Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov—the Greatest Russian Scientist

(On the 185th Anniversary of His Death)

M. V. Lomonosov—the Founder of Russian Physics

B. I. Spassky

In April of the present year 185 years had passed since the death of the great Russian scientist Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, the founder of Russian science.

Lomonosov opened a glorious page in Russian science. He was the first Russian physicist and chemist, astronomer and geographer, geologist and meteorologist. He was a historian and the first investigator of the Russian language. He was an untiring fighter for Russian science, for its advanced and original character.

“Combining extraordinary strength of will with extraordinary power of understanding, Lomonosov embraced all branches of enlightenment. A thirst for learning was the strongest passion of this soul, filled with passions. Historian, rhetorician, mechanic, chemist, mineralogist, artist, and poet, he experienced everything and penetrated everything...,” wrote of Lomonosov the great Russian poet Pushkin. Admiring Lomonosov’s many-sided scientific and educational activity, directed to the benefit of the fatherland, Pushkin called him “the first Russian university.”

The famous Russian patriot and revolutionary democrat Belinsky wrote with enthusiasm about the father of Russian science, comparing Lomonosov with the northern lights: “On the shores of the Arctic Ocean, like the aurora borealis, Lomonosov flashed forth. Dazzling and beautiful was this phenomenon! It proved by itself that man is man in every condition and in every climate, that genius can triumph over all obstacles, however opposing—”

sets against him a hostile fate, that, finally, the Russian is capable of everything great and beautiful.”²

Thus highly did the best Russian people already in the last century value Lomonosov, marveling at his genius, which encompassed all the sciences of his time, admiring his indefatigable energy and all his ebullient activity, directed toward the development of science and enlightenment in Russia.

The greatness of Lomonosov’s deeds, which he accomplished in old serf-owning Russia, is revealed still more fully and vividly in our time. Today Lomonosov stands before us in all the brilliance of his genius, as the founder of Russian science, who laid its foundation, its best traditions, and determined its characteristic national features.

Academician S. I. Vavilov writes: “Our language, our grammar, poetry, literature grew out of the richest creative work of M. V. Lomonosov. Our Academy of Sciences received its being and meaning only through M. V. Lomonosov. When we walk along Mokhovaya, past Moscow University, we remember that the activity of this nursery of science and enlightenment in Russia is the development of M. V. Lomonosov’s thought.”³

The life and work of Lomonosov took place in the post-Petrine epoch, whose characteristic feature was the further strengthening of the national state of the landowners and merchants. At that time, in the depths of still-feudal Russia, there were emerging elements of capitalist production, elements of new capitalist relations.

In the eighteenth century the advanced countries of Western Europe were already on the path of capitalist development. Holland, already by the beginning of the seventeenth century, had become, in Marx’s words, “the model capitalist country.” In England, the bourgeois revolution of the mid-seventeenth century, and then the so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, removed the last obstacles to the development of capitalism. In France, the bourgeoisie in the eighteenth century was gaining ever greater influence and was preparing for the struggle for power. In Italy, even earlier than in France, capitalist production had arisen and developed.

The development of capitalist production and bourgeois relations in England, Holland, France, and Italy led to the feudal medieval culture in these countries yielding its place to the new bourgeois culture. Science, in a fierce struggle against the medieval gendarme—the church—won victory, and natural science, which had taken shape as an experimental science opposed to scholasticism, achieved brilliant successes during the seventeenth century.

In the seventeenth century, feudal Russia, in economic, political, and cultural respects, lagged behind the advanced Western...

Western European states, which had already entered upon the path of capitalist development, Russian culture still remained to a considerable degree feudal. The Church still played an essential role in Russian culture of that time. Education and enlightenment were entirely in its hands. The schools then in existence, as well as the higher educational institutions—the Moscow and Kiev Academies—were ecclesiastical educational establishments, and instruction in them was of a purely theological, scholastic character. Experimental scientific research was not yet being conducted in Russia, and Russian technology was based chiefly on the skill of Russian craftsmen, which had attained a high degree of perfection.

