1 Classical Physics 1 fo CLASSICAL PHYSICS WHAT IS CLASSICAL PHYSICS? 1,1, A Historical Perspective, Pre-Classical science was an attempt to understand the world in terms of qualitative models based on the religious and philosophical ideas of the middle ages. Established opinion and tradition had greater authority than empirical evidence. ‘The symbolism of science and superstition overlapped and there was no clear way for science to progress Four physicists seem to stand out from the rest: Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) and Isaac Newton (1642-1727) for classical mechanics, and Michael Faraday (1791- 1867) and James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) for classical électromagnetism, but many others made essential contributions to the evolution of the classical world- view. As Newton said: ‘If Thave seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giarus.' ‘Among these ‘giants’ was Ptolemy who, in the second century AD, explained the observed motion of the heavens by @ series of cyclical and epicyclical motions centred on the Earth, and Copernicus who suggested (heretically) that the system might be simplified if the Sun rather than the Earth were at its centre. Kepler developed Copernicus’s ideas and suggested elliptical orbits for the planets, ‘supporting his theory with mathematical arguments based on the time periods and average radii of their orbits. It was left to Newton to explain these ideas in terms of a central force (gravitation) originating in the mass of all bodies. Medieval theories and descriptions of motion (based mainly on the ideas of Aristotle) were challenged by Galileo who clarified the underlying concepts of velocity, acceleration, force and inertia and so cleared the way for Newton's Laws.2 Relativity ‘These were published in the ‘Principia’ (in 1687) which included ‘definitions* of space and time, the three laws of motion, and the theory of gravitation. Much of what followed for the next two hundred and fifty years, much of what we understand as ‘physics', derives from the Principia, One of the consequences of Newton's laws is the fact that certain quantities, for exemple total energy, are in some circumstances conserved; Gespite interactions and —_trans- formations within a system these quantities do not change. Once Joule and others had established that heat is a form of energy, the law of conservation of energy became one of the most important principles in physics. It is the first law of thermodynamics. (The second law, that the entropy of the universe tends to a maximum, explains why. although the total energy of the universe remains constant, the available energy for useful work is continually diminished. It is in this sense that the world faces an ‘energy crisis’.) Classical optics made several attempts to explain the nature and properties of light. Huygens (1629- 1693) proposed a wave theory as did Hooke (1635-1703) in opposition to Newton's own particle model. In fact it was Newton's authority that delayed the general acceptance of a wave model until the accumulated experimental evidence seemed overwhelming. Grimaldi (1618-1663) reported the diffraction of light in work published posthumously in 1665 but it was a century and a half later that Young (1773-1829) made the crucial measurement of the wavelength of visible light from the interference fringes formed in a double slit experiment. This seemed to prove that light was by nature a wave-like phenomenon. The velocity of light was measured with increasing accuracy by Romer (1644-1710), Fresnel (1788- 1827), Foucault (1819-1868) and Michelson (1852-1931) and was found to be about three hundred million metres per second in air. Physicists speculated on the possible nature of the all-pervading medium that might support the rapid oscillations of a light wave and called it the ‘luminiferous ether". In the seventeenth century, technological advances (such as the improvement of optical instruments and the development of accurate clocks) together with a greater emphasis on experimental methods, created ideal conditions for the development of a new type of theory - a theory that was both empirical and quantitative, Classical1 Classical Physics 3 fig 1.2 By 1900 Classical physics had unified many diverse phenomena. States} ——————->} Terrestrial drwamics i Newtonian Mechanics The material world causiste of interacting particles -} interactions exert forces on particles: The laws Heavenly dynamics | ‘of motion garern their response to these farces oO Farce arise rom contac pravion (Nev Trion cota @f amar aad provided he sravainal free law) am transformation (ex. alchemy) Caloric theory of heat reat as fluid’) : Tarlons geocentric coumologies Geometrical aptics (including : tha principle uf least time) [cetour}————§4 Maxwell's Electromagnetism electric and magnetic interactions berwen charged particles are mediated by the electromagnetic (Observations af interference aa ffetd. ight ix some of. a fumih: of] diffraction (cig Newton's rings) ‘electromaguetic. waves. The elverric and: magnetic forces are described by the Loremts force law Electricity Magnetisen physics was developed between about 1650 and 1900 and is based on idealized mechanical models that can be subjected to mathematical analysis and tested against observation. It provides us with accurate and compelling explanations of matter, motion, gravity, electricity, magnetism and light on scales of magnitude extending from the invisibly small to the unimaginably large. During the same period a vast amount of observational data concerning electricity and magnetism had accumulated. Coulomb (1736-1806) had formulated laws of force for charges and magnetic poles, Oersted (1777-1851) demonstrated the essential link between electricity and magnetism, and Biot (1774-1862), Savart (1791-1841), and Ampére (1775-1836) developed a mathematical theory of the magnetic effects of an electric current, Faraday (1791-1867) discovered cleciromagnetic induction and introduced the pictorial ‘lines of force’ description4 Relativity of electromagnetic interactions. He also showed that magnetic fields could rotate the plane of polarization of light and so linked opties and electromagnetism for the first time. Maxwell (1831-1879) developed a beautiful mathematical theory of the electromagnetic field (the Maxwell equations). His equations predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves which would travel at three hundred million metres per second in a vacuum - the speed of light - so the Maxwell equations unified electricity, magnetism and optics in an clegant mathematical model. The equations also predicted that radiztion would exert a pressure and so can transfer energy and momentum between charged particles. Lorentz (1853-1928) showed how the fields exert forces on charges and Thomson (1856-1940) discovered the electron in 1897, Attempts to ‘complete’ physics by unifying electromagnetism and mechanics by finding either a mechanical basis for electromagnetism (pursued by Maxwell) or an electromagnetic basis for matter (e.g. the Abraham-Lorentz theory of the electron) failed, but eventually led 1 the crisis in classical physics from which special relativity emerged. It is important to realize that, ever since Newton invented the differential and integral calculus and demonstrated its awesome power to formulate and solve problems in physics, new and increasingly sophisticated math- ematical models were invented and used, Maxwell's clectro- magnetic equations are an example of this, as are the elegant generalized mechanics of Hamilton (1805-1865) and Lagrange (1736-1813). Often the symmetries of the mathematical models themselves revealed previously unsuspected relation- ships in physics. It is interesting that Maxwell's equations themselves already contain, in essence, much of special and Hamiltonian fig 1.3 Isaac Newton (1642-1727) “We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such are both true and sufficient to explain} Telativ their appearances! v mechanics can be regarded as @ LArtwork by Nick Adams © 1996 “template” for quantum theory. By 1900 the classical world-view was established: matter consists of mechanical particles subject to Newton's laws of motion acted upon by gravitational and electromagnetic forces, and visible light is a narrow range of wavelengths within the much broader electromagnetic spectrum.