Question 1
The description of physics that existed before the theory of relativity and quantum physics describes many aspects of nature at an ordinary (macroscopic) scale. In contrast, quantum mechanics explains nature’s aspects at small (atomic and subatomic) scales, for which classical mechanics is insufficient. Most classical physics theories can be derived from quantum mechanics as an approximation valid at a large (macroscopic) scale.
Quantum physics differs from classical physics in that energy, momentum, angular momentum, and other quantities of a bound system are restricted to discrete values (quantization). Objects have characteristics of both particles and waves (wave-particle duality). There are limits to how accurately the value of a physical quantity can be predicted before its measurement, given a complete set of initial conditions (the uncertainty principle).
The gradual development and understanding of quantum physics is a fundamental part of the history of modern physics. Quantum physics’ history, as it interlaces with the history of quantum chemistry, began essentially with several other scientific discoveries: the 1838 discovery of cathode rays by Michael Faraday; the 1859–60 winter statement of the blackbody radiation problem by Gustav Kirchhoff; the 1877 suggestion by Ludwig Boltzmann that the energy states of a physical system could be discrete; the discovery of the photoelectric effect by Heinrich Hertz in 1887; and the 1900 quantum hypothesis by Max Planck that any energy-radiating atomic system can theoretically be divided into several discrete “energy elements” ε (Greek letter epsilon) such that each of these energy elements is proportional to the frequency ν with which each of them individually radiates energy.
The explanation of blackbody radiation in 1900 by Max Planck, who proposed that the energies of any harmonic oscillator (see the harmonic motion), such as the atoms of a blackbody radiator, are restricted to specific values, each of which is an integral (whole number) multiple of a primary, minimum value. The energy E of this fundamental quantum is directly proportional to the frequency ν of the oscillator, or E=hν, where h is a constant, now called Planck’s constant, having the value 6.62607×10−34 joule-second. In 1905, Einstein proposed radiation itself is also quantized according to this same formula, and he used the new theory to explain the photoelectric effect. Following the discovery of Rutherford’s nuclear atom (1911), Bohr used the quantum theory in 1913 to explain both atomic structure and atomic spectra, showing the connection between the electrons’ energy levels and the frequencies of light given off and absorbed.
All these new ideas about reality in physics contributed to the Age of Anxiety in that the modern theory is formulated in various specially developed mathematical formalisms. In one of them, a mathematical function, the wave function, provides information about the probability amplitude of energy, momentum, and other physical properties of a particle.
Question 2
As a consequence of the new technological dynamics and understanding of nature and physics, the modernists felt a sense of constant anticipation. They did not want to commit to anyone system that would harness creativity, ultimately restricting and eradicating it. The modernist interest in primitivism also expressed itself in its correlative, the exploration of perversity. The obsession with forbidden and lurid was equivalent to a rediscovery of passion, a way of life that many creative people at the time believed to have been repressed or laid dormant.
Modernity, however, was not only shaped by this new technology. Several philosophical theoreticians were to change how modern man perceives the external world, particularly in their refutation of the Newtonian principle that reality was an absolute, unquestionable entity divorced from those observing it.
Modernist Physics takes as its focus the ideas associated with three scientific papers published by Albert Einstein in 1905, considering the dissemination of those ideas both within and beyond the scientific field, and exploring the manifestation of similar ideas in the literary works Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence. Drawing on Gillian Beer’s suggestion that literature and science ‘share the moment’s discourse,’ Modernist Physics seeks to combine and distinguish between the two standard approaches within the field of literature and science: direct influence and the zeitgeist.
The first wave of Modernism as an artistic umbrella movement broke in the first decade or two of the 20th Century, with ground-breaking works by people like Arthur Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky in music; Gustav Klimt, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Marcel Duchamp, Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian in Art; Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe in architecture; and Guillaume Apollinaire, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf in literature; to mention just a few. The movement came of age in the 1920s, with Bauhaus, Surrealism, Cubism, Fauvism, Futurism, and, perhaps, Dada’s most nihilistic.
After World War II, the focus moved from Europe to the United States, and Abstract Expressionism (led by Jackson Pollock) continued the movement’s momentum, followed by movements such as Geometric Abstraction, Minimalism, Process Art, Pop Art, and Pop Music.
By the time Modernism had become so institutionalized and mainstream that it was considered “post-avant-garde,” indicating that it had lost its power as a revolutionary movement, it generated. Its reaction, known as Post-Modernism, was both a response to Modernism and a rediscovery of older forms of Art’s value. Modernism remains much more a movement in the arts than in philosophy, although Post-Modernism has a specifically philosophical aspect and the artistic one.
The turn of the 20th Century was a time rife with change, chiefly in how people began to perceive civilization as a whole and its overall goal. The outbreak of World War I, or the supposed War to End All Wars, and the unprecedented devastation that ensued challenged the foundations of many cultures’ belief systems. This led to a great deal of experimentation and exploration by artists with morality and defining what exactly Art should be and its culture. What followed from this was a litany of artistic movements and styles that strived to find their places in an ever-changing world. They were post-impressionism, fauvism, cubism, futurism, vorticism, constructivism, suprematism, de-Stijl, dad, and surrealism.