Chapter 8 Section 1 Revolution is the Motive of Scientific Development

Science has developed rapidly since the Pandora's box of science was opened.Philosophy of science, which studies the law of scientific development, is becoming more and more important.The philosopher Kant noticed this problem. He said in "Introduction to Future Metaphysics", "Whether it is to prove our own knowledge or ignorance, we must once and for all clarify the nature of this so-called science, because we can no longer stay in this situation for much longer.”In philosophy of science, the most influential model is the development of science through scientific revolutions.In summarizing the development of science in the past 200 years, American philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn published "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" in 1962, and proposed a more accurate and far-reaching model.Kuhn's argument is based on the concept of "paradigm".

Paradigm, the original text is paradigm, refers to a set of common conceptual systems and analysis methods that are commonly accepted, used, and used to communicate ideas in a certain discipline.Kuhn said, "The so-called paradigm is a group of common methods, standards, interpretation methods or theories, or a kind of common knowledge".For example, geometry has two paradigms.Euclid's "Basic Knowledge of Geometry" is a veritable introduction to geometry and basic arithmetic. The entire geometric deduction system is based on 5 axioms, of which the fifth axiom is "two parallel lines never intersect".Euclid's axioms have been regarded as the basis of any mathematical geometry, and it is an indisputable basis, which is a geometric paradigm.Based on these five axioms, a rigorous and perfect logical system has developed.During the long period from ancient Greece to the 19th century, mathematicians did not doubt the Euclidean geometry paradigm.Until the 19th century, mathematicians such as Gauss discovered that as long as the fifth axiom is changed while retaining the first four axioms, another geometric paradigm can be created, which can be as mathematically rigorous as Euclidean geometry. This is the so-called "non-Euclidean geometry".Both geometric paradigms are practical and effective in different situations, "Euclidean geometry" is suitable for finite space, and "non-Euclidean geometry" is suitable for cosmic space.In the vast universe, due to the gravitational force of matter, the space is curved, and it is possible for two parallel lines to intersect.

According to Kuhn, in a recognized paradigm, the activities of scientists called "normal science" usually consist of "puzzle solving", which is to add to the already recognized knowledge. reserve.In Kuhn's words, "normal science" is a series of patterns and assumptions shared by the scientific community, usually operating within a rigorous logical framework, and it is absolutely impossible to break through these frameworks without a bold spirit of exploration.Scientists under the "conventional" are far from being objective. They have reasons to stick to "orthodox" theories, and tend to seek answers to questions within the existing framework. "Normal science" is a slow, continuous, stable and cumulative change, and "normal science" is only the "superiorization" after the establishment of science.For example, cancer and AIDS are two major diseases that threaten human beings at present. Due to the common research norms, the "scientific community" composed of scientists from all over the world can concentrate on overcoming cancer and AIDS. It was as scary as it used to be.Just imagine, if there is no common research norms, there is no way to form a "scientific community", let alone concentrate it on a certain frontier field.

Kuhn believed that improvements in "normal science" would not last forever and would eventually "hit a wall," leading to crises and revolutions.Within the framework of a paradigm, "normal science" continues until an anomaly occurs.Anomalies eventually lead to a crisis, followed by a revolution that will produce new paradigms.A revolution in science is the transformation of one paradigm to another. A crisis in science leads to the emergence of a new paradigm, which leads to the transformation of the original paradigm. What is a scientific revolution?Kuhn pointed out that a revolution is a change in the perception of the world.He wrote:

Examining the record of past research in light of the demands of modern historiography, historians of science might exclaim that when norms change, the world itself changes with them.Scientists were guided by new norms to observe new domains with new tools, and even more importantly, scientists saw new and different things during the revolution when they used familiar tools to observe domains they had already observed before.It was a bit like transporting the professional body suddenly to another planet, where familiar objects were viewed differently and linked by unfamiliar ones.Of course, that didn't happen: there was no geographical transplant, and day-to-day business outside the lab generally continued as before.Nonetheless, paradigm shifts do cause scientists to see the world in which their research works differently.To the extent that they depend only on the world that they see and do, we might want to say that after a revolution scientists are answering to a different world.

Astrophysics is a field where scientific revolutions frequently erupt.Aristotle Ptolemy's theory of the center of the earth ruled the world for nearly 2,000 years. In 1543, Copernicus published "On the Movement of Celestial Spheres", which challenged the geocentric theory. Later, with the efforts of Galileo, the heliocentric theory completed the scientific revolution of the geocentric theory within 400 years. They proved that the earth revolves around the sun; ancient Greece People have long guessed that the orbit of a planet is a circle. Kepler discovered that the planet orbits an ellipse around the sun. In his book "Principles of Natural Philosophy" published in 1687, Newton gave the equation of universal gravitation, proving that the orbit of this planet must be Ellipse; at the grand annual meeting of the Royal Society celebrating the coming of the 20th century, Kelvin, the physicist and the discoverer of the second law of thermodynamics, believed that the edifice of classical physics has basically been built, and in the new century, physics All that's left of the family is tinkering. In 1915, Einstein published the "General Theory of Relativity", a scientific creation with the ultimate imagination, which broke the framework of absolute time and showed that time and space can be transformed.A famous example is the age difference between twin brothers.If the elder brother takes a long space trip in a spaceship traveling at the speed of light, when he returns to earth, he will be much younger than the younger brother who stayed on earth.Einstein's general relativity became the "orthodox theory" describing the evolution of the universe, and astrophysics completed the scientific revolution of classical astronomy, that is, the Einstein revolution.

Einstein's original theory of general relativity predicted that the universe would either expand or contract.Probably out of appreciation for the symmetry of Maxwell's equations, Einstein added an extra cosmic term to the equations, and in this way obtained a model of the universe in an equilibrium state.However, 14 years later, anomalies began to appear. In 1929, Edwin Hubble deduced from the redshift of the galaxy spectrum that the farther the galaxy is moving away from us at a faster speed, which indicates that the entire universe is in a state of expansion.Going back in time to the past, it is estimated that 10 billion to 20 billion years ago, a great event occurred, that is, the universe was produced from a state of extremely high density through a big bang.Hubble's discovery led to the third astrophysics revolution that the universe is not in equilibrium.Einstein later called the cosmic term "the biggest mistake of my life". After 1925, Einstein tried to use a unified field to describe the state of the universe, but unfortunately, he failed.Some people joked that after 1925, Einstein could spend the rest of his life fishing.Einstein's mistake in his later years was to use a balanced thought to understand the unbalanced universe itself, which is futile.The universe is uneven and expanding, with galaxies, nebulae and terrifying black holes moving away from Earth.

---

Notes: