Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2041

Letter to the Editor of Science News, 139:1, regarding Heath’s hypothesis that action is more fundamental to physical theory than energy.

May 11, 1991

 

 

 

A Call for Action

In “Querying the Constancy of Planck’s Constant” (SN: 2/2/91, p.70), Ivars Peterson refers to Planck’s constant as an amount of energy. Planck himself confessed that he had wanted to believe it to be so but finally resigned himself to the knowledge that this fundamental quantity could not be energy, but had to be action — not so much ergs but erg-seconds. This may have been the first, but it was certainly not the last, epistemological challenge raised to classical physics by the quantum theory.

 So it was a quantum of action — not energy — gained or lost by atoms that accounted for the blackbody radiation phenomenon. Thus, while Planck was perplexed by this affront to the preeminence of energy, he finally accepted it in order to gain the greater value of his theory. The rest is history, as they say.

 But wait! If “action” is the indispensable attribute of this fundamental property of nature, how is it that “energy” continues to be used as a surrogate for action almost everywhere else in physics? Of course, “energy” works beautifully in dealing with almost all of our macroscopic experience, in the same manner as Newton’s mechanics suffices almost always without Einstein’s relativistic adjustments. However, we should never forget these “almosts.”

 Mr. Peterson might consider the possibility suggested by Planck’s reluctant admission — namely, that “action” is more fundamental to physical theory than energy. This is no longer a controversial idea. We not only have the quantum theory; we also know that the energy conservation principle can be derived from the principle of least action but not the reverse. Whatever further advancements a reformulation of physics in terms of action might bring, we should at least recognize that the proper definition of the quantum constant is in terms of “action.”

Alvin Lowi Jr.

Physical engineer

San Pedro, California