The early twentieth century brought about the rejection by
physicists of the doctrine of determinism - the belief that
complete knowledge of the initial conditions of an interaction in
nature allows precise and unambiguous prediction of the outcome.
This book traces the origins of a central problem leading to this
change in viewpoint and paradoxes raised by attempts to formulate a
consistent theory of the nature of light. It outlines the different
approaches adopted by members of different national cultures to the
apparent inconsistencies, explains why Einstein's early (1905)
attempt at a resolution was not taken seriously for fifteen years,
and describes the mixture of ideas that created a route to a new,
antideterministic formulation of the laws of nature. Dr Wheaton
describes the experimental work on the new forms of radiation found
at the turn of the century and shows how the interpretation of
energy transfer from X-rays to matter gradually transformed a
classical wave explanation of light to one based on particle like
quanta of energy, and further, he explains how influential
scientists came reluctantly to accept a wavelike interpretation of
matter as well. This new and distinctively different account of one
of the major theoretical shifts in modern physical thought will be
of fundamental interest to physical scientists and philosophers, as
well as to historians of science.
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