The Foundations of Science: Science and Hypothesis, The Value of Science Science and Method Part 1

The Foundations of Science: Science and Hypothesis, The Value of Science, Science and Method.

by Henri Poincare.

HENRI POINCARe

SIR GEORGE DARWIN, worthy son of an immortal father, said, referring to what Poincare was to him and to his work: "He must be regarded as the presiding genius--or, shall I say, my patron saint?"

Henri Poincare was born April 29, 1854, at Nancy, where his father was a physician highly respected. His schooling was broken into by the war of 1870-71, to get news of which he learned to read the German newspapers.

He outcla.s.sed the other boys of his age in all subjects and in 1873 pa.s.sed highest into the ecole Polytechnique, where, like John Bolyai at Maros Vasarhely, he followed the courses in mathematics without taking a note and without the syllabus. He proceeded in 1875 to the School of Mines, and was _Nomme_, March 26, 1879. But he won his doctorate in the University of Paris, August 1, 1879, and was appointed to teach in the Faculte des Sciences de Caen, December 1, 1879, whence he was quickly called to the University of Paris, teaching there from October 21, 1881, until his death, July 17, 1912. So it is an error to say he started as an engineer. At the early age of thirty-two he became a member of l'Academie des Sciences, and, March 5, 1908, was chosen Membre de l'Academie Francaise. July 1, 1909, the number of his writings was 436.

His earliest publication was in 1878, and was not important. Afterward came an essay submitted in compet.i.tion for the Grand Prix offered in 1880, but it did not win. Suddenly there came a change, a striking fire, a bursting forth, in February, 1881, and Poincare tells us the very minute it happened. Mounting an omnibus, "at the moment when I put my foot upon the step, the idea came to me, without anything in my previous thoughts seeming to foreshadow it, that the transformations I had used to define the Fuchsian functions were identical with those of non-Euclidean geometry." Thereby was opened a perspective new and immense. Moreover, the magic wand of his whole life-work had been grasped, the Aladdin's lamp had been rubbed, non-Euclidean geometry, whose necromancy was to open up a new theory of our universe, whose brilliant exposition was commenced in his book _Science and Hypothesis_, which has been translated into six languages and has already had a circulation of over 20,000. The non-Euclidean notion is that of the possibility of alternative laws of nature, which in the Introduction to the _electricite et Optique_, 1901, is thus put: "If therefore a phenomenon admits of a complete mechanical explanation, it will admit of an infinity of Others which will account equally well for all the peculiarities disclosed by experiment."

The scheme of laws of nature so largely due to Newton is merely one of an infinite number of conceivable rational schemes for helping us master and make experience; it is _commode_, convenient; but perhaps another may be vastly more advantageous. The old conception of _true_ has been revised. The first expression of the new idea occurs on the t.i.tle page of John Bolyai's marvelous _Science Absolute of s.p.a.ce_, in the phrase "haud unquam a priori decidenda."

With bearing on the history of the earth and moon system and the origin of double stars, in formulating the geometric criterion of stability, Poincare proved the existence of a previously unknown pear-shaped figure, with the possibility that the progressive deformation of this figure with increasing angular velocity might result in the breaking up of the rotating body into two detached ma.s.ses. Of his treatise _Les Methodes nouvelles de la Mechanique celeste_, Sir George Darwin says: "It is probable that for half a century to come it will be the mine from which humbler investigators will excavate their materials." Brilliant was his appreciation of Poincare in presenting the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. The three others most akin in genius are linked with him by the Sylvester medal of the Royal Society, the Lobachevski medal of the Physico-Mathematical Society of Kazan, and the Bolyai prize of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His work must be reckoned with the greatest mathematical achievements of mankind.

The kernel of Poincare's power lies in an oracle Sylvester often quoted to me as from Hesiod: The whole is less than its part.

He penetrates at once the divine simplicity of the perfectly general case, and thence descends, as from Olympus, to the special concrete earthly particulars.

A combination of seemingly extremely simple a.n.a.lytic and geometric concepts gave necessary general conclusions of immense scope from which sprang a disconcerting wilderness of possible deductions. And so he leaves a n.o.ble, fruitful heritage.

Says Love: "His right is recognized now, and it is not likely that future generations will revise the judgment, to rank among the greatest mathematicians of all time."

GEORGE BRUCE HALSTED.

SCIENCE AND HYPOTHESIS

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION

I am exceedingly grateful to Dr. Halsted, who has been so good as to present my book to American readers in a translation, clear and faithful.

