Experience of reading physics books 1 History of physics is edited by King Kong and published by Harbin Engineering University Press. This book mainly introduces the development of physics, the basic science of natural science, which is divided into ancient physics, classical physics and modern physics. It also briefly introduces two basic fields of modern physics: astrophysics and particle physics. This book highlights China's achievements in ancient science and technology and its contribution to the world's scientific progress. In addition, there are reading materials behind some chapters, which mainly introduce the representative figures and major events in the development of physics.
Hundreds of years ago, physics was called natural science and regarded as a part of philosophy. One of Newton's classic physics works is called Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, which is the birthplace of Newton's three laws and the law of universal gravitation. Studying the history of physics will tell us that many new discoveries in physics are related to philosophical thoughts. The discovery of the law of conservation of energy and the law of transformation was influenced by Kant's philosophy, which in turn became one of the important foundations of dialectical materialism. The progress of physics often provides vivid examples for the progress of philosophy, and philosophy often points out the direction for natural science.
As a science, physics means that it can create more material wealth that people need and play a positive role in social development.
In my opinion, in order to fully express the requirements of the history of physics for our study, we should do the following:
1, through the study of physics history, stimulate students' interest in learning.
There is a saying that interest is the best teacher. When you learn something with interest, you can get twice the result with half the effort. The history of physics records the mysterious and exciting exploration process of human beings. Whether they like history or not, most people like to listen to stories, because children's earliest cognition is learned and formed from stories. It is more acceptable for students to tell history in the form of stories.
2, through the study of the history of physics, cultivate the ability to observe and analyze problems.
Physics is a science based on experiments. Observation and experiment are the basic methods to study physics and learn physics. In the history of physics, many scientists are good at observing and thinking carefully from some ordinary phenomena that are not noticed by people. For example, Roentgen has done a lot of experimental research in the field of physics all his life. In an experiment, he accidentally discovered that a negative wrapped in black paper was exposed, but he never gave up a small phenomenon. It was from this observation and analysis that he discovered X-rays and won the Nobel Prize. In the process of understanding the history of physics, students can realize that paying attention to observation and carrying out experiments seriously are the key to learning physics well. Therefore, in the future study, we should consciously observe, do experiments by ourselves, and gradually cultivate the habit of observing and thinking frequently. The cultivation of this ability will benefit a lot in the future work.
3, through the study of the history of physics, cultivate the spirit of questioning and the ability to ask scientific questions.
The ability of independent thinking and independent judgment is first manifested in the spirit of doubt and criticism. Many examples in the history of science show that it is the ideological premise of scientific creation not to be confined to traditional theories and concepts, but to be superstitious about authority and books. As we all know, Lorenz and Poincare both reached the door of relativity before Einstein, but they didn't finally reach the threshold of relativity because they couldn't get rid of the shackles of absolute space-time view. It is precisely because Einstein abandoned the concepts of "absolute motion" and "static ether" and deeply investigated the physical basis of the concept of "simultaneity" that he founded the special theory of relativity, which caused great changes in human space-time view.
4. By studying the history of physics, learning the scientific methods of physics masters and training scientific thinking.
Many ideal models have been established in physics research, such as ideal process, ideal experiment, observation and experiment, analogy and association, analysis and synthesis of speculation and attempt, absurdity and disproof, scientific hypothesis method and so on. There are a lot of vivid examples in the history of physics to illustrate the process in which the masters of science skillfully used these methods to achieve important results. Using these examples, students can receive education in specific scientific methods. For example, when talking about "free fall", Galileo refuted Aristotle's "heavy objects fall faster than light objects" by reducing to absurdity. Galileo pointed out: "If two balls with the same volume fall from the tower, the weight of one ball is not twice that of the other. According to Aristotle's theory, it is twice the speed. If two balls are tied together and the sum of their weights is greater than that of the heavy ball, the falling speed should be faster than that of the heavy ball. But if two balls are independent, they should be faster than the light ball and slower than the specific ball. One thing has two results, which proves that the theory is wrong. " In the process of establishing the theory of relativity, Einstein tried to explain it with real experiments and conceived a large number of ideal experiments and models, which became a wonderful flower in the history of physics.
5, through the study of the history of physics, to serve the mastery of physical knowledge.
The establishment of any theory is not a whim of someone. There is a process of its occurrence, development and maturity. Some need the efforts of a person's life or even generations to perfect a set of theories. 1687, Newton published Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, which summarized the research results of mechanics and marked the initial establishment of the classical mechanical system. This is the first large-scale synthesis in the history of physics, the product of the historical development of astronomy, mathematics and mechanics, and the crystallization of Newton's creative research. But these achievements can't be attributed to Newton alone, because before Newton, many scientists had done a lot of successful research in this field and achieved a lot of results. This laid a solid theoretical and data foundation for Newton's research. Newton wrote in his letter to Hook: "If I see farther, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants." People usually think that the giants he pointed out were Galileo and Kepler. In fact, his comprehensive work is based on the numerous achievements of several generations of predecessors engaged in scientific research since the Middle Ages.
