physics? What are the problems it is led to set itself? What is its future? Is its orientation about to be modified?Ten years hence will the aim and the methods of this science appear to our immediate successors in the same light as to ourselves; or, on the contrary, are we about to witness a profound transformation? Such are the questions we are forced to raise in entering to-day upon our investigation.If it is easy to propound them: to answer is difficult. If we felt tempted to risk a prediction, we should easily resist this temptation, by thinking of all the stupidities the most eminent savants of a hundred years ago would have uttered, if some one had asked them what the science of the nineteenth century would be. They would have thought themselves bold in their predictions, and after the event, how very timid we should have found them. Do not, therefore, expect of me any prophecy.But if, like all prudent physicians, I shun giving a prognosis, yet I can not dispense with a little diagnostic; well, yes, there are indications of a serious crisis, as if we might expect an approaching transformation. Still, be not too anxious: we are sure the patient will not die of it, and we may even hope that this crisis will be salutary, for the history of the past seems to guarantee us this. This crisis, in fact, is not the first, and to understand it, it is important to recall those which have preceded. Pardon then a brief historical sketch.