Why Should Physicists Study History?

One issue that arises today with science is in disagreement between scientists on what "truth" is. The debate over climate change, or the EmDrive rocket engine, or the Higgs boson run hot and cold depending on the day and the audience. Critics of the EmDrive insist that Isaac Newton must be rolling over in his grave as they consider how the engine violates his third law.

In  learning about Physics, one doesn't spend much time thinking about conflicts like these or how they played out in the past. Reaching a common understanding of the laws of Physics took a long time and was a messy, rough process. People are people after all. People often do not get along, have misunderstandings or prejudices, odd alliances or even intense rivals who are wrong at all times (even if they're right). Physicists do not see these issues as contributing to science and can often learn the hard way that social interactions really do influence science.

History can help. An entire academic discipline, the history of science, studies these conflicts and rough edges. Behind all scientific laws are the stories of how they can to be understood and how society was convinced to pay attention. Telling these stories helps to smooth the way when disagreements happen; to change the way we all think about scientific progress.

It is important to remember that Physics is done by people. Groups of people, actually. Everyone has their own egos, prejudices, likes etc. People get attached to a favorite idea and refuse to let go. The electromagnetic ether held sway in physics for a long time before Einstein made it superfluous with the theory of special relativity. However, it continued to hold sway for a long time after. People just couldn't let it go.

International or professional rivalries can come into play. After WWI, Germans were forbidden to join international scientific organizations. In WWII, the fear of Germany developing nuclear weapons enticed the Allies into making Atomic Bombs. The scientists that did so were regretful later, but the exigencies of war caused them to overcome their reticence.

One thing we forget in our reliance on textbooks and on the right answer is that Physics isn't obvious. Things we see now as self-evident or intuitively obvious were nothing of the sort at the time of their discovery. How long did we believe that the earth was the center of the universe? How many still believe the earth is flat? Every discovery has come out of a messy mix of ideas, accidents and arguments on its way to becoming accepted. We will study Millikan and his oil drop experiment and it will appear to be a fait accompi. But a closer look at his lab work from the time shows how difficult it was to make the leap from idea to working experiment.

Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz famously clashed over the origins of calculus. They were recognized as two of the greatest, most forward thinking minds of their time, but they could never work together because of this conflict. They lived in a truly remarkable time in history with their colleagues Hooke, Huygens, Wren, Boyle, Wilkins and numerous others. This was a time of great political tumult, but is also known as the scientific revolution. Learning about the lives, conflicts and achievements of these people can help us to understand how to bring about even greater scientific advances.