Peter I sharply perceived Russia’s backwardness and directed all his activity toward eliminating this backwardness and strengthening the Russian state. Peter’s activity was, in the words of Comrade Stalin, a distinctive attempt to leap out of the framework of backwardness. Peter sought Russia’s access to the Baltic Sea, strengthened the Russian army and navy, built factories and plants, and promoted the development of Russian trade. His activity was progressive; during his lifetime the Russian state was greatly strengthened, and the productive forces of the state received a powerful impulse.

In his activity Peter relied on the noble class and on the emerging class of merchants. Strengthening the Russian state, he strengthened the domination of the landowners and merchants at the expense of the “serf peasant, from whom three hides were stripped” (Stalin)^4.

In the post-Petrine period the further enslavement of the peasantry proceeded. It led to an aggravation of the class struggle, the most vivid form of whose manifestation was peasant uprisings. The intensification of the class struggle also found expression in the sharpening of contradictions between the landowners and the merchant class, as well as within the nobility itself—between its progressive part and its main mass, which in the post-Petrine period was taking ever more definitely the path of reaction.

Peter’s transformations had a great influence on the development of Russian culture and science. In the epoch of Peter the breaking up of feudal culture in Russia began, and together with this began the development of experimental science and the formation of Russian natural science.

The strengthening of the army and navy, the growth of trade and industry required the development of scientific knowledge. “Then he clearly perceived,” wrote Lomonosov about Peter, “that neither regiments nor cities could be reliably fortified, nor ships built and safely launched into the sea, without using mathematics; nor weapons, nor fire-breathing machines, nor medicines for soldiers wounded in battle prepared without physics; nor laws, nor courts of justice, nor the honesty of morals,

without the teaching of philosophy and eloquence, to introduce and, in a word, either in wartime to provide the state with proper defense, or in peacetime to acquire adornment without the aid of the sciences, is impossible” (108)^5.

Here Lomonosov quite correctly, with the exception, perhaps, of “uprightness of morals” and “courts of justice,” explains the interest in the sciences that Peter displayed. The practical needs of the country—this is what prompted Peter, who was strengthening the state of landowners and merchants, to turn to the sciences; and for him “they” had significance above all insofar as they helped solve various military and technical problems.

Peter organized the sending of Russian youth abroad to receive technical and military education there, and then opened the first secular schools in Russia: technical and military educational institutions, craft schools, and “cipher” schools.

At Peter’s direction, technical books and textbooks in the Russian language were published in Russia; an astronomical observatory was opened, and even a Kunstkamera—a natural-history museum accessible to the broad public.

Finally, according to Peter’s plan, but already after his death, the Petersburg Academy of Sciences was organized in 1725; it not only began to “produce” science, but also to disseminate it by printing scientific literature in Russian.

Peter’s transformations created the conditions for the development, in Russian society, of a broad interest in the natural sciences and for the spread of natural-scientific materialism. However, the development of enlightenment in Russia even during Peter’s lifetime encountered direct resistance from reactionary forces: the boyars, the reactionary part of the nobility, and the clergy, who were generally in opposition to Peter and counteracted the transformations of the Petrine epoch.

After Peter’s death, the obstacles to the development of science and enlightenment in Russia increased still further. The representatives of reactionary autocracy, unlike Peter, saw in science not so much benefit as harm, and feared the spread of progressive ideas concerning religious and political questions.

The Church was especially afraid of the spread of “blasphemous” ideas—the Copernican “heresy,” the doctrine of the infinity of the universe and the plurality of worlds, and even the doctrine of the antipodes—and openly and persistently struggled against the penetration among the people of ideas leading to “naturalism” and godlessness. Thus, for example, the Most Holy Synod for several years hindered demonstrations in the Kunstkamera of a large rotating globe, a prototype of a planetarium. Russian priests and theologians incited the students of the academic university against the professors who were lecturing

...in philosophy and expounding the doctrines of Western European philosophers. As late as 1757 the Synod angrily demanded the banning and withdrawal from circulation of Fontenelle’s book Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, translated into Russian by Prince Kantemir.

On the contrary, the representatives of the progressive forces of Russian society, who had warmly supported Peter during his lifetime and considered themselves continuers of his work, after his death came out against the forces of reaction, fought for the development of science and the spread of enlightenment in Russia.

Lomonosov became the spokesman for the interests of the most progressive forces of Russian society of his time. The interests of the simple Russian people, from whose midst he had arisen and in whose creative powers and possibilities he deeply believed, were close to him.

