Spencer Heath Archive

Item 153

Pencil by Heath on lined, notepad paper.

No date

Original => Item 95

 

     Physics, in its original and inclusive meaning is simply nature, and the science of physics is simply knowledge of nature.

     But knowledge, as science, means, fundamentally, not that which consists of sensory or emotional reactions — of feelings — but that which is reflective or contemplative and consists of imaginations of experiences in terms of relations or comparisons, especially relations and comparisons by quantities as expressed by numbers as dimensions or magnitudes and their ratios one to another, hence rational knowledge as opposed to mere sensory reactions or experiences, although founded thereon.

     Since science thus defined as rational knowledge must necessarily deal first with nature in its least complex aspects, the science of physics is the earliest, oldest and most fundamental of all the sciences and it underlies and is included in all those phenomena of nature that are more highly organized and complex. (For, whether we do or do not entertain belief in a phenomenal world entirely divorced from the natural — the physical, it still remains that it is only through some physical or natural occurrences that we can have any objective experiences with it.)

     From all this it follows that physics deals basically with that which is common to or at least underlies the whole realm of nature, the entire cosmic phenomenon.

     Of what, then, does this whole realm of nature, including man, consist? It has appeared to men primitively as substance or structure, then as power or energy, then as process or thought. And in advancing from each of these conceptions to the next men have tended to deny any actual existence to those from which they have departed while others have denied the existence of those to which they have not advanced. Men are prone to cherish the conceptions they hold while denying the truth or even existence of those they have relinquished or not yet attained. The mind is focal before it is panoramic, clings to the item before it expands to both item and series.

     The primary aspect and corresponding conception of nature is as substance or structure and mass. Hence the primary dimension of physics as rational knowledge — as a science — is that of mass. Now mass is not all of a lump or unbroken agglomeration but separate and discrete, and its primary characteristic — that by which it is known — is its capacity to have or possess and to generate motion. Motion, length or space is thus the second aspect of nature. Now motion, like mass, is never without interruption; it is discontinuous and discrete, even granular, and its primary characteristic is repetition, rhythm, time. Thus the third property or aspect of nature, proceeding from the discreteness of mass and motion, is time. These three, mass, motion, time are the primary aspects of nature. Each of them is discrete in terms of its utmost divisibility. They therefore manifest themselves in magnitudes or dimensions as either one or some other whole number of their fundamental units in nature. For convenient measurement of these manifested magnitudes, science employs the three conventional units known as the gram, the centimeter and the second. These units are fundamental in that they refer to the three and only three fundamental and measurable, therefore rational, aspects of nature. (If and when nature should manifest any further fundamental aspects science will then doubtless devise units in which fourth, fifth or other kinds of dimensions can be taken.)

     Each of the three fundamental aspects of nature or any two of them may be considered and conceived as alone. When mass (in dynes as inertia per unit of motion) and motion only are considered together, their product is called energy or work. When length or distance is taken as motion per unit of time, that ratio or quotient is called velocity. When velocity is multiplied by units of time the product conversely is units of motion, distance or space. When mass is taken or conceived as without motion and multiplied by time we conceive the product as absolute zero. It must be remembered that while mass (as inertial units), motion are aspects of nature that can be considered separately, they are never experienced except as all three be present to constitute the unity of an action, happening or event. Any combination of only two of them is incomplete as an event and therefore only an abstraction and not realizable in experience. Taken separately, mass and motion may each be considered merely as ratios — mass (in dynes) per unit of motion (centimeter) and motion per unit of time. And mass as mass per unit of motion ratio times any given number of motion units, which is work or energy, when divided by any given number of time units may be taken in the given case as the quantity of energy per unit of time or the ratio of energy to time.

     Thus far we have dealt only with abstractions from nature or experience as quantities of mass, motion and time and with abstract ratios between them; but when we take the ratio of energy to time — the quantity of energy per each unit of time in any given case and multiply this by the given number of units of time, then this product is the magnitude or dimension of an actual action, happening or event of such nature as can be realized in experience.