Maxwell's Influence on the Development

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actual fact, a glance at the development of physics shows that this axiomatic basis has met with radical changes from time to time. The greatest change in the axiomatic basis of physics, and correspondingly in our conception of the structure of reality, since the foundation of theoretical physics through Newton, came about through the researches of Faraday and Maxwell on electromagnetic phenomena. In what follows we shall try to present this in a more precise way, while taking the earlier and later development into account. In accordance with Newton's system, physical reality is characterised by concepts of space, time, the material point and force (interaction between material points. Physical events are to bethought of as movements according to law of material points in space. The material point is the only representative of reality insofar as it is subject to change. The concept of the material point is obviously due to observable bodies one conceived of the material point on the analogy of movable bodies by omitting characteristics of extension, form, spatial locality, and all their 'inner' qualities, retaining only inertia, translation, and the additional concept of force. The material bodies which had psychologically given rise to the formation of the concept of 'material point' had now for their part to be conceived as a system of material points. It is to be noted that this theoretical system is essentially atomistic and mechanistic. All happening was to be conceived of as purely mechanical, that is, merely as motions of material points according to Newton's laws of motion. The most unsatisfactory aspect of this theoretical system - apart from the difficulty relating to the concept of 'absolute space' which has recently been brought back into the discussion - lay mainly in the doctrine of light, which Newton quite logically had also thought of as consisting of material points. Even at that time the question must already have been felt acutely What happens to the material points that constitute light, when light itself is absorbed Moreover, it is altogether unsatisfactory to introduce into the discussion two quite different kinds of material points which had to be put forward to represent ponderable matter and light. Then later on electrical corpuscles were added as a third sort with fundamentally different properties. Besides, it was a weakness in the basic structure that interacting forces had to be postulated quite arbitrarily to account for what happens. Nevertheless, this conception of reality accomplished a lot. How, then. did the conviction arise that it should be abandoned In order to give his system mathematical format all, Newton had first to invent the concept of the differential quotient, and to draw up the laws of motion in the form of total differential equations - perhaps the greatest intellectual step that it has ever been given to one man to take. Partial differential equations were not needed for this, and Newton did not make any methodical use of

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