Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T07:29:12.580Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Who Wants a Postmodern Physics?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Cathryn Carson
Cathryn Carson
Affiliation:
Program in History and Philosophy of Science, Stanford University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Theorists of science and culture, seeking to explicate the implications of chaos theory, quantum mechanics, or special and general relativity, have drawn parallels to the constellation of intellectual and social phenomena collected in the concept of postmodernism. The notion thereby invoked of a postmodern physics is suggestive and worth exploring. But it remains ungrounded so long as the argument moves in the realm of parallels. Moreover, these discussions prove to be tacitly constrained by a preexisting genre of physicists' own literary production, a genre whose argumentative structures have been taken over implicitly into the subsequent exchanges. Attending critically in this way to the intellectual interests of the discussants — asking who it is that wants to constitute a postmodern physics — should open up more productive ways of framing the debate.

Type
Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , Winter 1995 , pp. 635 - 655
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Argyros, Alexander J. 1991. A Blessed Rage for Order: Deconstruction, Evolution, and Chaos. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Preess.Google Scholar
Beller, Mara. 1983. “Matrix Theory before Schrödinger: Philosophy, Problems, Consequences.” Isis 74: 469–91.Google Scholar
Best, Steven, and Douglas, Kellner,. 1991. Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations. New York. Guilford Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beyerchen, Alan D. 1989. “Nonlinear Science and the Unfolding of a New Intellectual Vision”. Papers in Comparative Studies 6. 25–49.Google Scholar
Beyler, Richard H. 1994. “From Positivism to Organicism: Pascual Jordan's Interpretations of Modern Physics in Cultural Context”, Ph.D.diss. Harvard University.Google Scholar
Bohm, David. 1957. Causality and Chance in Modern Physics. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Bohm, David. 1980. Wholeness and the Implicate Order. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Bohm, David. 1988. “Postmodern Scince and a Postmodern World”. In The Reenchantment of Science: Postmodern Proposals, edited by Griffin, David Ray. 57–68. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Bohr, Niels. 1958. Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Bohr, Niels. 1963. Essays 1958–1962 on Atomic physics and Human Knowledge. New York: Interscience.Google Scholar
Born, Max. 1956. physics in My Generation. London: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Briggs, John and David Peat, F. 1989 Turbulent Mirror: An Illustrated Guide to Chaos Theory and the Science of Wholeness. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Cao, Tian Yu. 1992. “Reflections on the Postmodernist Approach to the History of Science.” Seminar paper, Dibner Institute, MIT, 6 April.Google Scholar
Cao, Tian Yu. (1993). “New Philosophy of Renormalization: From the Renormalization Group Equations to Effective Field Theories.” In Renormalization: From Lorentz to Landau (and Beyond), edited by Brown, Laurie M., 87–133. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Capra, Fritjof. (1977). The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism. New York: Bantam Books.Google Scholar
Davies, Paul. (1980). Other Worlds. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
de Broglie, Louis. (1953). The Revolution in Physics: A Non-Mathematical Survey of Quanta, translated by Niemeyer, Ralph W.. New York: Noonday Press.Google Scholar
de Broglie, Louis. (1955). Physics and Microphysics, translated by Davidson, Martin. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Eger, Martin. (1993). “Hermeneutics and the New Epic of Science.” In The Literature of Science: Perspectives on Popular Scientific Writing, edited by McRae, Murdo William, 186–209. Athens: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
Eoyang, Eugene. (1989). “Chaos Misread: Or, There's Wonton in My Soup!” Comparative Literature Studies 26:271–84.Google Scholar
Ferré, Frederick. (1976). Shaping the Future: Resources for a Post-Modern World. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Feynman, Richard P. (1985). QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter. Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Forman, Paul. (1971). “Weimar Culture, Causality, and Quantum Theory, 1918–1927: Adaptation by German Physicists and Mathematicians to a Hostile Intellectual Environment.” HSPS 3:1–115.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. (1970). The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, translated by Sheridan, A.. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Froula, Christine. (1985). “Quantum Physics/Postmodern Metaphysics: The Nature of Jacques Derrida.” Western Humanities Review 39:287–311.Google Scholar
Georgi, Howard. (1989). “Effective Quantum Field Theories.” In The New Physics, edited by Davies, Paul, 446–57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gleick, James. (1987). Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Viking.Google Scholar
Griffin, David Ray. (1988). “Introduction: The Reenchantment of Science.” In The Reenchantment of Science: Postmodern Proposals, edited by Griffin, David Ray, 1–46. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Haraway, Donna. (1989). Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Haraway, Donna. (1991). Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hawking, Stephen W. (1988). A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. New York: Bantam.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayles, N. Katherine. 1984. The Cosmic Web: Scientific Field Models and Literary Strategies in the Twentieth Century. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Hayles, N. Katherine. 1989. “Chaos as Orderly Disorder: Shifting Ground in Contemporary Literature and Science.” New Literary History 20:305–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayles, N. Katherine. 1990. Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Hayles, N. Katherine. 1992. “Turbulence in Literature and Science: Questions of Influence.” In American Literature and Science, edited by Scholnick, Robert J., 229–50. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.Google Scholar
