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| ZP OWER C ORPORATION PAGE OF 352 Z ERO P OINT E NERGY them. Partial differential equations were needed, however, for the formulation of the mechanics of deformable bodies this is bound up with the fact that in such problems the way and the manner in which bodies were thought of as constructed out of material points did not play a significant part to begin with. Thus the partial differential equation came into theoretical physics as a servant, but little by little it took on the role of master. This began in the nineteenth century, when under the pressure of observational facts the undulatory theory of light asserted itself. Light in empty space was conceived as a vibration of the ether, and it seemed idle to conceive of this in turn as a conglomeration of material points. Here for the first time partial differential equations appeared as the natural expression of the primary realities of physics. Ina particular area of theoretical physics the continuous field appeared side by side with the material point as the representative of physical reality. This dualism has to this day not disappeared, disturbing as it must be to any systematic mind. If the idea of physical reality had ceased to be purely atomistic, it still remained purely mechanistic for the time being. One still sought to interpret all happening as the motion of inert bodies indeed one could not at all imagine any other way of conceiving of things. Then came the great revolution which will be linked with the names of Faraday, Maxwell, Hertz for all time. Maxwell had the lions share in this revolution. He showed that the whole of what was known at that time about light and electromagnetic phenomena could be represented by his famous double system of partial differential equations, in which the electric and the magnetic fields made their appearance as dependent variables. To be sure Maxwell did try to find away of grounding or justifying these equations through mechanical thought-models. However. he employed several models of this kind side by side, and took none of them really seriously, so that only the equations themselves appeared as the essential matter. and the field forces which appeared in them as ultimate entities not reducible to anything else. By the turn of the century the conception of the electromagnetic field as an irreducible entity was already generally established and serious theorists had given up confidence in the justification, or the possibility, of a mechanical foundation for Maxwell's equations. Soon. on the contrary an attempt was made to give a field-theoretical account of material points and their inertia with the help of Maxwell's field theory, but this attempt did not meet with any ultimate success. If we disregard the important particular results which Maxwell's lifework brought about in important areas of physics, and direct attention to the modification which the conception of physical reality experienced through him, we can say Before Maxwell people thought of physical reality - insofar as it represented events in nature-as material points, whose changes consist only in motions which are subject to total differential equations. After Maxwell they |