Chapter 23 Chapter 21 Some Other Scientific Developments

The revolutions of Darwin and Maxwell were not the only upheavals in biology and physics that were considered revolutionary in their time and may still be generally considered revolutionary in ours today.Historians and scientists in fields ranging from mathematics and statistics to geology and medicine have proposed many candidates for the 19th-century scientific revolution.In this chapter we will briefly examine some of these developments and conclude with a general overview of the great revolutions in applied science. Ryle's revolution in geology In examining progress in earth science during the nineteenth century, Leonard Wilson cited the "revolution in geology" that occurred "before 1841."In this year, Ryle founded his "uniform change theory"; he elaborated on this theory and theory in his 3-volume "Principles of Geology" (1830-1833).As Ryle explained in a letter in 1829, his aims were ambitious (Wilson, 1972, 256).He said that although his book "did not venture to generalize all that is known in geology," it "will endeavor to establish the principles of reasoning in science, and, as a description of my views on those principles , as evidence of the consolidation of the system which necessarily follows from the acceptance of these principles, the whole of my geology will be presented."Fundamentally, he argued, "No cause has ever operated from as far back as we can recall down to the present, except those which now operate. And those which now operate, There has never been a different effect from the energies that they play now".In Wilson's view, Chapter 17 of his book, "entitled to explain changes in his expression in terms of causes now at work, fulfills this promise" (p. 280). In addition, Ryle uses four The length of the chapter presents "apparently new and inventive ideas." Wilson asserts that the book is "revolutionary" (p. 280, 281, 293), and thus a great step forward. He also emphasizes , the book is highly accomplished, and people are buying it. We may add that different editions of this book came out in succession (2nd edition, 3 volumes, 1832-1833; 3rd edition, 4 volumes , 1834), which speaks of the interest in the book and the importance it possesses. So, obviously, if this is a revolution at all, it is not just a revolution in treatises.

However, not all historians of geology agree with Wilson's conclusion that "Ryle started a revolution in people's thinking about the history of the earth" (p. 293).In a review of Wilson's biography (Science, 5 June 1973, 179:57-58), Cecil Schneier discusses the evidence one can use to "refute the biographer," and In his view, "Ryle's uniformitarian ideas are not much new, and, as far as the grounds for saying his ideas are revolutionary, they are irrelevant to the emerging secular world history".Indeed, any statement by any critic or contemporary interpreter that Wilson cites asserting that Ryle's Principles of Geology was revolutionary or revolutionary does not substantiate his own judgment.However, as we have seen, it was only 20 years after the publication of the first volume of Ryle's Treatise that Charles Darwin, near the beginning of Chapter 9 (1859, 282), made a "Sir Ryle's Treatise on the Principles of Geology". The great book has been evaluated"."The historian of the future will realize that it caused a revolution in the natural sciences," said Darwin.In an earlier letter to Leonard Horner in 1844 (Darwin, 1903, 2:117, cited below in Chapter 29), Darwin explained such a statement.Darwin wrote that, after reading Ryle's book, one would think that even new phenomena were "discovered by him".Another contemporary proof of Ryle's revolution is found in a letter dated February 20, 1836, to Ryle by the astronomer and philosopher John Herschel.In the letter, Herschel said: "Your Principles of Geology appear to me to be one of those works which caused a complete revolution in its discipline" (see Babbage, 1938, n.l. p.226).

Now that Ryle's geology was regarded as revolutionary by his contemporaries, the decisive historical test is whether the subsequent history of geology and its sister discipline, paleontology, shows that Ryle's work played a role in quite the role of the revolution.In my opinion, this is not a problem.The debate among historians has instead focused on the extent to which Ryle innovated.Absolute innovation does not seem to be a well-defined feature of revolution in science.Most, if not all, revolutions are characterized by continuity, so that even the most radical ideas in science prove time and time again to be little more than reworkings of existing traditional ideas. (I developed this theme extensively in Newton's Revolution in 1980.) This is such an apparently unique feature of science that some scientists, like Albert Einstein, eventually thought that Their writings represent evolution rather than revolution: the reinvention or tweaking of what is known or believed, rather than the invention or creation of something new.The only objection to people saying that there was a Lyellian revolution is that not all ideas or ideas in Earth sciences are conditioned on his ideas, but that would, strictly speaking, limit the The scope and function of the revolution, but not completely negate it.

