VISMAYA: History & Philosophy of Physics
Today is National Scientific Temper Day
We need to remember people who stood for science and scientific thinking….by reading some of their scientific work…and here it is…
Reference: Narlikar, Jayant V., Sudhakar Kunte, Narendra Dabholkar, and Prakash Ghatpande. ‘A Statistical Test of Astrology’. Current Science 96, no. 5 (2009): 641–43. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24104554.
Every year when I teach the Optics course for physics majors, I start with the treatment of electromagnetic theory and then build on it a variety of optical phenomena and effects. Let me present three aspects related to it:
1. The impact and effect of Heaviside-Maxwell’s equations in understanding how fields can evolve and interact with matter is noteworthy. The foundations of field theory are already there to see, and the arguments of locality and causality take their form in an intuitive way. It shows the power of combining physical intuition with mathematical techniques, and in the process, the flavor of classical physics at its best.
2. To see optics from a framework of a comparison between the wavelength of light and the size of an interacting object. This is usually termed the ‘size parameter’ viewpoint. The size parameter has an intuitive connection to the approximations that we use. For example, the foundation principles on which scattering theory is based for discriminating between Rayleigh and Mie scattering processes are mainly based on size. It is also amazing to see how the dipole approximation can solve or at least give an opening to understand a variety of optical effects. It reveals the power of the method and its effectiveness. Lord Rayleigh had a significant role to play in this way of attacking a problem, and it continues to be one of the most powerful methods to introduce concepts not only in electromagnetic theory but also in applications of quantum mechanics, including atomic and molecular physics.
3. The elegance of mathematics that one must use to understand the electromagnetic theory of light. Of course, a good foundation in vector calculus is necessary, but what intrigues me and several of my students is the effectiveness of vector calculus in trying to understand a variety of processes. Every time we use a Laplacian or a curl of curl type of transformation, we observe how important physical effects emerge from that mathematical operation. One of the most effective ways to study vector calculus is to apply it in electromagnetic theory, and if one needs to broaden the scope of this study, optical effects provide an excellent playground. Ultimately, there is an amazing coherence between what is computed, what is theorized, and what is measured. It is a great model and an advertisement for physics.
Of course, there are many more observations related to teaching this course, which I wish to share, but I will keep them for future blogs. One thing is for sure: there is no end to getting surprised, learning new things, and finally looking at an old phenomenon (literally and metaphorically) in a new light.
12th of August is Erwin Schrödinger’s birthday…. Although he has been one of the pioneers of quantum mechanics (of the cat fame) and has contributed deeply to the subject matter, in recent years, he has become (in)famous for his non-academic life. For sure, he had a controversial personal life and has been deservedly criticized for that.
Only recently, there has been some new archival information (see this) that throws more light on this and gives some benefit of the doubt.
An important lesson: Great science alone does not guarantee good human qualities in a scientist.
ps:
To paraphrase and expand on something I wrote recently –
We continue to celebrate science by a person because science is not only of that person, but of humanity….
A person learns from others, transforms it and passes it on.
The human mind is both a conduit and a seed of an idea. Lest we forget the soil, sunshine, water and air.
~ 10 years of data on views from my blog site (historyofscience.in)
Some inference:
Recently, I came across an arXiv upload that discussed poetry written by Schrödinger.
Below is a flavor of Schrödinger’s poetry reproduced from the arXiv article:
“The brooding sun rests softly on the lake
And barely marks its shallow breathing
As gentle waves rock up and down
In heavy glare of midday heat.
….”
One of the surprising things I learned is that Schrödinger was interested in becoming a poet but later turned to physics and mathematics to ensure financial security: “Thus, in a 1931 interview by the English journalist and science writer John W. N. Sullivan he said: “I took up mathematics and physics quite early … But I must not give the impression that science alone interested me. As a matter of fact, my early desire was to be a poet. But I speedily realised that poetry was not a paying business. Science, on the other hand, offered me a career”” (Kragh, 2026, p. 2)
Schrodinger had a deep interest in cultural studies and wrote a lot about them, as the author points out: “Apart from being a brilliant physicist, Schrödinger was also a humanist scholar, a polymath who engaged in cultural studies relating to music, theatre, philosophy, history, philology, and literature [Gronau and Gronau 2021]. Science and Humanism and Nature and the Greeks, both books written while he stayed in Dublin, bear witness to his broad cultural interests.” (Kragh, 2026, p. 1)
It is also intriguing to see a few other physicists try their hand at poetry, as in this case with Felix Bloch:
“Erwin with his psi can do
Calculations quite a few.
But one thing has not been seen:
Just what does psi really mean?” (Kragh, 2026, p. 2)
The article also has a discussion on Schrödinger’s Galilean dialogue, which has inclinations towards the development of ideas in physics.
Do read the reference below for more:
Kragh, Helge. ‘Erwin Schroedinger: His Poetry and Fragment of a Galilean Dialogue’. arXiv:2607.29497. Preprint, arXiv, 31 July 2026. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2607.29497.
Everything has to wait, including the transients…
If you sight a star
on a rainy night,
you need to wait
to see the passing cloud.
The transient here is
not only the cloud,
but your patience too.
Rain comes and goes,
so does the night.
Even the star will
not outlast.
So does your memory.
But you need to wait…
In his formative years, Karl Popper, the celebrated philosopher of science, had a cabinetmaker as his first teacher. His introduction to epistemology was through an apprenticeship in a furniture shop.
As he mentions: “I believe I learned more about the theory of knowledge from my dear omniscient master Adalbert Pösch than from any other of my teachers. None did so much to turn me into a disciple of Socrates. For it was my master who taught me not only how very little I knew but also that any wisdom to which I might ever aspire could consist only in realizing more fully the infinity of my ignorance.” (Popper, 2002, p. 2)
Hands + Mind, you see.
ref: Popper, Karl R.; Unended Quest, p 2 (2002)
GS Shivarudrappa‘s eloquence:
(lines in Kannada followed by an English translation)
….ಎಲ್ಲ ಕೇಳಲಿ ಎಂದು ನಾನು ಹಾಡುವುದಿಲ್ಲ
ಹಾಡುವುದು ಅನಿವಾರ್ಯ ಕರ್ಮ ನನಗೆ…..
“…I do not sing so that everyone might listen
Singing is, for me, an indispensable act…”
Finding personal meaning in what we do remains the biggest motivators of work. The poet uses the metaphor of a singer to make this point. As usual, translation does not do justice to the actual rhythm of the lines, but the meaning by itself is well worth admiration, and Shivrudrappa captures it exquisitely. The lyrics of the full poem are available online, and LLMs can translate them reasonably.
In Kannada (as in many Indian languages), this celebrated poem also takes the form of music (in this case, bhavageethae, a musical genre in Kannada music). By combining music with poetry, language and the underlying philosophy gets deeply registered in the minds.
Strange thing…this human brain. Strange connections between…poetry, music and philosophy.
Classic and Classical.. Rayleigh..
Criticism and resurrection, Rayleigh style..
I propose to point out what I conceive to be the error which vitiates his reasoning, and afterwards to show that, after all, his theory is substantially correct.
Reference: Note on the explanation of Coronas, as given in Verdet’s Legons d Optique Physique, and other works; London Math. Soc. Proc. 11. pp. 267—269, 1871