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Aspects of French Theoretical Physics in the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

J. W. Herivel
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In France, as in other European countries, especially Britain and Germany, the nineteenth century was a period of great progress and achievement in science. This would still have been true if Claude Bernard and Louis Pasteur had been the only outstanding French scientists of the nineteenth century, whereas there were, of course, many others apart from an impressive number of brilliant French mathematicians. Nevertheless, although it was a great century for French science there was perhaps something rather disappointing about it, and something rather ingrowing about the attitude of French scientists towards scientific developments in other countries. For example, the French took it hard that the creator of the theory of evolution should have been an Englishman, remembering too late Darwin's predecessor Lamarck, and they certainly were very slow in accepting Darwin's theory of evolution.1 Again, the French may have felt that after the important contributions of French scientists such as Coulomb, Poisson, Biot and, above all, Ampère, the theory of electricity and magnetism which is today principally associated with the names of Faraday and Maxwell should have been created by a Frenchman. Once again this new theory was only accepted very slowly and hesitantly, and even unwillingly, in France—one thinks, for example, of the criticisms levelled at the theory by Pierre Duhem in his “The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory”.2 Of course it might be that if one knew how to weigh properly the various achievements of French scientists in different branches of science one would find that, allowing for her rather static population during the nineteenth century, the total contribution of France compared well with those of Britain and Germany. Nevertheless, in one case at least, that of theoretical physics, there seems to have been an unmistakable failure to live up to the promise of the beginning of the century. The purpose of this paper is to advance possible reasons to explain this failure.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , December 1966 , pp. 109 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1966

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References

1 Thus Renan, , in his L'Avenir de la Science (Paris, 1890) preface, p. viiGoogle Scholar, referring to the tyranny exercised by the requirements of French for clarity and discretion, remarks: “Le français ne veut exprimer que des choses claires; or les lois les plus importantes, celles qui tiennent aux transformations de la vie, ne sont pas claires: on les voit dans une sorte de demi-jour. C'est ainsi qu'après avoir aperçu la première les vérités de ce qu'on appelle maintenant le darwinisme, la France a été la dernière à s'y rallier.”

2 For example, his criticism of Maxwell's introduction of the displacement current. See translation of Duhem's work by Wiener, P. (Princeton, 1954), pp. 78–79.Google Scholar

3 To substantiate this guess it would be necessary to take full account of demographic factors. My attention has been drawn to an interesting study of scientific creativity in the light of demographic factors in an article by Yuasa in vol. i of Japanese Journal for the History of Science.

4 For details of the educational scene in France during the revolutionary and Napoleonic eras I have depended mainly on d'Irsay, S., Histoire des universités françaises et étrangères des origines à nos jours, 2 vol. (Paris, 1933–1935)Google Scholar, Liard, L., L'Enseignement supérieur en France, 1789–1889, 2 vol. (Paris, 1888, 1894)Google Scholar, and two important articles by Williams, L. P., “Science, Education and the French Revolution”, Isis, xliv (1953), 311–330CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Science, Education and Napoleon I”, Isis, xlvii (1956), 369–382.Google Scholar Williams's articles, hereafter referred to as Williams [I] and [II], have a particularly rich documentation, and form the inevitable point of departure for any future research on the subject of science and education in France in the revolutionary and Napoleonic eras.

5 For an account of the educational plans of the idéologues under the Directory, see Williams [I], where reference will be found to various works on the subject such as those by Picavet, F., Les Idéologues (Paris, 1891)Google Scholar, and by Van Duzer, C. H., Contributions of the Idéologues to French Revolutionary Thought (Baltimore, 1935).Google Scholar

6 The richest source of biographical material on J. B. Fourier is found in the Éloge of V. Cousin to the Académie Française (5 05 1831)Google Scholar, and in the same author's Notes Biographiques … de M. Fourier (Paris, 1831).Google Scholar

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10 For example, the scientist J. L. F. Bertrand was elected captain of the Garde Nationale of his locality in Paris. See Éloge of Bertrand in Darboux, G., Éloges Académiques et Discours (Paris, 1912), pp. 1–60.Google Scholar

11 In marked contrast to the existence in both Britain and Germany, for example, of a number of powerful, independent centres of scientific activity. There can be no doubt that the undue concentration in Paris of the foremost French scientific institutions had a markedly adverse effect on the general health of French science in the nineteenth century (and beyond). For one thing, it made possible the practice of the cumul by which one scientist held teaching positions in a number of different institutions; for another, residence in Paris made it all too easy for French scientists to follow the revolutionary tradition of involvement in politics. The resulting gains to teaching or politics were far outweighed by the inevitable loss to creative scientific research.

12 But a study of Carnot Savant remains to be written.

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16 The subsequent biographical details on Gay-Lussac are taken from an obituary notice prepared by J. B. Biot and read before the Royal Society of London at their annual commemoration meeting on 30 November 1850. Biot tells us that the then president, Lord Rosse, who asked for the notice of Gay-Lussac, had been responsible “for the happy notion of making these annual obituary notices into veritable scientific memoirs assessing the achievements of the scientist in question” (see Journal des Scavans, 1850, for the remarks of Biot and a French version of the obituary notice).

17 For some biographical details of Arago, see preface by von Humboldt to Arago's Oeuvres (13 vol., Paris, 1854–1862).Google Scholar

18 Loc. ignot.

19 Hamilton's application to analytical dynamics of concepts drawn from wave theory provides an obvious example of creative work in the subject both intrinsically, and for its later influence on the development of the wave mechanical version of Quantum Mechanics.

20 Involving, that is, a full application of probability theory as opposed to the earlier work of Joule and Krönig.

21 As opposed to a competent, and even original, theoretical physicist such as Lamé, G. (1795–1870).Google Scholar

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26 The play in question “Arthur de Bretagne”, was published after Bernard's death in 1886. Girardin was professor at the Sorbonne. See Foster, M., Claude Bernard (London, 1889), pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

27 Newton and Laplace provide the obvious examples, as opposed, for example, to Maxwell and Einstein.

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31 This was certainly true before the present century. But theories such as Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, or Dirac's Electron Theory, open up the possibility of aesthetic considerations playing an increasingly important role in future advances in theoretical physics.

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36 Berthollet, C. L., Essai de Statique Chimique (Paris, 1803).Google Scholar

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40 Ibid., p. 429.

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