In Peter’s transformations Lomonosov saw a great example for Russia and believed that Russian patriots should continue the work begun by Peter. Speaking of himself and of the difficulties he had to overcome, Lomonosov directly emphasized: “I endure it because I strive to defend the labor of Peter the Great, so that Russians may learn, so that they may show their worth.”

However, Lomonosov had not yet arrived at an understanding that all the misfortunes of the Russian people stemmed from the autocratic-serfholding system.

He saw his chief task as helping to strengthen the economic and military power of the fatherland, to promote the flourishing of Russian science, to raise the cultural level of the Russian people, to spread enlightenment, and to eradicate the vices of serfdom in Russian society.

To the fulfillment of these tasks the first Russian academician, one of the finest sons of the Russian people, devoted all his seething energy.

Lomonosov’s scientific activity began at a time when the Petersburg Academy of Sciences already existed in Russia. The first Petersburg academicians—Euler, Bernoulli, Bülfinger, and others—raised scientific research in the Academy to a high level. By Lomonosov’s time the Petersburg Academy of Sciences had won fame throughout the entire scholarly world as a most important scientific institution in Europe.

However, neither Euler, nor Bernoulli, nor Bülfinger, nor any other of the first Petersburg academicians were yet founders of Russian science. Its founder was Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov.

Invited from abroad, the first Petersburg academicians for the most part worked honestly and conscientiously in the Petersburg Academy of Sciences for the benefit and glory of Russia, which became for many of them a second homeland. But while working for the benefit and glory of Russia, which generously provided them with every condition and did not

desired the bread obtained by the hands of serf peasants, they were, in essence, merely continuing on Russian soil the development of foreign science. In the main they did not differ from their colleagues in the West; they worked on the same scientific problems, followed the same traditions and principles. Each of them enriched his particular scientific field with new knowledge and, as far as possible, applied this knowledge to the solution of practical tasks confronting the Russian state.

Being foreigners who had received their upbringing and education abroad, the first Petersburg academicians could not, in their scientific work, properly reflect the interests and aspirations of the advanced strata of Russian society. Their scientific work did not express, to any significant degree, the fact that in Russia the process of the formation of the natural sciences was only just beginning, and that this process was taking place in struggle against the reactionary forces of tsarist Russia. They were not, in the full sense of the word, fighters for the flourishing of science and enlightenment in Russia. Some of them, after working conditions became difficult for them as a result of the harmful activity of Schumacher, the head of the academic chancery, found nothing else to do but leave, in Lomonosov’s words, “wiping away bitter tears.”

Entirely different was the first Russian academician—Lomonosov. All his activity proceeded in an unceasing struggle for the flourishing of an independent Russian science, for the enlightenment of the Russian people. Throughout his life he fought against the enemies of “Russian sciences.”

Lomonosov waged war against priests who hindered the spread of enlightenment in Russia; he defended the “Copernican heresy” and the doctrine of the plurality of worlds; he persistently demanded that “the clergy not attach themselves to scholars, who show physical truth for the benefit and enlightenment [of people], and especially not abuse the sciences in sermons.” Lomonosov was compelled more than once, in his scientific and literary writings, to speak out against the church and clericalism in defense of science. He had to defend science against churchmen in various forms, beginning with arguments that science and religion are two sisters and do not contradict each other, and ending with direct mockery of priests and religious rites.

Lomonosov carried on a fierce struggle against the German officials who, in the post-Petrine era, tried to dominate the Academy of Sciences. These German officials, who were representatives of reactionary classes abroad, had come to Russia to serve the reactionary autocracy and were its agents in the Petersburg Academy of Sciences. They hindered the development of Russian science, obstructed the training of native scholarly personnel, and stifled the academic university and gymnasium.

Lomonosov had to struggle with tsarist bureaucrats, who treated his projects—aimed at developing Russia’s productive forces—with indifference. He found no support for his proposals directed toward improving the life of the common people and eradicating the vices of the serf-owning system.

Only an ardent love for his homeland and an iron will prevented him from laying down his arms and gave him the strength, to the end of his life, to wage a heroic struggle against the reactionary forces of tsarist Russia.

