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Energy as the Basic Concept for A Unified Interpretation Of Physical Phenomena

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Extract

The increase of our knowledge of nature and the multiplicity of phenomena to be studied and investigated has led to specialization in pure and applied science and in practical work. In many instances the individual branches of science became isolated from each other to a considerable degree.

The establishment of the closest ties between the individual lines of knowledge, theoretical as well as practical, is one of the important aims of scientific thought. The analysis of the nature of the factors, used for the quantitative expression of physical processes, shows that many of them have a striking similarity as far as energy is concerned. Such similarity, and even identity, leads one to the conclusion that the concept of energy can serve as the basis for the unified interpretation of physical and, possibly, other phenomena of nature. This paper, which deals with physical processes, is an attempt toward such unification.

Type
Technical Scientific Section
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1942

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References

1. This paper is a resume of a manuscript on Energy.

2. The question of the unification of science is discussed in The International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Otto Neurath, Editor-in-Chief, University of Chicago Press.

3. A table of energies and its further development are given in The Problems of Thermodynamics by William Marias Malisoff, Philosophy of Science, Vol. 8, No. 3, July, 1941.

4. A number of problems related to philosophical interpretation of physical phenomena is presented in “Between Physics and Philosophy” by Philipp Frank, Cambridge, Mass., 1941.