Concepts of Mass in Classical and Modern Physics

by Max Jammer

Of fundamental importance to physics and the philosophy of science, the notion of mass had never been given an integrated and coherent historical investigation until the publication of this book. In it, the noted physicist Max Jammer presents a challenging study of the historical development of the concept of mass, a labor that earned him a monograph prize from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
A rigorous, concise, and provocative book that can be recommended to all serious readers and physicists interested in the foundations of physical science, this volume offers thorough critical and analytical treatment of such topics as the ancient concept of mass; the neoplatonic notion of inertia; the conceptualization of inertial mass; philosophical modifications of the Newtonian concept; the modern concept of mass; mass and energy; the concept of mass in quantum mechanics and field theory; and much more.
"Graduate students in physics should find this book a unique introduction to a very vexing problem in their chosen field, even though it is one of the most highly developed scientific disciplines." — American Scientist. 1964 edition.

Genres: Physics, Philosophy

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[William Bies · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third book in the historian of science Max Jammer’s trilogy, Concepts of Mass, is devoted to a historico-critical analysis of this all-important term, such as has not apparently been done before. Jammer starts off with some fascinating speculations on the etymology of the word, which might go back (through the Greek, maza, or barley-cake) to the unleavened bread of the Israelites, mazza in Hebrew. So much for the origin of the word. As for the concept, Jammer traces it to the late medieval quantitas materiae, which was introduced by Aegidius Romanus in the context of a discussion of the problem of transubstantiation in the Eucharist. For, as Jammer concludes from a fairly detailed investigation in chapter two, the ancients from Aristotle to Simplicius did not possess a concept of mass at all, either in the sense of quantitas materiae or in the modern dynamical sense. The distinction between weight and mass could not exist for them and neither could a putative concept of mass serve as a measure of quantity of substance since, for Aristotle, the element of fire or composites involving it have inherent levity. Nevertheless, the beginnings of a more modern view can be traced to Plotinus and Philo, and from them determinative into the middle ages, who want to demote the metaphysical status of matter and regard it as intrinsically inactive, or inert (if not outright evil). In the thirteenth century, drawing upon Arabic scientists who dealt with the problem of the relation between corporeal form and extension, the problem of transubstantiation was widely discussed by the scholastics, leading to the formulation of the concept of quantitas materiae by Aegidius, a disciple of Aquinas. His quantity has the advantage that it can be conceptually distinguished from weight (Aegidius subscribes to an Aristotelian view of weight). At the hands of Buridan and Oresme, it was recognized that impetus is proportional to quantity of matter. But it had not yet been connected with inertia. Kepler took this step, although he failed to systematize it. As we know, that was Newton’s contribution. Still, it took a long process of philosophical modification in order to arrive at the modern concept of mass and inertia during the nineteenth century, as Jammer documents.

The remainder of the work is taken up with several things that, one expects, it would be incumbent upon the historian of science to treat. First, the rise of positivistic and instrumentalistic approaches later in the nineteenth century. Second, the electromagnetic school, which flourished briefly in the decades leading up to the first world war. Third, of course, the relativistic concept of mass and the connection between energy and rest mass. Finally, Jammer portrays how the concept of mass has been rendered questionable in the light of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory (if one be concerned to supply it with a logico-mathematical foundation, rather than merely to employ it as a parameter—there is no mass observable, for instance).

These investigations taking up the second half of the book are inconclusive. As far as the relativistic part goes, Jammer’s account suffers because he was not able to take into consideration the work of Arnowitt-Deser-Misner and Bondi, which at the time of writing was too recent to have been assimilated by the physics community, let alone the proof of positivity by Schoen and Yau in 1981. Hence, all one can get from the second half of the book is a view of work in progress.

The first half remains, in this reviewer’s judgment, an excellent scholarly exposition of the complete development of the concept of mass, going back to its ancient roots and following through to the mature reflections on the nature of mass at which physicists had arrived by the first half of the twentieth century, with the advent of relativity theory and quantum mechanics. With his scholarly command of the philosophy and theology, Jammer can deftly handle the Neoplatonists, Arabic scientists, medieval scholastics and early modern natural philosophers. Anyone interested in the derivation of concepts in physics can be grateful to him for this, even if he is not entirely up-to-date in terms of the state of the art in the fundamental physics of our day (which covers, roughly speaking, the period since the original publication of Jammer’s study in 1961 up to now).

[Allan Olley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a careful survey of ideas about mass from medieval thought to then current physics of the 1950s. The book is a history of physics more than a physics text but it does include a number of equations and at times follows along some rather advanced mathematics very briefly, but comprehension of these parts did not seem to me essential to following the thrust of the book.

This is a masterful survey of the internal logic of these concepts. However broader cultural or personal influences on the thought are not discussed nor the broader implications of the ideas beyond the occasional allusion to subjects like chemistry where the conservation of mass is important. An important reference for those interested in the history or conceptual analysis of physics.

[Soni ni Msomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good book, I wanted to learn more about mass itself when I stumbled on Mach's principle which is analysed at length in this book. It also makes me question the epistemology of physics. How is it that we've progressed so far whilst still debating on the definition of a fundamental concept? Does this hinder us in some unforseen way? Idk, I'll probably read on that more, anyway fantastic book still.

[Maksym Shcherban · Rating 5 out of 5]

- Первые главы, рассматривающие понятие массы в древности, довольно душные, слишком много философской белиберды.
- Очень интересно было читать про зарождение современного понятия массы во времена Кеплера, Галилея, Ньютона.
- В последних двух главах, которые рассматривают понятие массы в контексте теории относительности и квантовой механики, очень много формул :(