Lomonosov regarded the creation of cadres of native scholars as the most important condition for the flourishing of Russian science. “Rise up now, encouraged,” he called upon Russian people, “show by your zeal that the Russian land can give birth to its own Platos and to quick-witted Newtons.”

In ardently calling for the appearance of Russia’s own “Newtons,” Lomonosov understood that the task before the first Russian natural scientists was not simply to continue the development of particular branches of Western science and apply that science to the practical needs of domestic industry, the army, and the fleet, but above all to struggle for the development of a scientific materialist worldview in Russia, and also to lay a firm foundation for Russian science, to train its own cadres of scholars, and to create the material base for the development of science.

This task became the basis of all the activity of M. V. Lomonosov.

The extraordinary many-sidedness of Lomonosov’s genius—that is the characteristic feature of him as the founder of natural science in Russia. He was not simply a scholar working in some one field of science; in his creative work he embraced all branches of the knowledge of that time, connected them into a single system, into a single worldview.

He, as it were, summed up and generalized everything that had been accumulated in all fields of science before his time, and at the same time marked out new paths for the development of science.

In doing so, Lomonosov displayed an exceptional independence of thought. He did not wish to be a mere imitator or follower of any foreigner, even of a “celebrated philosopher.” Lomonosov angrily protested against the possibility of numbering him among the followers of one or another recognized authority. “Use your own reason,” he wrote. “Do not count me as an Aristotelian, Cartesian, or Newtonian. If you give me their name, then know that you are lackeys, and my glory falls together with yours” (107)^5.

Relying on the achievements of all the science contemporary with him, Lomonosov advanced new principles and, on their basis, constructed a unified picture of nature. “I wish to base the explanation of nature on

“…a certain definite principle, advanced by myself” (208)^5,—wrote Lomonosov in his notes.

Complete independence and unusual boldness of thought, a gigantic breadth in the formulation of scientific problems, depth and simplicity in their solution, the organic connection of science with the practical tasks of his time—such are the characteristic features of Lomonosov’s scientific creativity.

These characteristic features of Lomonosov’s scientific creativity became the finest traditions of Russian science and, to a greater or lesser degree, are inherent in the work of other Russian scholars. As the organizer and founder of Russian science, M. V. Lomonosov established its best traditions and created its main distinctive features.

Physics played a special role in Lomonosov’s scientific activity. He devoted exceptional attention to this science; in it Lomonosov’s worldview received, perhaps, its most consistent expression.

Physics in the first half of the eighteenth century was characterized by the struggle of two tendencies or schools—the Cartesian and the Newtonian. At the same time the Newtonian school of physics was gaining ever greater influence and was displacing the physics of the Cartesians.

Cartesian physics was the most consistent expression of the mechanical conception of nature. The Cartesians recognized as matter only the simplest geometrical and mechanical properties: extension, magnitude, shape, impenetrability, and inertia; and by the motion of matter they understood only the mechanical motion of its large or small particles. Every interaction the Cartesians reduced to impact or pressure, under which, according to Descartes, the law of conservation of motion is fulfilled.

The Cartesians hoped to explain all physical phenomena on the basis of such an understanding of matter and motion. Any physical theory was to be constructed on the basis of these conceptions. At the same time, the Cartesians, following their teacher Descartes, relied little on experiment and trusted more in their own principles and hypotheses, often falling into outright speculation.

Cartesian methodology, which had dominated in the seventeenth century, soon revealed its weakness, above all in such important problems as the study of the motion of the planets, and also of the motion of bodies in a gravitational field.

Cartesian theories of gravitation and planetary motion did not yield correct results and proved untenable when compared with the experimental and observed facts that science was rapidly accumulating.

Another task was set before science by Newton. He abandoned the attempt to construct a theory of phenomena by fitting it to a Cartesian or any other a priori scheme of conceptions about the nature of matter and interaction. Newton based his theoretical constructions on a careful experimental study of the phenomena under investigation.

Instead of reducing every interaction to a push or pressure, Newton constructed a theory of mechanical motion, abstracting from the nature of the interaction, renouncing a physical analysis of the causes that generate mechanical motion or alter it. To characterize an interaction whose result is a change in the velocity of a body, Newton introduced the concept of force, which he regarded as the cause of motion. This method was a great step forward in the development of physics; it made it possible for Newton to formulate the laws of classical mechanics.

