Physics and Philosophy: Circular motion and force

Circular Motion and Force

Simply, we can say that physics is the study and observation of nature with its governing laws which are believed as the independent of human thinking and desires. Philosophy etymologically - love to knowledge, deals with the perception and endeavors of human beings towards nature. Hence, they are related as nail and flesh. Physics relies more on the instrumental experiments and factual data obtained after rigorous efforts rather than the imagination and perception though latter elements cannot be ignored. Whereas, Philosophy enjoys over the imagination, behavioral conclusions obtained from century long experiences rather than laboratory experiments even though experimental results affect it tremendously. Philosophy and physics in another term can be understood as knowledge and science respectively. Their synergistic conclusion leads the society towards higher conscience and acknowledgements. In the history of conscience, sometimes science owes to philosophy and sometimes philosophy owes to science. Ancient Hindu philosophies believed that the truth is eternal and absolute. All the living beings as well as non-living beings share one eternal truth to which they called ‘part of God’. In science, john Dalton (1766-1844) proposed atomic theory. Atom further has been revealed that made up of several sub-atomic particles such as electron, proton, neutron, meson, positron etc. moreover, quark concept has been introduced which are the more probable centralized locations of wave packets. In this way, the ‘point of God’ concept of ancient Hindu philosophers was quite true even from the modern perception of physics.

This consequence of atomic theory was inherited to philosophy. People from Aristotelian era observed cyclic nature of sun, moon, season, day-night, life-death and conceived an idea of revolving cycle in every aspect of nature. Later in the 18^th century, industrial revolution established the simple machines which worked in cycle. William Harvey (1578-1657) explained the blood circulation in the human body which also proved the cyclic nature of everything. Water cycle and Nitrogen cycle also proved the same thing. Hence, people of renaissance period philosophically reached to the conclusion that every natural phenomenon repeats in cycle and continues forever. This made common people to believe the life-death cycle of human being. The philosophy of this era can be termed as “mechanical materialism”. This philosophy was the consequence of Keplar’s laws of planetary motion, Harvey’s explanation of blood circulation, water cycle, carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle etc.

 This philosophy perceives the world as the tedious repetition of things and events in certain intervals. People could not see the new and changed elements in the cycle of nature. In 1848, a German Philosopher Karl Marx (1818-1883) proposed a new and most revolutionary thought of dialectical materialism. At the contemporary time, Charles Darwin proposed the theory of natural selection and struggle for existence. Philosophically they are deeply relayed. The theme of dialectical materialism is that the existence of everything is due to struggle between two aspects of opposite nature. The force created due to struggle drives the existence. If any one of them got victory over another, the existence will transform into another existence completely new to previous.

This theory brought a great hurricane in the field of social science as well as experimental science. Around 1896, electron was discovered, after the discovery of electron, scientists predicted about another particle inside atom having opposite nature to it. To this thinking, Mark’s philosophy had played crucial role. Let us depict a beautiful illustration of atom to understand Mark’s philosophy of dialectical materialism.

Nowadays, we all, including laymen of physics know that atom consist of three fundamental particles viz. electron, proton, and neutron. Electron being very lighter (almost 2000 times) than proton resides at the outermost part of the atom revolving round the nucleus which contains protons and neutrons. By nature, electron and proton behaves oppositely. For easiness, electron is said to posses negative charge and proton positively charged. The existence of atom clearly is due to continuous struggle between electrons and protons. If  any one of them gets victory over another, atom remains no more, rather, transforms into completely new thing known as ions.

Hence, the progress in the nature is due to continuous struggle between two opposite traits and at the same time synergistic harmony between them provides stability.
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1. Shyam Shrestha
2. Mathabar Singh Raut
3. Basudev Oli