Andrew+Week+9

The growth of quantum theory is a great illustration of how scientific theory changes and in a way is a process that undergoes evolution. As new hypotheses are developed they are put through a primary level of “natural selection.” Those that are strong enough, with positive evidence and reasonable thought behind them survive and spread to become the general accepted idea. It's a slow process however, a new theory doesn't always become an instant theory or law even if it is the best or turns out to be correct. There's resistance to change as with the idea of quanta of energy as used by Planck and Einstein. It was used in a mathematical sense to allow the development of accurate equations but was ignored in the theory. In general electromagnetic radiation was considered to be a continuous wave traveling in some undetectable uniform medium. The idea that there was some particle, some photon as it was later called, was just essentially ignored. This continued through Einstein's time as well and is stated in Carson's article, “When Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize, he owed the honor largely to the photoelectric effect. But the citation specifically noted his discovery of the law, not the explanation that he proposed.” People were still resistant to accept in the idea of the quantization. So in a way the struggle required by natural selection was going on in the scientific world. The old ideas were not just going to disappear or be turned upside down, these new ones had to hold up and be proven before they would become “the way it is.” When Nernst began his experiments and developing his ideas he gave quanta that which was needed to prove to the masses of the community that it was stronger, that it deserved to survive. This obviously continued as today quanta is the accepted theory taught in science classrooms throughout the world. “Natural” selection continued to work, those that refused to acknowledge the new ideas fell behind, those that accepted it were able to move on to bigger and better things. So over all science itself is in a way governed by one of it's own theories, the theory of evolution.