Newton also refused to construct hypotheses about the mechanism by which the force of gravitation acts; he only established its existence and its quantitative characteristics. This enabled Newton to construct a theory of the motion of the planets and to establish the foundations of celestial mechanics.

Having established his method, Newton broke with the Cartesians and became the founder of a new physical school, which received the name Newtonian. However, the methodology, the fundamental principles, and the physical ideas of Newton’s followers were not simply a reproduction and repetition of those of Newton himself, but their development in a definite direction.*)

The development of Newton’s method by the Newtonians proceeded in the eighteenth century chiefly along two lines. First, along the line of extending the Newtonian way of posing questions in mechanics to all of physics, and second, along the line of strengthening formalism and empiricism within the physical sciences.

*) It must be emphasized that the Newtonian school did not stand still, but evolved together with the development of science, and the basic ideas of this school acquired different forms or colorings over time. Thus the Newtonians of the mid-nineteenth century were no longer the same as the Newtonians who were Lomonosov’s contemporaries; and the Newtonians of Lomonosov’s time, in turn, differed both from Newton himself and from the Newtonians of his time.

Furthermore, within the Newtonian school itself there existed, at different times, various kinds of groups, distinguished by different approaches to particular physical problems, as well as by their interpretation of such fundamental physical concepts as force, mass, etc.

In this connection, the brief characterization of Newtonian physics that we have been compelled to limit ourselves to in the present article is very schematic and incomplete. Here we dwell chiefly on the characterization of the Newtonian school of Lomonosov’s time.

The posing of the question by Newton in mechanics led to its great successes, especially in the development of theories of the motion of celestial bodies. This contributed to the fact that Newton’s followers extended his method to all of physics. Gradually there developed among them the idea that not only the motion of planets, but also other physical phenomena, could be represented as the result of the motion of various kinds of material bodies under the action of definite forces.

The development of this idea was, properly speaking, the implementation of the program that Newton himself had outlined for physicists. In the introduction to his Principia he wrote: “It would be desirable to derive from the principles of mechanics the rest of the phenomena of nature, reasoning in a similar way, for many things lead me to suppose that all these phenomena are conditioned by certain forces by which the particles of bodies, owing to causes hitherto unknown, either tend toward one another and cohere into regular figures, or else mutually repel and recede from one another. Since these forces are unknown, the attempts of philosophers to explain the phenomena of nature have hitherto remained fruitless...”^6

In connection with this direction in the development of theoretical thought, the concept of force among the Newtonians acquired fundamental significance. If Newton himself was cautious on the question of interpreting the concept of force and repeatedly emphasized that he was for the time being refraining from discussing the nature of forces and their origin, then the Newtonians, for the most part, did not preserve such caution, and force received interpretation as a primary property of matter, consisting in the action at a distance of some particles of matter upon others, or even as a certain active principle existing alongside matter.

The question of force was also the central question over which the struggle between the Cartesians and the Newtonians flared up. If the Cartesians regarded mechanical motion as the cause of every physical phenomenon, and either did not introduce the very concept of force or introduced it as a derivative concept, as an auxiliary quantity characterizing the contact interaction of bodies, then for the Newtonians, on the contrary, the cause of motion itself was force, which for the most extreme among them was a primary concept.

Thus, to the purely kinetic explanation of nature characteristic of the Cartesians, the Newtonians opposed a dynamic one.

The struggle between the Cartesians and the Newtonians was aggravated by the circumstance that, even during Newton’s lifetime, English clerics tried to use the scientific disagreements between Cartesians and Newtonians in their own interests for the struggle against materialism. The very fact that the force of gravitation could not be explained by mechanical motion they began to interpret as a refutation of materialism. Reactionary—

... Professor Cotes, editor of the second edition of the Principia, which he had falsified, directly declared that anyone who would seek the cause of gravitation was an atheist. It came to the point that the content of Newton’s Principia served as the subject for sermons by the cleric Bentley against atheist materialists. It must be noted that Newton himself took a rather unprincipled position on this question.

Following the program outlined by Newton, the Newtonians began to introduce into science, for the explanation of physical phenomena, the notion of forces of various kinds. Thus magnetic, electric, chemical, and other forces were introduced.