Heisenberg, Werner. 1958a. The physicists' Conception of Nature. translated by Pomerans, Arnold J. New York: Harcourt, Brace.Google Scholar
Heisenberg, Werner. 1958b. physics and philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Heisenberg, Werner. 1971. Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations. translated by Pomerans, Arnold J.. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Heisenberg, Werner. 1974. Across the Frontiers. translated by Heath, Peter. New York: Harper & Row.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heisenberg, Werner. [1942] 1984. “Ordnung der Wirklichkeit”. In Gesammelte Werke/Collected Works Vol. C1. edited by Blum, Walter, Duerr, Hans-Perer, and Rechenberg, Helmut 218–306. Munich: Piper.Google Scholar
Heller, Eric J., and Tomsovic, Steven. 1993. “Postmodern Quantum Mechanics”. Physics Today. 46(7): 38–46.Google Scholar
Hendry, John. 1980. “Weimar Culture and Quantum Causality”. History of Science: 18. 155–80.Google Scholar
Herbert, Nick. 1985. Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/Doubleday.Google Scholar
Hofstadter, Douglas R. 1980. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Graid. New York: Basic BooksGoogle Scholar
Kellert, Stephen H. 1993 In the Wake of Chaos: Unpredictable Order in Dynamical Systems. Chicago University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinsella, W. P. 1992 Interview on “Weekend Edition Saturday”. National Public Radio: 11 July. 1992.Google Scholar
Kraft, P. and Kroes, P.. 1984. “Adaptation of Scientific Knowledge to an Intellectual Environment. Paul Forman' ‘Weimar culture, causaluty, and quantum theory, 1918–1927’: Anlysis and Criticism. Centaurus: 27. 76–99.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Levine, George. 1987. “One Culture: Science and Literature”. In One Culture: Essays in Science and Literature,. edited by Levine, George. 3–32. Micison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Lyotard, Jean-François 1984. The postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. traslated by Bennington, Geoff and Massumi, Brian Minneapolis: University of Minnesata Press.Google Scholar
McCrommach, Russell 1976 “On Acadimic Scientists in Wilhmian Germany”. In Science and Its public: The Changing Relationship. edited by Holton, Gerald and Blanpied, William A. 157–71. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McRae, Murdo William 1993 “Introduction: Science in Culture”. In The Literature of Science: Perspectives on Popular Scientific Writting. edited by McRae, Murdo William 1–13. Athens: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
Mandelbrot, Benoit B. 1983. The Fractal Geometry of Nature. rev ed. San Francisco: Freeman.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oppenheimer, J. Robert 1953. Science and the Common Understanding. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Paul, Robert. 1984. “German Acadimic Science and the Mandarin Ethos”. British Journal for the History of Science 17: 1–29.Google Scholar
Penrose, Roger. 1989. The Emperor' New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polkinghorne, J. C. 1984. The Quantum World. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Porush, David. 1989. “Cybernetic Fiction and Postmodern Science”. New Literary History. 20. 373–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Porush, David. 1990 1993. “Making Chaos: Two Views of a New Science”. New English Review and Fread Loaf Quarterly. 12. 427–43. Reprinted in MaRae. (1993, 152–68).Google Scholar
Prigogine, Ilya. 1992. “Beyond Being and Becoming”. Interview with Marilyn Berlin Snell: New Perspectives Quarterly. 9 (2) 22–28.Google Scholar
Prigogine, Ilya and Stengers, Isabelle 1984. Order out of Chaos: Man' New Dialogue with Nature New York: Bantam.Google Scholar
Restivo, Sal P. 1978. “Parallels and Paradoxes in Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism: I — A Critical Reconnaissance”. Social of Science. 8. 143–81.Google Scholar
Restivo, Sal P. 1982. “Parallels and Paradoxes in Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism: II — A Sociological Perspective on Parallelism”. Social Studies of Science. 12 37–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schweber, Sivan S. 1993a “Changing Conceptualization of Renormalization Theory”. In Renormalization: From Lorentz to Londau (and Beyond). edited by Brown, Laurie M. 135–66. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schweber, Sivan S. 1993b. “Physics, Commnity and the Crisis in Physical Theory”. Physics Today 46(11). 34–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Serres, Michel 1977 La Naissance de la physique dans le texte de Lucréce: Flueves et turbulences. Paris: Minuit.Google Scholar
Toulmin, Stephen 1982a. “The Construal of Reality: Criticism in Modern and Postmodern Science”. In The Plitics of Interpretation. edited by Mitchell, W. J. T. 99–177. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Toulmin, Stephen. 1982b. The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Ethology of Nature. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weinberg, Steven. 1992. Dreams of a Final Theory. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Weizsäcker, Carl Friendrich von. 1963. Zum Weltbild der Physik. 10th ed. Stuttgart: S. Hirzel.Google Scholar
Weyl, Hermann. 1949. Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science. enl. ed. Princetion, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wigner, Eugene P. 1967. Symmetries and Reflections: Scientific Essays of Eugene P. Wigner. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Wise, M. Norton. 1994. “Pascual Jordan: Quantum Mechanics, Psychology, National Socialism”. In Science, Techology and National Socialism. edited by Renneberg, Monika and Walker, Mark 224–54. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zukav, Gary. 1979. The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics. New York: William Morrow.Google Scholar