Why Mechanical-Pictorial Models Failed

Abstract

It is true that classical science was fully aware of the limitations of human perception; but it firmly believed that by the artificial lowering of the threshold of perception this limitation could be overcome. Objects too far away as well as objects too small still can be perceived when their physical action on our sensory organs, which is too small to be effective, is concentrated by means of specially constructed devices like the telescope, microscope, seismograph, acoustic concave mirror and other means of detection; and also when conditions can be so arranged that the individual physical action, too weak in itself, can be repeated long enough to produce finally a perceptible trace. The long-time exposure of the photographic plate joined to the telescope is illustrative of both methods combined into one. The general pattern of all such instances was the same: to construct artificially a causal chain leading from the unperceived physical agency to the physical effect perceptible by human senses. The last term in the chain was always either a retinal image or an audible vibration. The very continuity of this chain seemingly guaranteed the belief that its first link cannot be essentially different from the last one; in other words that the microscosmic or megacosmic object differs merely in its dimensions from its retinal image. It is true that both telescope and microscope discovered things never seen before and in many respects strange and surprising.