The development of the Newtonian dynamical conception determined, to a certain degree, the development of the corpuscular theory of light, according to which light is a stream of light particles, between which, and the particles of ordinary matter, forces of a definite kind act. The wave theory of light, which explained light as the wave motion of the ether and to which the Cartesians adhered, was rejected by the majority of physicists of the Newtonian persuasion.

The development of ideas about the nature of heat in the eighteenth century also corresponded to the general line of development of the dynamical conception of the Newtonians.

Even in Newton’s time there existed two views on the nature of heat. The majority of physicists, including Newton, held to the kinetic ideas, characteristic of Cartesian physics, on this question, believing that the nature of heat consists in one or another form of motion of the particles of a body or of the penetrating ether. The other point of view consisted in the assumption that heat is a certain subtle matter that fills the pores of bodies when they are heated. Around the middle of the eighteenth century this second point of view begins gradually to displace the first and, by Lomonosov’s time, becomes generally accepted.

The matter of heat—caloric—begins to be interpreted as a certain fluid, the particles of which possess forces of a definite kind. For example, Laplace developed such a theory, concretizing the idea of the forces acting between particles of caloric and particles of ordinary matter.

A whole series of forces introduced by physicists could not, like the force of gravitation, be ascribed to all particles of ordinary matter. Magnetic forces, for example, are inherent only in certain bodies, chiefly iron, and even then only in the magnetized state. Although electric forces are inherent in the majority of bodies, nevertheless only in the electrified state. Therefore physicists were compelled to ascribe these forces not to particles of ordinary matter, but to particles of certain subtle fluids, which are present or absent in the pores of ordinary bodies. By the notion of such subtle, imponderable fluids ...

physicists (as well as chemists—igneous matter, phlogiston) had long and widely used. Only the Cartesians explained, for example, magnetic or electrical phenomena by a special kind of motion of such fluids, while the Newtonians endowed them with certain kinds of forces acting at a distance.

Then caloric and light particles were added to the magnetic and electrical fluids. After the technique of weighing had developed, all these “matters,” naturally incapable of being weighed, received the name of imponderables. Thus the development of physics by the end of the eighteenth century culminated in a definite conception, which received the name of the conception of imponderables.

The development of the Newtonian conception of physical phenomena was connected with the development of formalism and of the descriptive method in science. If Newton refused to construct a hypothesis about the mechanism of the action of the force of gravitation, then his followers declared a refusal to construct hypotheses in general. “This philosopher,” wrote of Newton in the first half of the eighteenth century the well-known physicist Musschenbroek, “endowed with divine insight, accomplished more than all the most inventive minds, taken together, from the very beginning of human wisdom. All hypotheses are now banished”[^7].

A considerable portion of physicists began to content themselves with the simple statement of facts; judgments about the essence of phenomena were considered harmful among them. For the “explanation” of one or another physical phenomenon it was considered sufficient to bring it into correspondence with some forces and their bearers—the imponderables.

The situation that had taken shape in physics at that time (the eighteenth century) was characterized quite clearly by N. A. Umov. In this period, he indicated, “primary forces of matter were laid at the foundation of all phenomena. Every dynamic idea was regarded as a source of exact and firm scientific knowledge; every attempt at a kinetic explanation—as a fantastic hypothesis: in the writings of this epoch, under the heading marked by the symbol ‘hypothesis,’ there stands the assertion that hypotheses must be cast out of physics”[^8].

The conception of imponderables was the most consistent expression of the metaphysical view of nature characteristic of natural science of that period. According to this conception, nature was represented not as a single matter in motion, but as an aggregate of various kinds of matter and of moving principles—forces. The conception of imponderables persisted until the middle of the nineteenth century, when a series of discoveries revealing connections between different forms of motion culminated in the establishment of the law of the conservation and transformation of energy, which brought the conception of imponderables to final collapse.

To the Newtonians, Lomonosov’s contemporaries, the idea of the eternity of the motion of matter, of its indestructibility and non-creat—

rity. Newton himself wrote in his Opticks: “We see, therefore, that the variety of motions which we find in nature is continually decreasing, and that there is a necessity of preserving and replenishing it by means of active principles—such is the cause of gravity, by the aid of which the planets and comets keep their motions in their orbits, and bodies acquire great motion in falling.”^9

Newton’s contemporary and follower Clarke expressed himself far more definitely. In polemicizing with Leibniz, who, as is known, acknowledged that the law of conservation of living forces is fulfilled in nature, Clarke categorically objected to the validity of this law, emphasizing that motion or force in nature are not preserved by themselves, that motion is constantly destroyed and created by the intervention of God.