Advances in the Life Sciences In a study entitled Biology in the Nineteenth Century (1977), William Coleman described many important revolutions in the life sciences.He compares the actions of pathological anatomists "revolutionizing the traditional enterprise of topographical and organ anatomy" with the subsequent transformation of pathological anatomy by cell theory (p. 20).In particular, he draws our attention to the "revolution in medicine" which the doctors of the Parisian hospitals "brought about in medicine" around 1800 "by combining the analysis of postmortem physiological investigations of cadavers with the clinical description of the suffering of patients."In the chapter on "Man," Coleman begins by asserting that between Lamarck and Haeckel there has taken place "a revolution in man's consciousness of his past" (p. 92).In this regard, Coleman finds Durkheim's conclusions "truly revolutionary" (p. 114).In the chapter on "Function: Animal Machines," he describes how four German "reductionists" met in Berlin in 1847.This year was "the year before the revolution and, in connection with it, a revolution was planned in the aspirations and methodologies of physiology" (p. 151).The book concludes with an account of the situation at the end of the nineteenth century, and examines "new members of biology who tended to openly hold a physiological view of biological problems."Experimental Physiology "establishes a typical method for experimentally "understanding" the processes of life, the events that occur every moment of everyday life—the sum of which is life—one".In the name of the experiment, Coleman asserted, "a movement has begun to revolutionize the goals and methods of biology."

In 1858, Rudolf Karl Viersau published his magnum opus Cytopathology; a work that many today believe heralds a revolution in biology.Although there is no general agreement on this, there is little doubt that Viersau's theory has caused a revolution in the biological basis of medicine - as Viersau himself has shown.Firsau is of special significance to us because he combined an active political career as a radical reformer with a scientific career in medical pathology. Sent by the government in early 1848 to investigate an outbreak of typhus in Silesia at the time, he was (as he himself tells us) appalled by the precarious living conditions of the Polish minorities.The experience transformed him from a man of liberal social and political beliefs into an activist for broad social and economic reform.So, not surprisingly, he took part in the uprisings in Berlin; these uprisings were part of the revolution of 1848 as a whole and involved street fighting.He then became a member of the Berlin Democratic Congress and edited the weekly "Medical Reformation".

Due to his revolutionary political activities, he was revoked of his academic status in Berlin and, as a result, he was forced to emigrate to Würzburg. In 1849 he was appointed the first professor of the new discipline of pathological anatomy in Germany.Here, he achieved important status as a scientist, developing the concept of what we call "cytopathology". In 1856 he returned to Berlin as professor and director of the newly founded "Institute of Pathology".He is highly regarded for his teaching and for his doctrine that the cell is the basic unit under both normal health conditions and abnormal disease conditions, and that disease is the disorder and dysregulation of living cells.In his later career, he developed his biomedical concepts, became politically active, concerned with public health, and developed a sociological theory of disease.He even became the founder of the new science of anthropology.

In 1861 he was elected to the Prussian Parliament representing the Progressive Party of Germany.He was one of the founders of the German Progressive Party.He was firmly against Beersmarck.Bismarck angrily challenged him to a duel for this, but Viersau did not accept the duel.As such, he was an unusually great scientist: he was both a political activist and a social reformer, and he instituted professional reforms that not only changed the rules of the medical profession but improved public health and healthcare status.A number of other scientists were also political activists, but none reached such a significant or high political position as Viershaw did as leader of Bismarck's opposition in parliament (Fleming 1964, X).