6. Cultivate scientific spirit by studying the history of physics.
All scientists can't be divorced from their society. He is a social person first, and then a scientist. Science and technology is like a double-edged sword, which can not only benefit mankind by promoting economic and social development, but also bring negative consequences to human survival and development under certain conditions.
Looking back more than 2300 years ago, since Aristotle put forward the concept of physics, physics has indeed experienced ups and downs, but it finally broke through the shackles of theology. Newton, a child who traveled all over the seaside of science, laid the foundation of physics. For more than 300 years, physics has developed into a discipline closely related to human progress and social development. As the most basic natural science, physics is deeply rooted in the non-utilitarian pursuit of truth and brings the greatest benefits to mankind. Its development has always had a great influence on human social thought and culture. A major driving force for the progress of human society is the scientific spirit, and the model and concentrated embodiment of modern scientific spirit is modern physics. The scientific spirit represented by modern physics is a banner of human progress, which will fly high in the years to come. What we have to do is to learn the excellent qualities of scientists, study hard and bravely climb the peak of science.
Experience of reading physics books 2 "Physics" is one of Aristotle's main works, with dense thoughts, simple style and no rhetoric. In order to retain this feature, the translator adopts the principle of literal translation. Added some notes where it is not easy to understand. In this way, as long as you read it carefully, you can understand it.
Physics was written more than 2300 years ago. At that time, although the philosophy of ancient Greece had developed for more than 200 years and its content was very rich, it was still difficult to write a comprehensive treatise like physics. One of the difficulties was that philosophy and natural science (which were neck and neck at that time) were still naive after all, and there were not enough ready-made philosophical terms in Greek. So Aristotle had to use some imprecise everyday expressions in physics to express complex academic concepts, such as "yes" (τ? ν) means "existence" and "entity" and "self" (ο α? τ ó) means "essence" and uses "because of yourself" (итτ `α? χ χ) means "because of the essence", while "time" (χ ν ο) and "now" (χ ν ν? ν) indicates the continuation of time and the demarcation point respectively. Even in a riddle-like gesture language? ν? Represents the content of movement changes. In addition, Aristotle also adopted some terms of predecessors, such as α ρ ρ α? (Start, Primitive) and tau α α? It may not be appropriate to use the words τ ι α (cause) to summarize matter, form, purpose and driving force.
At the beginning, the author's writing difficulty became the translator's translation difficulty today. What shall we do? I handled these two situations in different ways. (1) With the development of philosophy, logic, linguistics and other related disciplines, a considerable number of terms appeared in later generations. We have carefully compared and examined the connotations of the two. Everything that can be proved to be the same thing has been translated in terms of later generations. In this category, in addition to the above-mentioned "entity", "existence" and "essence", there are also translations of υυυυυυυυυυυυυυυ. Although I have tried my best to translate these physical terms, the translator himself is not satisfied. For example, τ τ ε τ α ξ? Translation is "intermediary", want to know? σ θ α ι translates as "move", τ ο? μ α translates into "together" and so on, which is hardly like a noun. However, I have no choice but to make it public first and ask for your opinions.
This Chinese translation is directly translated from the original Greek text of Loeb's classical series (new york Edition 1929). Loeb's classic series is accompanied by an English translation of Francis. Cornford, intended to facilitate people to read more. However, this English translator pursues the perfection of English itself unilaterally, and there are many things that hurt words and meanings, so I won't refer to them much. When I revised the first draft, Guo Bin and the teacher pointed out the English version of the Complete Works of Aristotle edited by Ross. I found its Oxford edition 1930. This book is closer to the original. The meanings of Greek participles and infinitives are difficult to grasp, and this English translation has given me great inspiration in dealing with these difficulties.
In the process of translating this book, Guo Bin and his teacher not only gave enthusiastic encouragement, but also helped solve many Greek problems. Finally, they proofread the whole book and expressed their unforgettable thanks to him. After the translation of the whole manuscript, I would like to thank Comrade Wang Zisong for reviewing it according to the English version. I would also like to thank Comrade Chen Zhaofu, who is willing to attach his life and chronology of Aristotle to this book to add luster to this book.
Experience of reading physics books 3. I read Einstein's masterpiece Evolution of Physics translated by the famous scientist, the founder of physics, and the famous scientist Leigh Infield in the summer vacation, and I felt that I benefited a lot. This time, I only made some fragmentary excerpts and my own superficial feelings, hoping to make these fragmentary excerpts reflect the structure, ideas and spirit of this book as much as possible.