Newtonian methodology was quite compatible with the idea of the first impulse and even with the idea of the immateriality of force—the cause of motions in the Universe. Therefore this methodology could easily be used to justify idealism and even direct obscurantism. The Newtonians’ rejection of hypotheses was also advantageous to the idealists, since it converged with the thesis of the latter on the impossibility of knowing the world. It is no accident that, even during Newton’s own lifetime, his famous dictum “Hypotheses non fingo” was enthusiastically received by the English clerics, and that the content of his Principia, as indicated above, served as a theme for the sermons of the Pope Bentley against atheist materialists.

The homeland of Newtonian physics was England, where the bourgeoisie, after the so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, shared power with the feudal nobility and concluded an alliance with it against the revolutionary popular masses of the proletariat, the peasantry, and the craftsmen. The English bourgeoisie, which had already won power or had made itself comfortable at the feeding trough of power, was not so much eager for battle against feudalism as it feared broad revolutionary movements. It still needed science for the development of production, but it already feared sufficiently consistent revolutionary conclusions from natural science. This halfway attitude of the English bourgeoisie toward natural science, together with other conditions determined by the very character of the development of natural science at that time, created favorable conditions for the spread of the Newtonian worldview in the eighteenth century.

Such, in very brief outline, were the main characteristic features of the development of physics up to the time of Lomonosov.

In his worldview Lomonosov was a materialist. He understood that only materialist physics had the prospect of unlimited development. Therefore Lomonosov rejected metaphysical-

…half-hearted with respect to idealism and half-hearted with respect to Newtonian methodology. But he did not return back to the Cartesian methodology, which had shown its practical fruitlessness in many questions of the physics of that time. He established his own, far more advanced, materialistic principles, on the basis of which he further developed physical science.

In his scientific work, generalizing the achievements of the science of his time, Lomonosov synthesized and developed the best aspects of Cartesian and Newtonian physics, nowhere descending to simple eclecticism, and raising the scientific method to the next, higher stage.

Lomonosov believed that physical phenomena must be explained only by the motion of matter. He refused to recognize force as the cause of motion, as a certain active principle acting at a distance. Repeatedly, in a number of his scientific writings, he protested against the Newtonian “attractive forces,” objecting to the recognition of “action at a distance”*).

Naturally, in this Lomonosov still could not go beyond the bounds of a mechanistic worldview, which, however, physicists of a much later period also could not do. By the motion of matter Lomonosov understood only mechanical motion, and in the final analysis reduced the interaction of bodies to a push, impact, or pressure.

Lomonosov’s views on the nature of matter and its motion were a further development of Cartesian conceptions. It is known that Marx highly valued Descartes’ physics. “In his physics Descartes ascribes to matter an independent creative force and regards mechanical motion as a manifestation of the life of matter,” wrote Marx about Descartes’ physics. “He completely separates his physics from his metaphysics. Within the bounds of his physics, matter represents the sole substance, the sole basis of being and cognition”^11.

This idea—that moving matter is the sole basis of being and cognition—was developed by Lomonosov in his scientific works to a high degree of perfection for his time.

However, Lomonosov objected to Descartes’ rationalism, to the neglect of experience and the fascination with speculations on the part of his followers, and in his own method developed the basic propositions of the Newtonians concerning experience as the source of knowledge.

Lomonosov believed that the only source of knowledge

*) It should be noted that Lomonosov emphasized the difference between the views on the force of gravity of Newton himself and of his followers. “Newton…,” wrote Lomonosov, “did not accept the force of attraction during his lifetime, and after death was regarded as its arbitrary representative by the superfluous fall of his followers”^10.

is experience. Speaking of the history of science and noting the fact that, after the “barbarous” centuries of the Middle Ages, “in recent times sciences have grown so much that not only in a thousand, but even in a hundred years those living could scarcely have hoped for it,” Lomonosov saw the reason for this in the fact that “now learned people, and especially investigators of natural things, pay little heed to notions born in one’s own head and to empty speeches, but rely more on reliable art. The chief part of natural science, physics, now already has only this one foundation of its own. Mental reasonings are produced from reliable experiments repeated many times” ¹².

