Abstract
As the end of the 19th century approached, thanks to the conservation of energy and the electromagnetic theory of light, physics appeared to have conquered all possible territories. One of its finest representatives, William Thomson (1824 –1907), who was made Lord Kelvin in 1866 following the laying of the first transatlantic cable, felt he was in a position to state in a lecture in 1900: “In all the main areascurrent physics makes up a perfectly harmonious whole. It is a subject that is almost complete.” He did add, however: “The beauty and clarity of dynamic theory, which states that heat and light are forms of motion,are currently obscured by two clouds.” 1 The “two clouds” to which he referred were problems concerning the theory of ether, and the study of light radiation emitted by heated bodies.
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Notes
Lord KELVIN, Baltimore Lecture, 1904, pp. 486–527.
Quoted in R. DUGAS La théorie physique au sens de BoltzmannEditions du Griffon, Neuchâtel, 1959, p. 111.
DALTON, quoted in Les atomes. Une anthologie historiqueed. by B. Bensaude-Vincent C.Kounelis,Presses Pocket,Paris, 1991, p. 83.
DUMAS, quoted in Les atomes. Une anthologie historiqueop. cit., p. 142.
BERTHELOT, quoted in Les atomes. Une anthologie historiqueop. cit., p. 177–178.
OSTWALD, quoted in Les atomes. Une anthologie historiqueop. cit., p. 216.
J. PERRIN Les atomescoll. ChampsFlammarion, Paris 1991, p. 33.
Id., p. 284–285.
F. LOT Jean Perrin et les atomesSeghers, Paris, 1963, p. 68–69.
Id., p. 84.
H. BECQUEREL Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences2 mars 1896.
P. CURIE, Nobel Conference, quoted in Les atomes. Une anthologie historiqueop. cit., p. 282–283.
H. POINCARÉ La valeur de la Sciencecoll.ChampsFlammarion, Paris 1990, p. 129.
Ibid., p. 127.
A EINSTEIN, H. A. Lorentz, His Creative Genius and His Personality, in H. A. Lorentz. Impressions of his life and work, G. L. De Haas-Lorentz (ed.), North Holland, Amsterdam, 1957, p. 5.
Ibid., p. 6–7.
Ibid., p. 7
Ibid., p. 8
H. POINCARÉ La valeur de la Sciencecoll. ChampsFlammarion, Paris 1990, p. 133–134.
P. FRANK Einsteinsa vie et son tempsAlbin Michel, Paris, 1950, p. 270.
Ibid.
EINSTEIN (SIIPC).
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Marage, P., Wallenborn, G. (1999). Physics Prior to the First Council. In: Marage, P., Wallenborn, G. (eds) The Solvay Councils and the Birth of Modern Physics. Science Networks · Historical Studies, vol 22. Birkhäuser, Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-7703-9_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-7703-9_6
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