This book mainly introduces the evolution of physics concepts from Galileo and Newton's classical theories to modern field theory, relativity theory and quantum theory. Select several major turning points to clarify the fate of classical physics and the motivation of modern physics to establish new ideas, thus guiding readers how to find the connection between the conceptual world and the phenomenal world. After the publication of this book, physics has made unprecedented progress. It was written by Einstein, the founder of relativity, and Infield, who is best at writing popular physics books. They think that the readers of this book lack knowledge of mathematics and physics. Therefore, there is no reference to mathematical formulas in the book, and the text is easy to understand, with simple examples and strong readability. Those who are worthy of our study and engaged in physics education and teaching should read it well.
Hegel famously said: If you are familiar with the history of a science, you will be familiar with the science itself. -I remember this sentence. I feel that this book has a lot of value worth reading and thinking about, which can be divided into the following points:
This is a popular book about physics.
The author always observes and analyzes problems from the simplest and most common phenomena in daily life, and finally inevitably leads to abstract and profound physical concepts. I think this simple way of writing is one of the great advantages of this book.
The author wrote in the preface, "This book is a cordial conversation between you and me. You may find it boring or interesting, boring or exciting, but if this book can let you know some endless struggles and intelligence that human beings have the ability to invent, so as to better understand and master the laws of physical phenomena, our goal will be achieved. "
"Our purpose is to describe in bold lines how human beings seek the connection between the conceptual world and the phenomenal world. We try to explain what kind of motivation forces science to establish an idea that conforms to objective reality.
We have discussed the characteristics of our imaginary readers for a long time, and we are thinking about him everywhere. We imagine that he completely lacks practical knowledge of physics and mathematics, but he has a strong understanding ability, which is enough to make up for these shortcomings. We think he is very interested in the concepts of physics and philosophy, and he patiently studies the boring and difficult parts of the book. He realized that to understand any page, he had to read every previous page carefully. He also knows that even popular science books cannot be read like novels. "
There are many languages like this, which make people feel particularly cordial and can "read on" and "understand physics". This reminds me that if students' "easy to listen" and "easy to understand" can also be considered in class, we will win more students, so that the class can also become a highly readable book.
(2) Explain the true meaning of science with more fascinating and wonderful small examples.
When explaining the truth, most books are aimed at stimulating readers' curiosity and attracting readers to read with relish. It vividly compares the process of discovering science with Sherlock Holmes' exploration, which is very vivid.
"We imagine a perfect detective story. This story tells us all the important clues, which makes us have to put forward our own views on the truth of the incident. If we carefully study the idea of this story and wait for the author to explain it at the end of the book, we will have got a satisfactory answer. As long as it's not a bad detective story, this solution won't let us down. Not only that, it will appear when we expect it.
Can we compare the scientists who have discovered secrets in nature books from generation to generation with those who read such a detective novel? This metaphor is not exact, and we should give it up in the future. However, it is more or less appropriate and should be expanded and modified to make it more suitable for scientific attempts to see through the secrets of the universe.
Since Conan Doyle wrote a touching story, almost all detective novels began like this: the detective first collected all the events he needed, at least for one aspect of his problem, which were often strange, incoherent and irrelevant. But the detective knows that there is no need to continue reconnaissance at this time. Now he just needs to connect all the events collected with pure thinking. So he plays the violin or smokes in the easy chair. Suddenly, he had a brainwave and found this relationship. Not only can he explain the clues he has now, but he also knows that many other events must have happened. Because now he knows exactly where to find it, and he can go out and collect further proof of his theory if he wants.
To put it another cliche, when reading the Book of Nature, scientists must find the answer by themselves. He can't turn to the end of the book to see the final ending, as some impatient readers often do when reading detective novels. Here, he is both a reader and a detective, and he wants to find and explain (even partially) the connection between events. Even in order to get a partial solution to this problem, scientists must collect disorderly events and use creative imagination to understand and connect them.
Anyone who has read detective stories knows that a wrong clue often confuses the plot, so that it can't be solved for a long time. The unreliable intuitive reasoning method leads to the wrong concept of motion, which has been maintained for centuries. Aristotle enjoys supreme prestige throughout Europe, which may be the main reason why people have long believed in this intuitive concept. "
This also reminds me that if we can be good at this in our classroom teaching, can the classroom be more active?
(3) This book pays great attention to the arguments between different viewpoints and ideas in major events, as well as the contradictions and twists and turns in the process of building a physical building.
It leads readers to a broader social and cultural background. The history of physics development can not be separated from the society in which it lives and the cultural background that gave birth to it.
For example, Galileo's study of free fall in his book created a scientific method to study the laws of nature: a detailed description of the historical process of combining abstract thinking, mathematical deduction and scientific experiment. It commented: "Galileo's discovery and the scientific reasoning method applied are one of the greatest achievements in human thought, marking the real beginning of physics" and so on. These words have also been seen in the reading materials of high school physics textbooks, and it is very kind to read here.
