Boris Hessen
If necessity is the mother of invention, then Boris Hessen stretches the proverb to say that economic goals are the mother of necessity, which is the mother of invention, which is the mother of basic science. His argument stems from a few practical examples. It is juxtaposed to other beliefs that once some basic scientific discovery is made, then some specific applications are invented from the new knowledge, which are later put to economic use. Hessen support the opposite view.
As the industrial revolution encouraged increased division of labor, factory owners were looking for ways to increase productivity. Hessen’s specific example was for a cloth weaving spinning jenny. The early models were powered by hand, then by water. Both methods had serious limitations. The goal was to allow the device to be operated “without fingers.” The answer seemed to be in the steam engine which was originally designed for work in the mining industry. The hope was to make it such that a steam engine could be more generically applied to other industrial uses as a “universal motor.”
The engine proved practical, but another issue arose in the increased need (read increased cost) for large amounts of fuel to heat water into steam sufficient to power the weaving factories ‘round-the-clock. This is yet another economic issue that required thought. Enter Nicolas Carnot looking to improved efficiency of the steam engines to increase capacity or lower required fuel. He asked the basic question whether power from steam heat was unbounded. He wanted to know if it were possible to generate steam power with no upper limit at a higher rate than the additional fuel used to increase the required heat. In his approaches to determine the “coefficient of profitable activity” he also managed to establish the foundation of a new scientific discipline within physics known as thermodynamics. Based on Carnot’s efforts other scientists (e.g. Kelvin and Clausius) were eventually able to define the second law of thermodynamics. In this example Hessen depicts these events as a trajectory from a set of economic goals, to employment of an invention, to discovery of a new form of science.
Hessen also points to another way the invention of the steam engine encouraged basic science. Every mechanical invention needs a motive power, a transmission mechanism of that power, and an executing instrument driven by the transmission mechanism. The study of the forms of motion of, and efficiency in, the steam engine led to more general studies of the motion of matter. Hessen specifically points to mechanics, heat, and eventually electricity. Similar to the eventuality of thermodynamics, study in each of these areas for practical application likewise generated new fields of investigation in basic science.
As each of these more and more specific areas of science developed, Hessen draws a correlation to Marxist principles of classification. He points to Friedrich Engels’ conception of “interconnection” and “hierarchy” of the movements of matter as symbolized in the order of various study disciplines within science being both interconnected and forming a hierarchy of social arrangement. Engels provided theories of conservation and conversion of energy based on a “materialistic conception of nature” akin to ideas espoused by Marx and Lenin. Hessen argues these Marxist ideas lead to an understanding of the “historical succession” of the development of the associated sciences of motion. The succession being yet another trajectory from economic goal, to practical invention, to scientific definition.
As the industrial revolution encouraged increased division of labor, factory owners were looking for ways to increase productivity. Hessen’s specific example was for a cloth weaving spinning jenny. The early models were powered by hand, then by water. Both methods had serious limitations. The goal was to allow the device to be operated “without fingers.” The answer seemed to be in the steam engine which was originally designed for work in the mining industry. The hope was to make it such that a steam engine could be more generically applied to other industrial uses as a “universal motor.”
The engine proved practical, but another issue arose in the increased need (read increased cost) for large amounts of fuel to heat water into steam sufficient to power the weaving factories ‘round-the-clock. This is yet another economic issue that required thought. Enter Nicolas Carnot looking to improved efficiency of the steam engines to increase capacity or lower required fuel. He asked the basic question whether power from steam heat was unbounded. He wanted to know if it were possible to generate steam power with no upper limit at a higher rate than the additional fuel used to increase the required heat. In his approaches to determine the “coefficient of profitable activity” he also managed to establish the foundation of a new scientific discipline within physics known as thermodynamics. Based on Carnot’s efforts other scientists (e.g. Kelvin and Clausius) were eventually able to define the second law of thermodynamics. In this example Hessen depicts these events as a trajectory from a set of economic goals, to employment of an invention, to discovery of a new form of science.
Hessen also points to another way the invention of the steam engine encouraged basic science. Every mechanical invention needs a motive power, a transmission mechanism of that power, and an executing instrument driven by the transmission mechanism. The study of the forms of motion of, and efficiency in, the steam engine led to more general studies of the motion of matter. Hessen specifically points to mechanics, heat, and eventually electricity. Similar to the eventuality of thermodynamics, study in each of these areas for practical application likewise generated new fields of investigation in basic science.
As each of these more and more specific areas of science developed, Hessen draws a correlation to Marxist principles of classification. He points to Friedrich Engels’ conception of “interconnection” and “hierarchy” of the movements of matter as symbolized in the order of various study disciplines within science being both interconnected and forming a hierarchy of social arrangement. Engels provided theories of conservation and conversion of energy based on a “materialistic conception of nature” akin to ideas espoused by Marx and Lenin. Hessen argues these Marxist ideas lead to an understanding of the “historical succession” of the development of the associated sciences of motion. The succession being yet another trajectory from economic goal, to practical invention, to scientific definition.
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