The new physics and its evolution / by Lucien Poincaré.

  • Lucien Poincaré
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The new physics and its evolution / by Lucien Poincaré. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/374 page 7
    or, again, by the physiologist desirous of understand- ing the mechanism of the gaseous and liquid ex- changes between the cell and the outer medium, cause new chapters in physics to appear, and suggest researches adapted to the necessities of actual life. The evolution of the different parts of physics does not, however, take place with equal speed, because the circumstances in which they are placed are not equally favourable. Sometimes a whole series of questions will appear forgotten, and will live only with a languishing existence; and then some acci- dental circumstance suddenly brings them new life, and they become the object of manifold labours, engross public attention, and invade nearly the whole domain of science. We have in our own day witnessed such a spectacle. The discovery of the X rays—a discovery which physicists no doubt consider as the logical outcome of researches long pursued by a few scholars working in silence and obscurity on an otherwise much neglected subject—seemed to the public eye to have inaugurated a new era in the history of physics. If, as is the case, however, the extra- ordinary scientific movement provoked by Rontgen’s sensational experiments has a very remote origin, it has, at least, been singularly quickened by the favour- able conditions created by the interest aroused in its astonishing applications to radiography. A lucky chance has thus hastened an evolution
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3