(d) In the description of the history of physics development and major discoveries, he paid attention to the importance of questioning and asking questions.
The book writes: "It is often more important to ask a question than to solve it. Because solving a problem may be a mathematical or experimental skill, raising new questions and new possibilities, and looking at old problems from a new perspective requires creativity, which marks the real progress of science. " He founded the special theory of relativity because he found some contradictions between Newtonian mechanics and electromagnetic theory, and then asked questions from these contradictions, and then searched for a new big framework to understand the motion of matter. He was only 16 years old when he had this idea. By the time he was 26 years old, he had experienced 10 years of thinking and research. In 1905, he put forward ideas that could affect the development of science and technology. Similarly, Turing's proposal of artificial intelligence began with his questioning the common sense that "you can't make a machine that thinks for you". This also reminds me of Academician Wang, one of the four academicians of China Academy of Sciences who put forward the famous "863" project in China. He studied in Germany in the 1930s. He said: "I have dared to question the work of my predecessors since I was a child, especially those results that are inconsistent with the experiment. I often put a question mark in my mind." 1934 When he was attending an international academic conference, a man named Porter suggested that he had discovered gamma rays while bombarding beryllium. At that time, Mr. Wang thought it couldn't be gamma rays, because it didn't have such strong energy and great penetration. He told his tutor that he hoped to redesign the experiment and prove his judgment. Unfortunately, it was not supported. The next year, chadwick discovered that this ray was a neutron. Because neutrons and protons had the same mass, it was difficult to be found, because they were uncharged at that time. Charles won the Nobel Prize for this.
There is an old saying in China: "Where there is no doubt, there is doubt, which is also progress." Hegel also said: "You can find differences in the same thing, and this is your skill." So where there is no doubt, some people have raised questions, and this is progress. The truth is often born after 100 question marks. This reminds me how important it is to inspire students' thinking and encourage them to learn to discover and question in our teaching.
(5) The scientific reasoning and thinking in the book are wonderful.
Some people say that "science is to refine everyday thinking." Einstein's reasoning is to let us truly understand the true meaning of science. Such as the following paragraphs.
"We can continue to apply the direct reasoning method. The starting point of thought is Galileo's law of inertia. We can really apply this valuable clue to solving sports problems and draw many conclusions.
Let's watch two balls moving in different directions on a smooth table. For clarity, assume that these two directions are perpendicular to each other. Because there is no external force, the motion of the ball is absolutely uniform. Suppose their speeds are equal, that is, the two balls move the same distance in the same time interval. But is it correct to say that these two balls are at the same speed? You can answer yes or no! If the speedometers of both cars indicate about 64 kilometers per hour (40 miles per hour), we usually say that their speeds or speeds are equal, no matter which direction they are driving. But science must create its own language and its own concepts for its own use. The concepts of science are always commonly used in daily life at first, but they are completely different after development. After transformation, they lose the fuzziness of common language, thus obtaining a strict definition, which can be applied to scientific thinking. "
"Popularizing concepts is a common method in science. There is not necessarily only one method of promotion, but usually there are many kinds. But no matter what kind of promotion, we must strictly meet one requirement: if the original conditions are complete, the concept of promotion must be transformed into the original concept.
We can use the examples discussed at present to illustrate this meaning well. We can first try to extend the concepts of speed, speed change and force to the case of moving along a curve. In scientific terms, when we talk about curves, we have included straight lines. A straight line is a special and common example of a curve. Therefore, if velocity, velocity change and force are cited in curvilinear motion, they are spontaneously cited in linear motion. But this result should not contradict the previous results. If a curve becomes a straight line, then all generalized concepts must be transformed into well-known concepts that describe the motion of a straight line. However, to uniquely define this kind of promotion, such restrictions are not enough. There are many possibilities to generalize a concept according to this limitation. Scientific historical facts point out that even the simplest promotion has its successes and failures. We must guess first. In this case, it is easy to guess the correct promotion method. The new and popular concept is very successful, which not only helps us understand the motion of stones thrown in the air, but also helps us understand the motion of planets. "
Someone once discussed on the internet, what is philosophy? In fact, I also think that physics and philosophy are inseparable. "Philosophy is a discipline that studies the abstract interrelationships among all living things." Philosophy is knowledge produced in the process from "why" to "what". Was, is and will be. There is still a long way to go. This is probably why Heidegger called himself a "thinker on the way". From beginning to end, The Evolution of Physics is permeated with "the emotion of physics-philosophy" everywhere. Dedicated readers can be infected by the strong "physical-philosophical emotion" in the book if they follow the author's "exploration"; Eventually it will be completely saturated and completely conquered. "This last point is also the reason why I like reading this book best.