Abstract
I DO not think there are many non-physicists who will attempt to gainsay the fact that, under physical constraint, the direction of motion may be determined without affecting the quantity of the energy concerned, and without expenditure of energy. This is seen when the earth and sun revolve around their common centre of gravity, or when I twirl my stick around my finger and thumb; the earth and sun in the one case, and the ferrule and knob of my stick in the other case, being bound into one system physically. But I do think that an able and clear-headed physicist like Dr. Oliver Lodge would be doing a great service to non-physicists if he would, in your widely-circulated columns, explain and solve, shortly and in non-technical language, the difficulties which trouble some of them; aiding them, for example, to comprehend the exact force of the words expenditure of energy, and helping them to see that in all known cases of change of direction of motion such change is effected under physical constraint. It is when they are told by certain class of metaphysicians, who quote, or misquote, physics in support of their assumptions, that physical motion is controlled by will-power or volition, always acting at right angles to direction of motion, and therefore leaving the amount of energy unchanged; it is then, I say, that they begin to grow restive, and to demand definite and verifiable evidence that such metaphysical constraint is (pace Sir John Herschel) a necessary or philosophical conception, and that it is impossible to explain the phenomena without having recourse to it. If Dr. Lodge would consent to help non-physicists in this way, and would indicate what are the “important psychological consequences” to which he alludes, he would be doing some of us good turn.
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MORGAN, C. Force and Determinism. Nature 44, 249 (1891). https://doi.org/10.1038/044249a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/044249a0
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