Looking for a big bragging claim about physics
January 26, 2025 12:58 PM Subscribe
Years ago I read a quote about physics being awesome, and how every other science - or perhaps every other intellectual discipline - envied it. And I can't find the thing. I think someone mentioned it in response to a great NASA triumph, like Voyager escaping the solar system.
I dimly remember it reading something like "all fields aspire to the condition of physics." It might have read "all other sciences."
Also dimly, I think it was from around 1900-1910. I thought it was Lord Kelvin.
I dimly remember it reading something like "all fields aspire to the condition of physics." It might have read "all other sciences."
Also dimly, I think it was from around 1900-1910. I thought it was Lord Kelvin.
MeFi favorite Angela Collier made a related video recently: Billionaires want you to know they could have done physics.
posted by adamrice at 2:42 PM on January 26
posted by adamrice at 2:42 PM on January 26
"Biology is just chemistry. Chemistry is just physics. Physics is just math. Math is hard."
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 2:49 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 2:49 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: No, not "All science is either physics or stamp collecting" nor "Physics is just math. Math is hard."
The XKCD one is cute and points in the right direction, except for math, but isn't it.
adamrice, I didn't watch all 50 minutes+ of the video to see if the quote was in there, but thankfully YouTube had a transcript which I searched through. It doesn't seem to be there, although there's a whiff of the sentiment.
posted by doctornemo at 4:01 PM on January 26
The XKCD one is cute and points in the right direction, except for math, but isn't it.
adamrice, I didn't watch all 50 minutes+ of the video to see if the quote was in there, but thankfully YouTube had a transcript which I searched through. It doesn't seem to be there, although there's a whiff of the sentiment.
posted by doctornemo at 4:01 PM on January 26
There's Planck's anecdote about how people thought of the field when he was a student:
I suspect this isn't the exact quote you're thinking of, since it doesn't mention other fields; but it does portray physics as approaching perfection, so I figured I'd throw it out there.
posted by Johnny Assay at 5:45 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
When I began my physical studies [in Munich in 1874] and sought advice from my venerable teacher Philipp von Jolly...he portrayed to me physics as a highly developed, almost fully matured science ...Possibly in one or another nook there would perhaps be a dust particle or a small bubble to be examined and classified, but the system as a whole stood there fairly secured, and theoretical physics approached visibly that degree of perfection which, for example, geometry has had already for centuries.(The irony being, of course, that there was a revolution in physics just over the horizon at the time, which ended up being led by Planck.)
I suspect this isn't the exact quote you're thinking of, since it doesn't mention other fields; but it does portray physics as approaching perfection, so I figured I'd throw it out there.
posted by Johnny Assay at 5:45 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Heck, there was a looming addition to geometry too.
posted by clew at 6:25 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
posted by clew at 6:25 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
Interesting, as my understanding of the state of physics today is that it is in something of a rut, and has been for decades, searching for the next major breakthrough that will unify gravitation and quantum mechanics but none of the leading possibilities has proven all that useful.
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:32 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:32 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) (1890):
"While biology and geology rummage through the details of life and earth, it is physics that reveals the eternal laws underlying them all."
Henry Rowland (1883):
‘There are no fundamental mysteries left in physics; the same cannot be said for the other sciences, which depend upon our progress to advance their own fields."
James Clerk Maxwell (1870):
“Other sciences build upon the foundation that physics provides. Their success is a measure of our completeness."
William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) (circa 1884):
“While other fields are still wandering in search of laws, physics has established a cathedral of knowledge, precise and immovable."
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:35 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
"While biology and geology rummage through the details of life and earth, it is physics that reveals the eternal laws underlying them all."
Henry Rowland (1883):
‘There are no fundamental mysteries left in physics; the same cannot be said for the other sciences, which depend upon our progress to advance their own fields."
James Clerk Maxwell (1870):
“Other sciences build upon the foundation that physics provides. Their success is a measure of our completeness."
William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) (circa 1884):
“While other fields are still wandering in search of laws, physics has established a cathedral of knowledge, precise and immovable."
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:35 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
Sounds like something Sheldon would say on Big Bang Theory. Might you be thinking of a line of his dialogue from that show?
posted by Paul Slade at 11:19 PM on January 26
posted by Paul Slade at 11:19 PM on January 26
There’s a phrase ‘physics envy’ I’ve heard.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:21 AM on January 27
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:21 AM on January 27
Response by poster: Tell Me No Lies, those sound *just* short of the one I'm trying to find. So close!
posted by doctornemo at 9:59 AM on January 27
posted by doctornemo at 9:59 AM on January 27
Response by poster: I have found some references, but not well cited:
From Nautilus:
to 19th-century scientists this fact seemed to support the idea that there are firm laws of society just like the Newtonian laws of mechanics. That belief bolstered the view of the French philosopher Auguste Comte that the sciences could be ordered in a hierarchical ranking, all of them law-like and predictable (once we understood them well enough) and modeled after Newtonian physics, which stood at the foundation. Comte called for a “social physics” that would complete the project Newton had begun.
Philip Ball mentions this as well:
more invidious than the ‘hard/soft’ terminology is the whole notion of a hierarchy. By definition, this implies a judgement of status: there’s a top and a bottom. At best it invokes condescension towards those disciplines unlucky enough not to be physics; at worst, we’re invited to feel impatient that these ‘softer’ sciences haven’t yet got themselves physics-ified. Comte certainly felt that all sciences aspire to the condition of physics, and he looked forward to the time when the social sciences reached this stage of higher evolution.
But neither points to a source, which Googling hasn't helped me with either.
posted by doctornemo at 9:39 AM on January 28
From Nautilus:
to 19th-century scientists this fact seemed to support the idea that there are firm laws of society just like the Newtonian laws of mechanics. That belief bolstered the view of the French philosopher Auguste Comte that the sciences could be ordered in a hierarchical ranking, all of them law-like and predictable (once we understood them well enough) and modeled after Newtonian physics, which stood at the foundation. Comte called for a “social physics” that would complete the project Newton had begun.
Philip Ball mentions this as well:
more invidious than the ‘hard/soft’ terminology is the whole notion of a hierarchy. By definition, this implies a judgement of status: there’s a top and a bottom. At best it invokes condescension towards those disciplines unlucky enough not to be physics; at worst, we’re invited to feel impatient that these ‘softer’ sciences haven’t yet got themselves physics-ified. Comte certainly felt that all sciences aspire to the condition of physics, and he looked forward to the time when the social sciences reached this stage of higher evolution.
But neither points to a source, which Googling hasn't helped me with either.
posted by doctornemo at 9:39 AM on January 28
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posted by riotnrrd at 1:36 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]