In the first issue of his weekly "Medical Reformation" (July 10, 1848), Fiersau combined the ideas of political revolution with medical reform.He writes (on page 1) that the "revolution "Umwalzung" in the state of the state" and the "establishment of new institutions" were part of a "political storm" affecting all thinking men and women throughout Europe, thus marking With "a radical transformation of the whole conception of life". He insisted that medicine could not be immune to these storms, and that "a radical reform could no longer be avoided and delayed". Owen Akerknecter (1953, 44) argues that, for Fiersau, "liberty and science are natural allies" and that "the revolution of 1848 was as much a political event as it was clearly a scientific one." In his weekly, Fiersau writes : "The time of March has finally arrived.The great struggle of criticism against authority, of natural science against dogma, of eternal rights against the arbitrary conventions of men - which has twice shaken European society - has broken out for the third time, and the victory is ours". Kerknecht sees this unity of politics and medicine as a feature of Fiersau's thought (p. 45):

The theory of cytopathology was very important to Fiershaw himself, because it seemed to objectively reveal a condition in the human body which he sought to find and considered "natural" in society. . . . According to Shao, cytopathology is much more than a biological theory.As such, his political and biological views complement and reinforce each other.Cytopathology reveals that the human body is a free state composed of equal individuals, a federation of cells, and a democratic cell state.The human body turns out to be a social unit composed of factors equal to one another, whereas in humoral or coagulated (neuro)pathology a non-democratic oligarchy of biological organization is envisaged.Just as in the political sphere he fought for the rights of the "third estate", so in cytopathology he fought for the "third estate" of cells whose value and function were not fully appreciated (connective tissue) and fight.

We are not surprised, therefore, to find Virchau speaking of the following: "The final task or mission of medicine is to organize society on a physiological basis" (quoted in ibid., 46).According to Firsau, the social sciences are a branch of medicine.From this he clearly pointed out that "medicine is a social science, and political science is nothing but large-scale or higher medicine", "doctors are the natural spokespersons of the poor, and social problems should mainly be solved by them" . Akerknecter argues (1953, 47) that in his writings on the practice of medicine, Fiersau "prefers the term reformer to revolutionist, because it seems to him to construction, a better description of the characteristic that combines and unites critique and respect for the achievements of the past that he espouses".But, as in 1848, he did engage in revolutionary politics.

In the preface to the monumental work Cytopathology (1858; English translation, 1860), Fiersau spoke of the duty of the medical scientist to make widely known to his "professional colleagues" the rapidly accumulating and growing new knowledge.He then asserted: "We want reform, not revolution".Moreover, he lamented (1858, iX; 1860, x) that his writings seemed to "smell more of revolution than of reform", but this was mainly because "the most recent [modern era" must first be opposed to those false, erroneous, or dogmatic doctrines than those of older writers". However, in the text, when he describes the radical new ideas he was developing—and it is he who claims (1860, 27) "Where a cell appears, there must have been a cell before" - he uses the image of the more dramatic revolution. He explicitly refers to what happened "in the past few years" in pathology der Umschwung (1860 in the 1990s English translation as therevolution). Here he chooses Umschwung, although he usually uses the word Umwalzung, or even Revolution, when he speaks of political or social events. But, as far as Virsau is concerned, it is important that he was one of the very few scientists who caused a revolution in science and took an active part in a political revolution. Moreover, he openly insisted on the idea he advanced: that revolutionary politics and revolutionary science can be mutually influenced, Even complement and strengthen each other. Mathematics, Probability and Statistics Mathematics made great strides in the 19th century.New fields were opened up (for example, non-Euclidean geometry, mathematical statistics, vector analysis, and quaternion methods), and new rigorous criteria completely changed classical analysis or functional theory (functions of complex variables).At the end of the 19th century, Georges Cantor created a new mathematical discipline - the theory of