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CU APTER I -I

Mach vs. Boltzmann, Pla?icf{_t Stumpf, and Kiilpe i

Ludwig Boltzmann visited England shortly bcforc Machs return to i Vienna in 1895 ^anc^ ^{was vcr}>' pleasantly surprised by the favorable re-action to his atomistic views. R. H. Bryan remembered Boltzmann’s visit: “In 1894 the British Association meeting at Oxford, with its memorablc field-day on the kinetic theory, came simultaneously with Lord Raylcigh and Sir William Ramsay’s announccment of the dis-covcry of argon. The part which Prof. Boltzmann took in these dis-cussions will long be remembered.” ¹

The succcss of his English visit cncouraged Boltzmann to attempt to set up a similar type of “discussion” in Germany with his oppo-nent, the “cnergeticist,” Wilhelm Ostwald. He wrotc to the latter on Junc 1, 1895: “Professor Heim will referee the scicntific meeting over Energcticism at Liibeck. I would like, if possible, to provokc a debate a la British Association, mainly in order to instruct mysclf. For this, it is above all necessary, that the main representative of that orientation

- be present. I rieed not be the first to tell you how much your

presence would please me.” ²

Preparation for the debate was no problem for Boltzmann. He had alrcady madę his objcctions to “energcticism” known in private cor* rcspondcncc with Ostwald (1892-1893), that is, shortly after the Leip-zig professor had shockcd the scicntific world by publishing a chcm-istry book with no rcfcrence to atoms or molecules (1892).

The Liibeck Scientific Conference (Naturjorschcruersammlttng)

took place September 16-20)'189^ shortly after Machb arrival in Vi-cnna, but a month bcforc h:s brilliantly succcssful inaugural lccture.

The famous debate took place on September 17 bctwcen 9 and 12 a.m. Arnold Sommerfeld remembered theoccasion:

Heim spokc for cncrgcticism; Wilhelm Ostwald stood bchiml him, bchind both stood the naturę philosophy of Ernst Mach, who was not pres-cnt. The opponent was Boltzmann, secondcd by Feli* Klein. The fight bctwcen Boltzmann and Ostwald rcscmblcd, both cxternally and internally, the strugglc bctwcen a buli and a supplc fenccr. But the buli defeated the ‘ matador in spite of all of the Jatters fcncing skill. The arguments of Boltzmann brokc through. We, who wcrc then young mathcmaticians, all sup-ported Boltzmann. It was quite ołnious to \is that it was impossiblc to dcrivc the motion cquations of a single mass point from an cncrgy cqua-tion, to say nothing of opiional degrees of freedom.³

Professor Erwin Hiebert bas dcscribcd the immediatc consequcnccs:

The discussion at the Confcrencc of 1895 initiated rcvcrbcrations which pcnctratcd dccply into and beyond Europcan and American scicntific circles.

“ . Within 6 wceks Boltzmann had submitted a detailcd criticism of the energetie vicws of I Iclm and Ostwald.

Boltzmann [in his articlcj ccnsurcd Heim and Ostwald for their con-fuscd and crroncous dcrivations in dynamics and hcat theory, their mathe-matical errors and curious inconsistencies, and 3bovc all for their ambigu- ! ous limitations of the entropy function to the dissipation of radiant energy He also criticizcd them for their simplistic ad hoc assumptions conccrning cncrgctics as a panacea for all the unsolved problcms in science.⁴

Heim and Ostwald quickly wrotc articles defending “cncrgcticism.*' and Mach hurried his book on thermodynamies into publication | (1896) to point out that impcrfcct as “cncrgcticism” might be, Boltzmann^ “mcchanicism” was certainly not the finał answer, but the damage had been donc. Many young fashion-riders continued to favor “cncrgetical” and/or “phenomcnalistic” approaches to thermodynamies, but morc thoughtful physicists, such as Robert Millikan, the futurę Nobel prizewinner, wcrc impressed:

The penctrating and dcvastating attack upon Ost\vald’s school of the “energetikers” which the forcmost German physicists, Planck and Boltzmann, published in the Annalen der Physi^ in the spring of iSofT. . . pointed out definite errors in rcasoning which Ostwald had madę in his Allgcmcine Chemie, to which Ostwald replied in the next issue of the Annalen altogethcr disarmingly, that his friends Planck and Boltrmann had pointed out somc errors hut that he knew of others which they had not discovered.^B