Every one knows that this savant has already taken the trouble to translate many European treatises and thus has powerfully contributed to make the new continent understand the thought of the old.

Some people love to repeat that Anglo-Saxons have not the same way of thinking as the Latins or as the Germans; that they have quite another way of understanding mathematics or of understanding physics; that this way seems to them superior to all others; that they feel no need of changing it, nor even of knowing the ways of other peoples.

In that they would beyond question be wrong, but I do not believe that is true, or, at least, that is true no longer. For some time the English and Americans have been devoting themselves much more than formerly to the better understanding of what is thought and said on the continent of Europe.

To be sure, each people will preserve its characteristic genius, and it would be a pity if it were otherwise, supposing such a thing possible.

If the Anglo-Saxons wished to become Latins, they would never be more than bad Latins; just as the French, in seeking to imitate them, could turn out only pretty poor Anglo-Saxons.

And then the English and Americans have made scientific conquests they alone could have made; they will make still more of which others would be incapable. It would therefore be deplorable if there were no longer Anglo-Saxons.

But continentals have on their part done things an Englishman could not have done, so that there is no need either for wis.h.i.+ng all the world Anglo-Saxon.

Each has his characteristic apt.i.tudes, and these apt.i.tudes should be diverse, else would the scientific concert resemble a quartet where every one wanted to play the violin.

And yet it is not bad for the violin to know what the violon-cello is playing, and _vice versa_.

This it is that the English and Americans are comprehending more and more; and from this point of view the translations undertaken by Dr.

Halsted are most opportune and timely.

Consider first what concerns the mathematical sciences. It is frequently said the English cultivate them only in view of their applications and even that they despise those who have other aims; that speculations too abstract repel them as savoring of metaphysic.

The English, even in mathematics, are to proceed always from the particular to the general, so that they would never have an idea of entering mathematics, as do many Germans, by the gate of the theory of aggregates. They are always to hold, so to speak, one foot in the world of the senses, and never burn the bridges keeping them in communication with reality. They thus are to be incapable of comprehending or at least of appreciating certain theories more interesting than utilitarian, such as the non-Euclidean geometries. According to that, the first two parts of this book, on number and s.p.a.ce, should seem to them void of all substance and would only baffle them.

But that is not true. And first of all, are they such uncompromising realists as has been said? Are they absolutely refractory, I do not say to metaphysic, but at least to everything metaphysical?

Recall the name of Berkeley, born in Ireland doubtless, but immediately adopted by the English, who marked a natural and necessary stage in the development of English philosophy.

Is this not enough to show they are capable of making ascensions otherwise than in a captive balloon?

And to return to America, is not the _Monist_ published at Chicago, that review which even to us seems bold and yet which finds readers?

And in mathematics? Do you think American geometers are concerned only about applications? Far from it. The part of the science they cultivate most devotedly is the theory of groups of subst.i.tutions, and under its most abstract form, the farthest removed from the practical.

Moreover, Dr. Halsted gives regularly each year a review of all productions relative to the non-Euclidean geometry, and he has about him a public deeply interested in his work. He has initiated this public into the ideas of Hilbert, and he has even written an elementary treatise on 'Rational Geometry,' based on the principles of the renowned German savant.

To introduce this principle into teaching is surely this time to burn all bridges of reliance upon sensory intuition, and this is, I confess, a boldness which seems to me almost rashness.

The American public is therefore much better prepared than has been thought for investigating the origin of the notion of s.p.a.ce.

Moreover, to a.n.a.lyze this concept is not to sacrifice reality to I know not what phantom. The geometric language is after all only a language.

s.p.a.ce is only a word that we have believed a thing. What is the origin of this word and of other words also? What things do they hide? To ask this is permissible; to forbid it would be, on the contrary, to be a dupe of words; it would be to adore a metaphysical idol, like savage peoples who prostrate themselves before a statue of wood without daring to take a look at what is within.

In the study of nature, the contrast between the Anglo-Saxon spirit and the Latin spirit is still greater.

The Latins seek in general to put their thought in mathematical form; the English prefer to express it by a material representation.

Both doubtless rely only on experience for knowing the world; when they happen to go beyond this, they consider their foreknowledge as only provisional, and they hasten to ask its definitive confirmation from nature herself.

But experience is not all, and the savant is not pa.s.sive; he does not wait for the truth to come and find him, or for a chance meeting to bring him face to face with it. He must go to meet it, and it is for his thinking to reveal to him the way leading thither. For that there is need of an instrument; well, just there begins the difference--the instrument the Latins ordinarily choose is not that preferred by the Anglo-Saxons.