Physics

J. L. Heilbronn is the editor of the Oxford Companion to the History of Science, a role that stands him in good stead when addressing the history of physics from quintessence to quarks. He points out that for the Greeks, physics stood between logic and ethics and was for many years referred to as natural philosophy. The progression of the focus of learning moves between independent private schools in antiquity, the court and library and Islam, then universities, academies and now university-government-industry. The book is effectively a short history of ideas that moves around the cultures of Europe depending on time and place, so there is a fascinating chapter on Islamic contributions. All the principal developments are described along with their personalities, and I found it interesting to learn the extent to which Newton's work was a response to Descartes. There is an interesting discussion of the reception of Newton's theory of gravity, which some people considered magical - he was simply describing the phenomenon. Physics, along with science in general, was professionalised during the 19th century. Cosmology also features prominently, since many physicists were trying to work out the nature of physical laws in relation to the existence or nonexistence of God. Heilbronn makes his own position clear in the last chapter when he aligns himself with reviews of Steven Weinberg, associating progress of physics with dedeification and the deanthropomorphisation of nature. I sympathise with the view that we no longer need capricious deities and traditional dogmas, but, for me, jettisoning the spiritual dimension is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.