"Studies the path of natural philosophy (i.e., physics) from Isaac Newton through Scotland into the nineteenth-century background to the modern revolution in physics.

Acceptance of Augustin Fresnel's wave theory of light posed numerous questions for early nineteenth-century physicists. Among the most pressing was the problem of the properties of the luminiferous ether. Fresnel had shown that light waves were transverse. Therefore, since, among ordinary materials, only solids support transverse vibrations, there existed striking likenesses between highly tangible solids and the highly intangible ether. Accordingly, such men as Augustin-Louis Cauchy, James MacCullagh, Franz Neumann, and George Green constructed various theories of an elastic-solid ether.1 At (...) the same time, however, the disconcerting implausibilities of an all-pervasive solid provoked considerable apprehension in regard to the elastic-solid tradition. Thomas Young found the concept ‘perfectly appalling’ and argued that ‘the hypothesis [that fluids can support transverse vibrations] remains completely open for discussion, notwithstanding the apparent difficulties attending it.’2 John Herschel, probably the most important English advocate of the wave theory, regarded the concept of a solid ether as only a temporary device, useful ‘till the real truth shall be discovered.’3 Consequently, despite the accomplishments which helped to make the elastic-solid theory ‘the most celebrated special form of the wave theory’,4 there were important voices of reservation. (shrink)

Though P. G. Tait was in a seemingly perfect position to teach both William Thomson's thermodynamics and James Clerk Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light, he did not. Tait probably first encountered the new thermodynamics in the 1850s at Queen's College, Belfast, and presented the ideas in his inaugural lecture at Edinburgh in 1860, soon making energy theory the centre-piece of his course there. The comprehensiveness of energy theory plus Thomson's opposition to Maxwell's electromagnetic theory evidently combined in causing Tait to (...) de-emphasize Maxwell's theory. Ironically, Tait, the loyal Scot, thus inadvertently contributed to what might be termed the Anglicization of Scottish natural philosophy. (shrink)