自然與希臘

內(nèi)容概要

諾貝爾桂冠物學(xué)家薛定諤是20世紀(jì)最著名的科學(xué)家之一，他關(guān)于科學(xué)史和科學(xué)哲學(xué)的演講久負(fù)盛名。 　　本書(shū)是多年來(lái)第一次呈現(xiàn)薛定諤的兩個(gè)最有名的系列演講文本。 　　《自然與希臘》從現(xiàn)代科學(xué)追溯到古老的西方哲學(xué)思想，為20世紀(jì)科學(xué)圖景打開(kāi)了歷史的畫(huà)卷。 　　《科學(xué)與人文》提出了20世紀(jì)的若干最基本問(wèn)題：科學(xué)研究的價(jià)值何在？現(xiàn)代科學(xué)成就如何影響物質(zhì)與精神的關(guān)系? 　　彭羅斯的前言將薛定諤的演講置于當(dāng)代科學(xué)的背景下，證明它們?cè)诮裉旌驮诘谝淮纬霭鏁r(shí)有著同樣的意義。

作者簡(jiǎn)介

薛定諤（Erwin Schrodinger，1887-1961）因?yàn)榘l(fā)現(xiàn)量子力學(xué)的波動(dòng)理論獲1933年諾貝爾物理學(xué)獎(jiǎng)，是20世紀(jì)最偉大的科學(xué)家之一，他的影響遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超出了物理學(xué)。他的《生命是什么》是現(xiàn)代分子生物學(xué)的先聲。他的系列科學(xué)史和科學(xué)哲學(xué)演講《自然與希臘》和《科學(xué)與人文》以科學(xué)家的獨(dú)特眼光立足現(xiàn)代科學(xué)，追溯古代西方哲學(xué)思想，幾十年來(lái)散發(fā)著長(zhǎng)久的智慧芬芳。

書(shū)籍目錄

Foreword by Roger Penrose 引言NATURE AND THE GREEKS 自然與希臘　Ⅰ The motives for returning to ancient thought　?、?The competition, reason v. senses　Ⅲ The Pythagoreans?、?The Ionian Enlightenment　　Ⅴ The religion of Xenophanes.Heraclitus of Ephesus?、?The Atomists?、?What are the special features?　BibliographySCIENCE AND HUMANISM 科學(xué)與人文　Preface　The spiritual bearing of science on life　on life  The practical achievements of science tending to obliterate its true import  true import  A radical change in our ideas of matter Form, not substance, the   fundamental concept  The nature of our'models'  Continuous description and causality  The intricacy of the continuum  The makeshift of wave mechanics  The alleged break-down of the barrier   between subject and object Atoms or quanta-the counter-spell of old standing, to escape the       intricacy of the continuum Would physical indeterminacy   give free will a chance? The bar to prediction, according   to Niels Bohr  Literature后記：哲學(xué)是科學(xué)的后花園

章節(jié)摘錄

　　A RADICAL CHANGE IN OUR IDEASOF MATTERe　　shall now，at last，come down to some specialtopics.What I have said hitherto may seem prettylong，if you consider it a mere introduction.But I hope it is of some interest in itself- and I could not avoid it.I had to make clear the situation.None of the new discoveries about which I may tell you is frightfully exciting in itself.What is exciting，novel，revolutionary，is the general attitude we are compelled to adopt on any attempt to synthesize them all.Let us go in medias res.There is the problem of matter.What is matter？How are we to picture matter in our mind？　　The first form of the question is ludicrous.（How should we say what matter is-or，if it comes to that，what electricity is-both being phenomena given to us once only？）The secondform already betrays the whole change of attitude： matter is an image in our nund-mund is thus prior to matter（notwith-standing the strange empirical dependence of my mental pro-cesses on the physical data of a certain portion of matter，viz.my brain）. During the second half of the nineteenth century matterseemed to be the permanent thing to wluch we could cling.There was a piece of matter that had never been created （asfar as the physicist knew）and could never be destroyed！Youcould hold on to it and feel that it would not dwindle away under your fingers.Moreover this matter，the physicist asserted，was with re-gard to its demeanour，its motion，subject to rigid laws - everybit of it was.It moved according to the forces which neigh-bouring parts of matter，according to their relative situations，exerted on it.You could foretell， the behaviour，it was rigidlydetermined in all the future by the initial conditions.　This was all quite pleasing，anyhow in physical science，in sofar as external inanimate matter comes into play.When ap-plied to the matter that constitutes our own body or the bod-ies of our friends，or even that of our cat or our dog，a well-known difficulty arises with regard to the apparent freedom ofliving beings to move their limbs at their own will.We shaUenter on this question later（see p.58 ff.）At the moment Iwish to try and explain the radical change in our ideas aboutmatter that has taken place in the course of the last half-century.It came about gradually，inadvertently，without anybodyaiming at such a change.We believed we moved still withinthe old 'materialistic'frame of ideas，when it tumed out thatwe had left it.　Our conceptions of matter have tumed out to be'much lessmaterialistic'than they were in the second half of the nine-teenth century.They are still very imperfect，very hazy，theylack cleamess in various respects， but this can be said，thatmatter has ceased to be the simple palpable coarse thing inspace that you can follow as it moves along，every bit of it，and ascertain the precise laws goveming its motion.　Matter is constituted of particles，separated by comparative-ly large distances； it is embedded in empty space.This notiongoes back to Leucippus and Democritus，who lived in Abderain the fifth century B.C.This conception of particles and emp-ty spaceis retained today（with a modifica-tion that is just the thing I wish to explain now）and not only that，there is complete historical continuity； that is to say，whenever the idea was taken up again it was in full awarenessof the fact that one was taking up the concepts of the ancientphilosophers.Moreover it experienced the greatest thinkabletriumphs in actual experiment，such as the ancient philoso-phers would hardly have hoped for in their boldest dreams.For instance，0.Stem succeeded in determining the distribu-tion of velocities among the atoms in a jet of silver vapour bythe simplest and most natural means，of which figure 1 gives arough schematical sketch.The outer circle（carrying the lettersA，B，C）represents the crosssection of a closed cylindricalbox，exhausted to perfect vacuum.The point S marks thecross-section of an incandescent silver wire，which extends a-long the a：as of the cylinder and continually evaporates silveratoms，that fiy along straight lines，roughly speaking，in radialdirections.However，the cylindrical shield Sh（smaller c：ircle），disposed concentrically around S，lets them pass only at theopening O，which represents a narrow slit parallel to the wireS.Without anything more，they pass on straight to A，wherethey are caught and，after a time，form a precipitate in theform of a narrow black line（parallel to the wire S and the slitO）.But in Stern's experiment the whole alyparatus is rotated，as on a potter's wheel，with high speed around the axis S（thesense of the rotation shown by the arrow）.　　……

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