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What does a scientist actually know, and what is just a useful guess? Henri Poincaré, a brilliant French mathematician, asks that question about numbers, space, and physics itself. He shows that even geometry rests on choices we make because they work well. Do not worry, he writes for curious readers, not only experts. His ideas helped prepare the way for modern physics. If you like big questions asked clearly, try this.
Henri Poincaré was among the greatest mathematicians and physicists of his age, a man who could lecture on almost any branch of science and make it lucid. Science and Hypothesis, published in French in 1902 and in English a few years later, collects his reflections on how science actually works: what its hypotheses are, which parts are convention, and what experiment can and cannot settle.
Thirteen chapters in four parts range across mathematical reasoning, magnitude and measurement, the non Euclidean geometries, space and geometry, and then the hypotheses of physics, probability, optics and electrodynamics. Poincaré argues that some principles, like the axioms of geometry, are convenient conventions guided by experience rather than truths forced on us, an idea that prepared readers for relativity. Formulas are written out in plain text in this edition, so the argument reads as continuous prose.
Few scientists have written philosophy this clearly. You do not need advanced mathematics to follow the main lines, only patience and curiosity about how knowledge is built. Readers who enjoy Einstein's popular writing, or wonder what a law of nature really is, will find Poincaré a superb guide.
Henri Poincaré, the French mathematician whose work ranged over nearly every branch of mathematics and physics, published Science and Hypothesis in French in 1902, with this English translation following in 1905. Its thirteen chapters ask what geometry, arithmetic, and physical laws really are: discoveries, definitions, or useful conventions. It offers philosophy of science by a working genius, lucid, skeptical, and still startlingly modern.
Poincaré was one of the greatest mathematicians of his age, and this book, published in French in 1902 and in English in 1905, is his account of how science actually thinks. It opens with a translator's note, an introduction by J. Larmor and Poincaré's own preface, then divides into four parts covering mathematical reasoning, space, physical hypotheses and the theories of modern physics.
The early chapters take up the nature of mathematical reasoning, mathematical magnitude and experiment, non-Euclidean geometries, space and geometry, and experiment and geometry. The physical half moves through classical mechanics, relative and absolute motion, energy and thermodynamics, hypotheses in physics, the calculus of probabilities, optics and electricity, and electrodynamics. His central claim runs throughout: many of the principles scientists treat as facts of nature are conventions, chosen because they are convenient, and experiment guides that choice without dictating it.
The mathematics here has been linearized into running text from the source, so formulas read as prose rather than display. That suits the book: the arguments are philosophical, lucid and surprisingly readable, and they influenced everyone from Einstein onward.
Edition: Text: Project Gutenberg ebook 37157.
The first chapter
The translator wishes to express his indebtedness to Professor Larmor, for kindly consenting to introduce the author of Science and Hypothesis to English readers; to Dr. F. S. Macaulay and Mr. C. S. Jackson, M.A., who have read the whole of the proofs and have greatly helped by suggestions; also to Professor G. H. Bryan, F.R.S., who has read the proofs of Chapter VIII., and whose criticisms have been most valuable.
W. J. G. February 1905.
Source: Project Gutenberg. Published 1902 in French. Author died 1912. Public domain worldwide. Share this book: WhatsApp
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