The Disastrous Effects of Experiment upon the Early Development of Thermodynamics

Abstract

Nobody needs to be told that theories of nature must grow from experience, that experiment can sharpen, refine, and extend experience and correct our conception of it, that a scientific theory of an aspect of nature cannot be accepted until it has been somehow ‘confirmed’ by experiment. It does not follow that theory and experiment climb hand in hand up Jacob’s ladder. It does not follow that experiments as an end in themselves are necessarily beneficial to anyone except, it may be hoped, those who perform them. It does not even follow that the theorist should scrupulously respect all such experimental data as may bear upon the branch of natural science he is trying to develop.