During the last ten years so many works have accumulated in the
domain of Physics, and so many new theories have been propounded,
that those who follow with interest the progress of science, and
even some professed scholars, absorbed as they are in their own
special studies, find themselves at sea in a confusion more
apparent than real. It has therefore occurred to me that it might
be useful to write a book which, while avoiding too great
insistence on purely technical details, should try to make known
the general results at which physicists have lately arrived, and to
indicate the direction and import which should be ascribed to those
speculations on the constitution of matter, and the discussions on
the nature of first principles, to which it has become, so to
speak, the fashion of the present day to devote oneself. I have
endeavored throughout to rely only on the experiments in which we
can place the most confidence, and, above all, to show how the
ideas prevailing at the present day have been formed, by tracing
their evolution, and rapidly examining the successive
transformations which have brought them to their present condition.
In order to understand the text, the reader will have no need to
consult any treatise on physics, for I have throughout given the
necessary definitions and set forth the fundamental facts.
Moreover, while strictly employing exact expressions, I have
avoided the use of mathematical language. Algebra is an admirable
tongue, but there are many occasions where it can only be used with
much discretion. Nothing would be easier than to point out many
great omissions from this little volume; but some, at all events,
are not involuntary. Certain questions which are still too confused
have been put on one side, as have a few others which form an
important collection for a special study to be possibly made later.
Thus, as regards electrical phenomena, the relations between
electricity and optics, as also the theories of ionization, the
electronic hypothesis, etc., have been treated at some length; but
it has not been thought necessary to dilate upon the modes of
production and utilization of the current, upon the phenomena of
magnetism, or upon all the applications which belong to the domain
of Electro-technics. L. POINCARE.
General
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