ultra-possessive cardinal and ultra-possible ordinal numbers.His great contribution has been described as "a daring push into the realm of infinity", which greatly promoted the study of the fundamentals of mathematics in the 20th century (Meshkowski: 1971, 56).Clearly, this was a revolution in mathematical thinking.Cantor himself was fully aware of the revolutionary significance of his work.In a letter to Cantor in 1885, the Swedish mathematician Mittag-Leeffler wrote that Cantor's work was "as revolutionary" as Gauss's work on non-Euclidean geometry (Duben, 1979, 138).Moreover, Joseph Dubon finds that, in a letter to the French historian of science Paul Tannery (1934, 13:304), Cantor candidly stated that the work he was undertaking was revolutionary. Cantor was not the only mathematician in the nineteenth century who thought he had caused (or would cause) a revolution.The other was the Irish mathematician Sir William Ron Hamilton.Thomas L.Hankins finds that Hamilton, in 1834, expressed (in an earlier letter to his uncle) what he called "his wish to reform the whole dynamic - in the broadest sense of the word - and Resolve" wrote a noteworthy letter.The letter was written by Hamilton to William Sewell in 1834.Hamilton wrote (Hankins, 1980, 177-178) that the new dynamics "may cause a revolution".Non-mathematicians are generally not familiar with Hamilton's work.The treatise we have just cited in our comments above is A General Method of Dynamics (1834).In this paper, Hamilton presented the properties of what he called the "indicative function" and revealed "methods of approaching the indicative function in order to apply it to the perturbation of planets and alternate stars" (Hankins 1972, 89).The indicative function is one of Hamilton's two great "inventions"; another great discovery is the "quaternion method" (quaternion), which is a three-dimensional complex number system, and one can use a method similar to vector analysis Use this system. J．Vector analysis, invented by Willard Gibbs, eventually replaced quaternions (quaternions) as the language of dynamics and mathematical physics. (Hamilton's quaternions were so popular in their day, and so well suited to physics, that J, C. Maxwell, in his famous treatise on electricity and magnetism, used them for the study of electromagnetism. Mathematical formulation of .) Hamilton's paper "made the first general statement of indicative functions applied to dynamics" (p.88), and developed what we today call "Hamilton's principle. This paper does was revolutionary because, in it, he derived the "canonical system of equations" of motion, "Hamilton's principal functions," and Hamilton's own vision of what came to be known as the Hamilton-Jacobi equation. Hamilton's " A Method of Dynamics" (1834; supplemented in 1835) gave a formulaic account of classical mechanics that later became the authoritative standard for quantum theory and statistical mechanics today. The Hamiltonian method, especially that developed by Jacobi, has proved particularly useful for celestial mechanics.For example, it was particularly important for solving the problem of how to determine the motion of three celestial bodies, each of which attracts the other two, according to Newton's inverse law of gravitation.Due to the general acceptance of vector analysis and tensor analysis, Hamilton's quaternion has been eliminated in natural science. J． D．In the final analysis, North argues (1969), the "overriding importance" of Hamilton's quaternion theory may lie in the fact that "it introduces a law of noncommutative multiplication" which "inspires other algebraists to draw from their In the axiom "the law of commutation is eliminated. (The law of interchangeable multiplication says that the order in which two numbers are multiplied does not affect the product—8 times 2 has the same product as 2 times 8.) During the nineteenth century, three major areas of probability and statistics developed significantly.The first is mathematical theory (with Laplace as a forerunner), the second is statistics applied to the analysis of society, starting with the so-called "moral statistics"; the third is the introduction to science of A statistical basis.The second of these fields is often associated with the name of the Belgian statistician Adolphe Keitel.Keitel astounded readers the world over with his serendipitous discovery of the permanence or regularity of certain numbers—marriages, deaths, births, crimes, and so on. We have a fairly good case for eloquently demonstrating the revolutionary impact of new statistical discoveries about society.As Sir John Herschel put it in 1850 (PP. 384-385), "People began to wonder--but not without some good vague expectation--to hear" Not only life, death, and marriage, but the decisions of courts, the results of general suffrage, the influence of