Reports on Progress in Physics

Abstract

It seems curious to contemplate that there are many physicists to-day, well below ‘retiring age’, who, like myself, began their study of physics under the fond delusion that, sooner or later, they would become masters of their subject. Physics, even then, comprised a considerable body of information, but not more than a student of reasonable ability and not unreasonable diligence might hope to have encompassed by the end of his university career. With Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light as the keystone uniting the twin pillars of electricity and optics, it was felt that the main outlines of the structure of classical physics were firmly and eternally established. There were, of course, a few details to be filled in, and one or two untidy corners to be cleaned up. In particular, rather curious things happened when an electric discharge was passed through a rarefied gas; but, after all, why shouldone pass an electric discharge through a rarefied gas, except to amuse the children at the end of a Christmas lecture? It was confidently expected that, before long, some persevering Teuton would collate the whole subject in one stupendous tome, labelled “Physics”, and there the subject would stand, logical, beautiful and complete. Alas ! we were soon to discover that, like Alice in Looking-Glass World, it took all the running that we could do to remain in the same relative position with regard to our knowledge of the subject. We have had to reconcile ourselves to the fact that physics to-day is no longer logical, cannot strictly be described as beautiful (‘provocative’ would be a more appropriate adjective) “and seems unlikely ever to be complete.

Reports on Progress in Physics

Vol. 6. General Editor: J. H. Awbery. Pp. v + 434. (London: The Physical Society, 1940.) 22s. 6d. net.