JF Ptak Science Books Post 2683
A note on a short work by Hermann von Helmholtz. “On the Use and Abuse of the Deductive Method in Physical Science”, in a two-part article over two months in Nature:
- December 24, 1874, pp 149-151 in the issue of pp 141-160 and
- January 14, 1875, pp 211-212 in the January 14, 1875 of 201-220pp.
These two pieces by von Helmholtz are just very nice pieces of thinking, delivering several wonderful insights into the nature of reasoning which spread out into other areas, one of which, interestingly, is on the origins of life. For example, in the first paper, in addition to defending his version of deductive reasoning he drops this bon mot into the equation in mentioning the infection of metaphysics in science:
“Among the scientific investigators who have especially directed their efforts towards the purification of physical science from all metaphysical infection and from all arbitrary hypotheses, and, on the contrary, have striven to make it more and more a simple and faithful expression of the laws of the facts, Sir W. Thomson occupies one of the first places…”–pg 150
In continuing in the second paper, von Helmholtz goes on to make a statement on the probable great longevity of life in the universe in general, and of the possibility that life could be as old as the universe (“whether it [life] is as old as matter”), and that some germs could have been brought to Earth (for example) on meteorites, meaning that the origins of life could be extraterrestrial. Helmholtz points out that William Thompson had addressed this issue in 1871, though Helmholtz himself ad spoken on the issue months before that. In any event, here is von Helmholtz again talking about the origin of life and cosmic pansperma, in 1875.
“I will mention one other objection of similar scientific value, because it refers to Sir W. Thomson, though not to a passage of this book. The point in question is whether
it is possible for organic germs to be present in meteoric stones, and so to be conveyed to worlds which have become cool. In his introductory address to the British Association at Edinburgh, in the autumn of 1871, Sir W. Thomson characterised this view as “not unscientific.” Here, too, if an error has been committed, I must profess myself a sharer in it. I had, in fact, indicated the same view as a possible explanation of the transmission of organisms through interstellar spaces at a somewhat earlier date than Sir W. Thomson—in a lecture which was delivered at Heidelberg and at Cologne in the spring of the same year, but is still unpublished. If anyone chooses to regard this hypothesis as highly or even as extremely improbable, I have nothing to object. But if failure attends all our efforts to obtain a generation of organisms from lifeless matter, it seems to me a thoroughly correct scientific procedure to inquire whether there has ever been an origination of life, or whether it is not as old as matter, and whether its germs, borne from one world to another, have not been developed wherever they have found a favourable soil. The physical reasons alleged by Mr. Zollner against the view in question are of very little weight. He points to the heating of the meteoric stones, and adds (p. 26) : ” Thus, even if we suppose that when the parent body was shattered, the meteoric stone covered with organisms escaped with a whole skin, and did not share the general rise of temperature, it was still necessary for it to pass through the terrestrial atmosphere before it could discharge its organisms to people the earth.”–pg 212
There is a tremendous amount going on in just these few pages of created by one of the most able and expansive scientific minds of the 19th century.
While writing a post for the bookstore section of this blog on Seaborg’s “Transuranium Elements” article that appeared in Science in October 1946 I was struck by the home-made quality of one of the illustrations for the periodic table. Mainly I was curious to see the representation of the actinides (which at this point included up to Curium (synthesized in 1944) and was still three years away from Berkelium (synthesized in 1949). And since I have been on a small mission to define terms I looked up the discovery of actinium, which turns out to be a little complicated, but was perhaps first discovered by André-Louis Debierne in 18991. This distraction led immediately to another–a photo of a speck of plutonium (hydroxide) in a capillary tube (even at 40x it appears as a tiny white cloudy splotch). Since plutonium after a certain date was not discussed for obvious security reasons in the Physical Review and other journals (a date that I keep forgetting but I believe was in late 1940 when the nuclear/explosive aspect of Pu-239 was discovered), I wondered about when the first photo of plutonium appeared, anywhere..and if this was it. But no, it turned out not to be, though it was close. The “first” award seems to go to Fritz Goro (1901-1986), the great science photographer for LIFE magazine, who made an image for July 27, 1946, some three months before the Seaborg article appeared and just over a year after the Nagasaki bomb. In any event, I reprint the Science photo (left).