punishments imposed in restraining crime—the comparative value of medical treatment and the different modes of curing disease—limited in the numerical results of every branch of natural research. probabilities—the discovery of natural, social, and moral causes—and even the weight of evidence, and the certainty of logical arguments—seem to be amenable to the keenness of an unbiased analysis. Thorough investigation to determine.The astute investigation of an unbiased analysis which is here spoken of will, if not immediately lead to the discovery of real (positive) truths, at least ensure the discovery and removal of many pernicious and infesting fallacies. This passage is taken from a widely read and debated article in the Edinburgh Review (July 1850) on the just published translation (1849) of Keitel's and King Albert's correspondence on the Theory of Probability (See Herschel 1857, 365ff.). But has there been a revolution?One way of assessing whether the new statistical analysis of society is to be regarded as a statistical revolution because of its far-reaching implications is to recognize the intensity of opposition to new statistical ways of thinking.Two opponents of science or knowledge based on statistics were Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill.Comte ridiculed in his "Course of Positive Philosophy" (bk.6, Ch.4) that "certain geometers delusionally make social research subject to a strange mathematical probability theory and make social research a kind of positive research h855, 492). Comte severely refuted the attempts of James Bernoulli and especially Condorcet to apply probability theory and statistics to social theory (or sociology). He said (p. 493) The essence of political philosophy was beginning to be generally recognized and, in fact, revealed through the efforts of Montesquieu and Condorcet themselves, and was strongly encouraged by the new upheavals in society. .At such a time, there is no reason for Laplace to repeat such a philosophical error.Since then, a series of imitators have continued to repeat this fantasy in the tedious language of algebra without adding anything new, abusing the honor that belongs precisely to the true mathematical spirit; so that this fallacy will now only be used An unconscious proof of the extreme incapacity of its political philosophy, rather than a symptom of the immature instincts of scientific research, as it had been a century earlier.There is no concept more absurd than this one: it takes a hypothetical mathematical theory as its basis or its mode of operation.In this theory symbols are mistaken for ideas, and we calculate and determine the probabilities of numbers; to perform such calculations is to regard our own ignorance as a natural means of measuring the order of probabilities of our opinions. Comte's opposition to statistics and probability theory was probably based on his belief that "the aim of all science is to be foreseeable" (that is, accurate prediction); This argument (Fletcher 1974, 167).To this end, the "laws established by the observation of phenomena" should enable scientists to predict the succession and succession of phenomena.It can be seen from this that "the observation of the past should reveal the future as we see it in astronomy, physics, chemistry and physiology".In Volume VI of the Positive Course in Philosophy ("Social Physics") Comte expands and develops this topic further.In the third chapter, Comte argues that "social phenomena obey the laws of nature while allowing rational predictions".Comte was referring here to the predictions of the simple causal laws of rational classical mechanics—predictions which, he believed, were opposed to the "inaccurate" predictions of statistics and probability theory. In his most important or "major philosophical work," A System of Logic, John Stuart Mill argued against statistical arguments or the misuse of probability in the sciences or social sciences.According to Mill (1973-1974, 1142), "sufficient and reliable evidence is needed to convince any reasonable person that our ignorance can be incorporated into science through a system of working with numbers".Mill goes on, "This strange intention undoubtedly led a learned thinker—Mr. Comte—to the extreme objection to the whole doctrine, notwithstanding the fact that the practice of insurance, and a great deal of other practical experience, daily prove that with this doctrine".This statement, like others in the first (1843) edition of the System of Logic, was omitted in the second and other subsequent editions; but no reader should overlook or forget such an obvious Conclusion: Mill has a completely negative attitude towards the basis of probability and the effectiveness of using probability (see Mill 1973-1974, 8-9: bk. 3, ch. 17-18, appF, G, pp. 1140- 1153).When Mill said in his "Systems