Commentary

It is not possible in the short time that is available in the conference sessions, to give full consideration to all of the issues that are brought up, and most of the discussions were elaborated to a considerable extent in informal conversations outside the regular sessions. A few comments on some of the more important points may be of interest to those that did not happen to be present when these particular issues were discussed.

Energy at high speeds:

In a letter published in the May 1975 issue of Reciprocity I stated that I preferred not to comment on articles submitted for publication because “I believe that it is very desirable to encourage free and open discussion of the (Reciprocal) theory and its applications, so that we can have the benefit of as many points of view as possible in extending and clarifying the theoretical structure.

This issue of Reciprocity marks its fourth anniversary, and provides a suitable occasion on which to make some comments with respect to the progress that has been made toward the objective that was defined in the first issue: promotion of understanding of the Reciprocal System of physical theory. The most serious obstacle in the way of a new theory in any field is the prevailing tendency to dismiss it summarily on the ground that the a priori probability of its being correct is too low to justify taking the time to examine it.

Since my return from the speaking trip through the East and Midwest that I undertook in April and May I have spent considerable time reviewing and analyzing the questions that were asked in the course of the long question and answer sessions that followed each of the eight talks that I gave to college audiences.

To the editor of Reciprocity:

I would like to call the attention of your readers to a series of letters in Nature initiated by a question raised by the prominent British scientist Herbert Dingle with respect to the special theory of relativity, and culminating in a communication from Professor Dingle published in the Aug. 31, 1973 issue of that journal.

But it seems to me that our present theories, even the successful ones, are not yet constructed so completely in accord with sound principles, but that in this day and generation criticism is a most necessary and useful enterprise for the physicist.

—P.W. Bridgman¹

Physical science stands today in a highly anomalous position. On the one hand, no branch of knowledge has ever occupied a higher place in general public esteem. The spectacular way in which the abstract ideas of the theoretical scientist and the discoveries of his colleagues in the laboratories have been applied to the fashioning of ingenious devices that have drastically changed the whole world picture has made a profound impression on the man in the street, and the word “scientific” has acquired an unparalleled prestige. To some degree, at least, these sentiments are shared by the rank and file of the professional scientists, and the confident words “We know…” continually echo and reecho through the halls of learning.

The frontiers of modern science are in the far-out regions, the realms of the very small, the very large, the very fast, the very dense, and so on. It is there that spectacular discoveries are being made, and the boundaries of physical science are being extended into the hitherto unknown. But some of these achievements that have been headlined in the press and in the scientific journals, have had collateral results of even greater significance that have been overlooked by the scientific community. These particular discoveries have given us factual information about some of the fundamental physical entities that have heretofore been accepted as being beyond the range of physical investigation. When we examine all of the implications of this new knowledge, it becomes clear that the prevailing view of the nature of the basic constituents of the physical universe will have to be drastically modified.