The Language of Physics

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xix

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Elizabeth Garber

      Pages 1-27

3. Eighteenth-Century Science

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 29-30

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   2. Vibrating Strings and Eighteenth-Century Mechanics

      • Elizabeth Garber

      Pages 31-62

   3. Eighteenth—Century Physics and Mathematics: A Reassessment

      • Elizabeth Garber

      Pages 63-91

4. Transitions, 1790–1830

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 93-93

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   2. “Empirical Literalism”: Mathematical Versus Experimental Physics in France, 1790–1830

      • Elizabeth Garber

      Pages 95-135

   3. On the Margins: Experimental Physics and Mathematics in the German States, 1790–1830

      • Elizabeth Garber

      Pages 137-167

   4. On the Margins: Experimental Philosophy and Mathematics in Britain, 1790–1830

      • Elizabeth Garber

      Pages 169-206

5. Transformations, 1830–1870

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 207-208

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   2. From Natural Philosophy and ‘Mixed Mathematics’ to Theoretical and Experimental Physics: Britain, 1830–1870

      • Elizabeth Garber

      Pages 209-260

   3. Physics and Mathematics in the German States, 1830–1870

      • Elizabeth Garber

      Pages 261-303

6. Conclusions and Epilogue

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 305-305

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   2. Physics About 1870 and the “Decline” of French Physics

      • Elizabeth Garber

      Pages 307-320

   3. Epilogue: Forging New Relationships, 1870–1914

      • Elizabeth Garber

      Pages 321-362

7. Back Matter

   Pages 363-399

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This study began as an attempt to understand mechanics in the nineteenth century. The terms mechanics and mechanical world view were being used as general descriptions of nineteenth-century physicists' assumptions and interpretations of nature. However, there were no studies of the particulars of these assumptions or the range and content of these interpretations. Rene Dugas' work on classical mechanics focused on France. The search for the particulars of these forms of "mechanics" led me to explore precisely what mechanics meant to physicists of a century and more ago. However, none of Lagrange's, Hamilton's, or Jacobi's "mechanics," while ele­ gant, fits easily within the history of physics. Lagrange reduced mechanics to an exercise in analysis; Hamilton and Jacobi used mechanics to explore solutions to partial differential equations. They were mathematicians doing mathematics. As I went deeper into the matter it became obvious that, in the nineteenth century, there were two kinds of mechanics, each containing a variety of forms, one physical, the other mathematical. There were a group of men using mechanics to understand nature and another group using the equations of mechanics to explore the calcu­ lus. However, when tracing these two traditions back into the eighteenth century, physics disappeared altogether.

• Experiment
• Experimental Physics
• Hermann von Helmholtz
• History of Science
• Physicists
• Theoretical physics
• cls

"Garber discusses an interesting part of scientific development, using examples of theoretical physics and their historical steps."

---Mathematical Reviews

"Garber argues her case convincingly... A very valuable addition to the existing literature on the history of modern physics. The book is also well written... Those who make an effort to follow the argument will gain many new insights and obtain a fresh outlook at the mathematization of physics in the 18th and 19th centuries."

---Physics World

• Department of History, SUNY-Stony Brook, Stony Brook, USA

  Elizabeth Garber

Policies and ethics