of Logic" (1973-1974, bk. 3, ch. 18, & 3) that "the misuse of the operation of probability" has made it "the real shame of mathematics", people are very impressed with him. point of view is undeniable. Many scientists and philosophers either directly oppose the use of probability and statistics in science, or express great doubts about the correctness of their use in science.As late as 1890, Peter Guthrie Tate, in his 2nd edition of "Properties of Matter", probably still took an anti-statistical attitude, and said that "because of the apparent lack of knowledge of the Theory of Probability The "difficulties that still exist in the kinetic theory of gases" (p. Claude Bernard has made more frequent and candid criticisms of the use of statistics and probability in science.Bernard is often referred to as the founder of modern experimental physiology.In his "Introduction to Experimental Medical Research" (1865; 1927, 131-139), he candidly stated that he did not know "how we can teach applied exact sciences on the basis of statistics".He believed that the use of statistics must "produce only speculative science" and "can never produce vigorous experimental science, that is, science that modulates phenomena according to certain laws".Moreover, he contends, "According to statistics, we can speculate about a greater or lesser probability of a particular event, but it is never possible to obtain any certainty, and it is never possible to obtain any absolute determinism".Since "facts are never the same," "statistics can only be an empirical enumeration of observations made" (pp. 138-139).Therefore, if medicine is based on statistics, then it "can only be a speculative science; only based on experimental determinism, it can become a real science, that is, a reliable science".Here Bernard points out the difference between what he calls the view of the "so-called observant doctor" and that of the "experimental doctor".Bernard believed that experimental science led to a rigorous determinism which he and other physiologists believed to be incompatible with probabilistic or statistical considerations or perceptions. In a talk given at the "Congress of Arts and Sciences" held during the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, the particularly philosophically minded theoretical physicist Ludwig Boltzmann briefly discussed the application of statistics to science and social sciences.He defended the "theorems (axioms) of statistical mechanics", arguing that "they, like all valid mathematical theorems", are true.At the same time, he noted in particular that there is a difficulty in applying statistics to other fields, for example, in assuming "equal chances of fundamental errors".He hinted at the application of statistics to "living persons, ... human society, ... sociology, etc., and not only ... particles of mechanics"; at the same time, he called attention to placing such studies in the probability "difficulties in principle" arising from the basis of the theory.He said that "if the notion of equal probability, which can be deduced from other fundamental ideas, is employed," the discipline is "as precise and exact as any other branch of mathematics" (1905, 602). During the academic year 1983-1984 an international interdisciplinary seminar and symposium was held at Bielefeld University.The theme of the conference is "The Revolution in Probability Theory 1800-1930".The various studies carried out there convincingly show that the 19th century displayed a revolutionary force in the continuing changes in social and scientific thought.But I do not think there is any basis for proving that by the end of the nineteenth century a revolution, if any, had been more than a revolution in treatises due to the development of statistical mechanics.On the other hand, both physics and biology underwent a very radical transformation in the 20th century as a probabilistic or statistical basis was introduced into genetics and the concept of evolution was introduced into quantum theory.The quantum revolution is often regarded as the greatest revolution that has ever occurred in science, and the transition from simple causality to statistical investigation is generally regarded as one of its most revolutionary features.Therefore, I would venture to assert that in the 20th century there was no "probabilistic revolution" (or, more precisely, a "probabilistic revolution" in the sense of a general revolution in science). At most it was a revolution in treatises on its revolutionary potential in science. By 1914, in a work entitled "Probability" (which gave a non-technical generalization of probability and statistics "in the different disciplines of scientific knowledge") Explanation), the French mathematician Émile Borel noted, "We hardly realize that we have faced a genuine scientific revolution" (p. ii). Revolution