Abstract
For present-day physicists Heinrich Hertz’s Principles of Mechanics is a neglected, almost forgotten, book. For example, few recent textbooks on mechanics make even passing reference to Hertz’s fundamental law [Grundgesetz] of the straightest path, which is the foundation of his Principles of Mechanics.1 Since Hertz’s Electric Waves had received an enthusiastic reception from physicists when it first appeared in 1892, and is still important today, it is difficult at first to understand this lack of interest in his book on mechanics, which appeared just two years later. This paper suggests that a major factor in the neglect of Hertz’s Mechanics was the unenthusiastic and often quite negative response to his book by some of the most important physicists of his time.
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To see the extent of this neglect of Hertz’s Principles of Mechanics, consider just two examples: L.A. Pars in his A Treatise on Analytical Mechanics (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1965) lists Hertz’s book in his bibliography, but there is not a single reference to it in the text itself; Hamel 1967, p. 367 says of Hertz’s efforts to eliminate force from mechanics: “This, of course, is an absurdity, since a mechanics without a concept of force is no mechanics.” Hamel does, however, devote a few pages (366–367) to Hertz’s fundamental law [“Das Prinzip von Hertz”].
On FitzGerald and the Maxwellians see Hunt 1991 and O’Hara and Pricha 1987.
In Jones and Walley’s translation of Hertz’s Principles of Mechanics for its first edition in 1899, they consistently translate Hertz’s Grundgesetz as “fundamental law.” This is the translation we adopt here, since Hertz frequently emphasizes the relationship between his fundamental “law” and Newton’s first “law” of motion. In Germany at the turn of the century, however, Hertz’s “law” was often referred to as das Hertzsche Prinzip. (Compare the discussions of Hertz’s fundamental law in the papers of Jesper Lützen and Simon Saunders in the present volume).
These pages contain the best critical summary of Hertz’s Mechanics to be found anywhere.
See also Klein 1974, p. 168; Emil Wiechert (1861–1928) once suggested the name Kinetische Mechanik for Hertz’s new kind of mechanics.
The term “black year” was first applied to 1894 by Max Planck in 1935. See his Physikalische Abhandlungen and Vorträge (Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1958, 3: 358–363), p. 362; and Joseph F. Mulligan, “Max Planck and the `Black Year’ of German Physics,” American Journal of Physics 62 (1994), pp. 1089–1097.
On this see Klein 1970, chapter 4. Vilhelm Bjerknes (1862–1951), who had been a research student in Bonn when Hertz was writing his Mechanics, also applied Hertz’s mechanics to some hydrodynamical problems related to meteorology. Throughout his life Bjerknes considered Hertz’s book to be the best starting point for all work in modern physics; on this see Friedman 1989, chapter I.
G.L. de Haas-Lorentz (ed.), H.A. Lorentz: Impressions of His Life and Work ( Amsterdam: North-Holland 1957 ), pp. 41–42.
Lorentz gave voice to his admiration for Hertz in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in Stockholm in 1902. He refers to Maxwell and Hertz as the true founders of our present views on electromagnetism, and goes on: “Chrw(133) Hertz, that great German physicist, who, if he had not been snatched from us too soon, would certainly have been among the very first of those whom your Academy [the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, which decides on the recipients of Nobel Prizes] would have considered in fulfilling your annual task.” On this see Nobel Lectures: Physics (New York: Elsevier, 1967 ), vol. 1, p. 16.
This article of Lorentz is discussed in greater detail by Jesper Lützen in his paper in the present volume.
On this see Rosenfeld 1957, esp. pp. 1660–1667, and Klein 1974, pp. 155–158 and 167–172. Albert Einstein once said that Maxwell and Hertz had demolished, without intending to, “the faith in mechanics as the final basis of all physical thinking”; in Autobiographical Notes, translated and edited by Paul A. Schilpp ( La Salle: Open Court, 1979, p. 19 ).
See, for example, the following papers: Emil Cohn, “Zur Systematik der Elektricitätslehre,” Annalen der Physik 40 (1890), pp. 625–639; Emil Wiechert, “Uber die Grundlagen der Elektrodynamik,” Annalen der Physik 59 (1896), pp. 283–323; and Wien 1901.
On this see Jungnickel and McCormmach 1986, pp. 157–159. It is worth noting that advanced students in Germany were almost forced to do research in experimental physics if they wanted eventually to become ordinarii [full professors], since there were only four chairs of theoretical physics in Germany at the end of the nineteenth century: Berlin (Max Planck), Göttingen (Voldemar Voigt), Königsberg (Paul Volkmann), and Munich (vacant from 1894 until 1905, when Arnold Sommerfeld was appointed).
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Mulligan, J.F. (1998). The Reception of Heinrich Hertz’s Principles of Mechanics by His Contemporaries. In: Baird, D., Hughes, R.I.G., Nordmann, A. (eds) Heinrich Hertz: Classical Physicist, Modern Philosopher. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 198. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8855-3_11
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