torsdag 14 mars 2024

Geopolitics of Mathematical Physics


Swedish Prime Minister offering to build 1000 Swedish Tank90.

Let us identify some leading scientist/period/country in the history of mathematical physics as the foundation of science:

  • Archimedes: Greece 
  • Song Dynasty: China 
  • Galileo: Renaissance Italy
  • Leibniz and Euler: Calculus Scientific Revolution Holy Roman Empire
  • Newton: Calculus Scientific Revolution England 
  • Cauchy and Fourier: Scientific/French Revolution France
  • Maxwell: Industrial Revolution England 
  • Boltzmann: statistical mechanics German Empire 
  • Hilbert: mathematics German Empire 
  • Planck: radiation German Empire
  • Einstein: relativity German Empire, Weimar Republic
  • Schrödinger: quantum mechanics atomic physics Weimar Republic  
  • Oppenheimer: atomic bomb USA
  • Feynman: subatomic physics USA
  • Gell Mann, Weinberg: subatomic physics USA
  • Witten: string theory subsubatomic physics USA
  • China? India? Third World?
We see that geopolitical dominance comes along with leading science. No wonder, since science gives industrial and military power. We can follow a shift of power from the Holy Roman Empire (Germany) to France/England back to German Empire over Weimar Republic followed by USA until China and India and the Third World now are ready to step in.  

We can also follow a development from macroscopis of engines to microscopics of atoms to the string theory of today, along with an expansion from our Solar system to cosmology of the Universe. 

Modern physics is viewed to have started with Planck's derivation of his radiation law based on statistical mechanics as a break-away from the rationality of the classical deterministic mechanics serving the scientific/industrial revolution,  which after 20 years of incubation developed into the new quantum mechanics of atom physics, with the atomic bomb as triumph. 

Modern physics thus in 1900 took a step away from deterministic to statistical mechanics, from rationality to irrationality apparently breaking with the tradition from Archimedes to Hilbert carried by rational mathematical thinking, which led the way into the 20th century. 

Questions:
  1. Can it be that the roots of the observed irrationality of the 20th century with two World Wars, and today a 21st century on its way to a third, can be traced to the irrationality of modern physics? 
  2. Will the dominance of USA persist with the present focus on string theory?
  3. Will the rationalism of ancient China lead to a take over?
A more detailed perspective on modern physics politics is given in Dr Faustus of Modern Physics.

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