in Applied Science Historians agree that one of the great revolutions of the nineteenth century was the rise of science as a major force for technological and social change.Alfred North Whitehead described this revolution very succinctly; at the same time, he pointed out that the greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention.We can see the productivity of this technological or technological innovation in the simple fact that almost half of DuPont's 1942 sales were products that were not available before 1928, or were not produced on a large scale then. produced.And this is the impact and role of a research program of the company. Although we often say today that advances in basic scientific knowledge have contributed considerably to changing the necessities of our food and clothing, the materials with which we communicate and transport, and the ways in which we earn our livelihoods and defend our defenses, this is true at the same time. It was generally impossible a hundred years ago.Scientists and philosophers since Bacon and Descartes have predicted that the development and progress of knowledge will make man the master of his environment, but there are few convincing examples of this process.We have an important instance, from about 1800, of a research undertaken by a scientist solely for the advancement of knowledge, which, as an unintended by-product, led to an actual invention beneficial to mankind.This is what Benjamin Franklin said about the properties of conductors and insulators, the phenomenon of electrostatic induction, the effect of the shape of an object on its electrical properties, the role of grounding in Basic research on the properties of electrical discharges).This research made Franklin realize that lightning discharge is an electrical phenomenon, and then prompted him to conduct experiments to test this conclusion, and finally invented the lightning rod device-slow release of charged clouds, thereby avoiding lightning strikes, so that lightning strikes can be safely conducted to the ground.As late as the early 19th century, in a public debate in France, this personal history of the lightning rod might have been cited as a basic example of how basic scientific research led to unexpected practical inventions.But the case is not really convincing if the actual inventions that result are directly related to food or health, communication or transportation, national defense or means of earning a living. In terms of the impact of science on technology and craftsmanship, a revolutionary change took place in the 19th century, first of all in the dyeing industry.Before the mid-19th century, dyes were obtained from natural sources: plants, insects, crustaceans, and certain minerals.By the end of the 19th century, synthetically produced dyes had almost completely replaced these natural products.The first stage of this revolution came when William Henry Perkin discovered in 1856 a new dye that could dye silk a reddish purple (aniline violet).At the time, he was just a student, and the coloring substance he discovered was the end result of unsuccessful experiments in the production of synthetic quinine.The raw material for this dye is coal tar, a by-product of the process of producing lighting gas extracted from coal by distillation.Perkin began mass producing the new aniline violet dye, and in the following years a new industry was born.This new industry was based on the research of chemists who were able to synthesize existing dyes, usually obtained from natural products, or to create entirely new synthetic dyes.These new dyes are less expensive and dye faster.We have perhaps seen the revolutionary effect of this new process and technology in the history of one dye, grass red or "turkey red". 19世纪60年代，茜草红是从茜草属植物茜草根中提取的；而苗草属植物则是普罗旺斯的主要农作物，而且在西班牙北部、意大利、希腊和北非被大面积种植和栽培。几十年之后，合成的茜草红几乎消灭了西草属植物农业，而在今天，茜草属植物只是作为珍品在植物园中种植。 与许多比较早的合成染料大不相同，茜草红——染料化学家维特认为（哈伯1958，83）——是"化学研究中一种新的趋势，即有目的的化学的第一个结果"（"人工合成的基本原理"；见O．N．维特1913，520）。化学家们现在被组织起来，以把他们的研究引向特定的技术和工艺目标。最后一种被合成产品取代的天然染料是靛蓝，它的生产几乎是完全由英国人控制的。早在1880年，靛蓝实际上就已经合成了，但是，这个制作过程比较缓慢，而且代价也相当大。在合成的靛蓝1897年上市之前，引导这方面的研究，把从事工业研究的化学家们的科学劳动及其学术成果集中起来，花去了17年的时间。巴登州的苯腔和碳酸钠制造厂为此投入的费用合计达五百万美元，这是到那时就单个研究项目所投入费用的最高数目。三年以后，德国的总产量相当于从25万英亩的土地上收获的靛蓝的产量（布隆克，1901）。 正是在染料工业中，科学第一次显示了它的巨大的技术和工艺力量。广大地区的整个经济几乎在一夜之间被彻底改变了，这正像以前专门用于种植和栽培茜草类植物的土地或者被翻耕转向种植葡萄或其他作物，或者被迫休耕或荒芜一样。国家和世界的命运受到应用化学研究的成果的影响。在19世纪60年代初，德国几乎没有什么染料工业，但到了1881年，它则成了世界上几乎一半染料的生产国。到1896年，这个数字上升到刀叽，到1900年则达到SO-90％。德国的制造商成功地夺取了世界市场，在很大程度上是由于他们"能够利用一大批相当能干的化学家；这些化学家对研究的通常是不辞劳苦的热爱，是除瑞士外的其他国家不能相比的"（哈伯1958，129）。最后，还应当注意到，由于不稳定的染料是易爆炸物，所以，德国由政府倡导和资助的染料工业在为世界战争生产着一个潜在的武器库。 认识应用化学中的革命所产生的巨大影响的另一个方面是要注意到，英国的东印度公司1896年出口的依靠天然原料生产的靛蓝，其价值达350万英镑之多，到1913年，这个数字跌至6千英镑。此外，1913年德国（合成靛蓝的主要生产者）出口的靛蓝的价值约为200万英镑。但是，其他一些资料表明，这场革命的全景是，在这十七年间，靛蓝染料的价格由每磅约8个先令下降到每磅约3．5先令（见芬德利1916，237）。