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AN HISTORICAL NOTE ON ERNST MACH

A number of philosophers including Peter Clark ([1976] & [1982]) and Paul Feyerabend [1980] in this journal and Larry Laudan [1976] and Michael Gardner [1979] elsewhere have tried to suggest that perhaps Ernst Mach's opposition to atoms and Ludwig Boltzmann's kinetic theory of gases was scientific and justified. Much as I respect Mach's independent judgment and expecially his warnings about excessive idealisation in physics I cannot agree. As an historian of science, author of a biography of Mach [1972], and as co-editor of forthcoming volumes on the correspondence respectively of Mach and his principal methodological critic Ludwig Boltzmann I do not believe that the attempt to whitewash Mach's position on atomism will stand up. It is understandable that philosophers may be reluctant to believe that philosophical views, assumptions, or prejudices can stand in the way of scientific progress, but sometimes the evidence is too strong to be easily argued or willed away. Perhaps Mach's opposition to 'billiard ball' atoms should have included support for atoms as changing, perishable 'corpuscles' such as Boltzmann strongly advocated, but it never did. And perhaps Mach's opposition to Boltzmann's kinetic theory should have been grounded on real technical difficulties such as what Clark calls 'the problem of the anomalous specific heat ratios' or real defects in his use of idealised molecular models rather than seemingly automatic rejection of anything and everything based on the atomic theory, but it never did. In principle Mach was remarkably tolerant. He allowed that the atomic theory might have 'provisional value' in science and were there no need to reconcile the philosophical assumptions of psychology with those of physics, he would have no objection to physicists continuing to use the atomic theory. But in practice he was adamant. He made no use of the atomic theory in his own scientific work during his mature years, not even concerning shock waves where the theory might have been useful.