The Electromagnetic World Picture Between The Old And New Mechanics

Electromagnetic picture of the world was considered as one of the most major concept system since the birth of physics, which has influenced theoretical physicists of two generations represented by Lorentz and Einstein. Later, probably it was so short-lived transitional product that not reached the popularity mechanical picture of the world had enjoyed and faded out of history.There are at least two reasons, why this paper was focused on investigation of electromagnetic picture of the world from the perspective of concept system evolution. On one hand, physical researchers should often review the physical development to understand the variety of ideas in the history. Even if the idea later was not established, it was also the product of outstanding human. Moreover, electromagnetic picture of the world is one of the most major concept system. Even if the whole may be not set up, some important concepts such as electronic, field and ether were accepted. On the other hand, the scientific revolution, a major issue of philosophy of science, will be involved when physical picture of the world was discussed. However, the relevant historical evidence of the most influential revolutionary doctrine such as Kuhn and Cohen’s theory is still not sufficient. This article may provide valuable historical materials for this research.This paper has three chapters.In chapter I, the formation of electromagnetic picture of the world was traced. After a brief introduction of mechanical picture of the world, it is focused on the rise of two major genres—classical electrodynamics and classical electromagnetic field theory, reviews Lorentz’s mediation between "source theory" and "field theory", and discusses how the electromagnetic world picture came into being on the basis of the classical electron theory of Lorentz.In Chapter Ⅱ, the historical status of the electromagnetic world picture was investigated. Four theoretical issues were selected to discuss, namely the ether issue, quality issue, radiation issue and spectrum issue. On this basis, we believe that relativity and quantum theory are not the revolution directly to Newtonian mechanics. In fact, there is an electromagnetic picture of the world between the old and new mechanical theory, and some new physical concepts had been established only on repeated trial of strength with classical electron theory and ether.In chapter III, our view of scientific revolution was discussed from the rise and fall of electromagnetic picture of the world. The view of scientific revolution of Kuhn and Cohen need to be discussed. Einstein, scientists and philosophers, is the most qualified one to talk about the scientific revolution, however, he never said about scientific revolution lightly. He believed that "wrong impression in the scientific development process will be caused by excessive use of the term of scientific revolution". Einstein’s caution was appreciated. However, it is possible to find out the pattern of scientific development through hard work, which needs deep study on the history of science.