But at the same time Lomonosov sharply protests against empiricism and formalism. Unlike the majority of contemporary Newtonians, he believes that the chief task of science is not the description of physical processes, but the study of the structure of matter, the study of the essence of physical phenomena. His words directed against the statement of a certain critic—a “journalist,” who criticized Lomonosov because in his theory of heat he departed from immediate experiment—sound wrathful. “The journalist is already proclaiming his intention; he threatens, lightning is forming in the clouds and is ready to burst forth. Mr. Lomonosov, he says, wants to go beyond simple experiments. As though a physicist had no right to rise above the routine and production of experiments; as though he ought not to subject them to reason and thereby achieve discoveries. Is a chemist really condemned to hold tongs in one hand and a crucible in the other and not rise above coals and ashes” ¹³.

Lomonosov believes that cognition must go beyond the immediate senses. He points out that “physics,” besides the cognition of bodies directly perceived by us, “imagines in the mind that which is hidden from our senses by length of time, remoteness of distance, or the vast bulk of great bodies, or which, because of its immeasurable fineness, is not confirmed by them” (43) ⁵.

Moreover, recognizing as the task of science the investigation of the essence of phenomena, Lomonosov attached exceptionally great importance to studying the structure of matter, to studying the properties of the tiniest particles composing the surrounding bodies, which are precisely inaccessible directly to our senses.

Knowledge of the tiniest particles, Lomonosov points out, “is so necessary to investigators of nature, as those very particles are necessarily required for the composition of bodies” (66) ⁵.

Emphasizing the necessity of studying the molecular structure of bodies, Lomonosov points to the inadmissibility of fabrications and of being carried away by speculations. He criticizes “cautious physicists,” empiricist-formalists, “who do not care to know the shape of insensible particles,” who ignore the study of the properties of microscopic particles. He also criticizes the former Cartesians for

“unsuccessful physical contrivances, wedges, little needles, hooks, rings, bubbles, and other innumerable particles of figure, born without any basis in the head” (194)5, although he does point out that their intention is “worthy of praise.”

Since the tiniest particles of which all bodies consist are not directly accessible to our senses, the properties and actions of these particles are known, according to Lomonosov, by reason. “By reason one must attain a view of the hidden, immeasurably small, measures, motions, and positions of the primordial particles constituting mixed bodies,” writes Lomonosov (66)5.

However, Lomonosov emphasizes that experience is nevertheless also a source of knowledge of them.

Here is how vividly Lomonosov speaks of the knowledge of these particles: “When a suitor, troubled by love, wishes to learn directly the inclination of his bride toward him, then, speaking with her, he notes changes in the color of her face, the turns of her eyes, and the order of her speech; he observes her friendships, dealings, and recreations, questions the servants who attend her when she dresses, when she goes out, and when she engages in household exercises, and in this way in all respects convinces himself precisely of the true state of her heart. In like manner the zealous lover of beautiful nature, wishing to investigate so deeply hidden a state of the primordial particles composing bodies, must look closely at all their properties and changes, and especially at those shown by her closest attendant and confidante, chemistry, which has access to her very inner chambers; and when she unites divided and scattered particles from solutions into solid parts and shows the various figures in them, he must inquire of cautious and sagacious geometry; when she changes solid bodies into liquids, liquids into solids, and separates and combines different kinds of matter, he must consult precise and ingenious mechanics; and when, through the fusion of liquid matters, she produces different colors, he must draw conclusions through penetrating optics. Thus, when chemistry, running about, examines the hidden treasures of her mistress, the inquisitive and tireless lover of nature will begin to measure them through geometry, to weigh them through mechanics, and to inspect them through optics; then it is very likely that he will attain the desired secrets” (67)5.

Lomonosov does not draw a strict boundary between induction and deduction, does not prefer one to the other, but unites them in his method.

“To establish theory from observations,” writes Lomonosov, “and through theory to correct observations is the best of all means of explaining truth” (184)5. In Lomonosov’s scientific method, the scientific hypothesis plays a large role. Remarkable for his time are the words: “In explaining phenomena I shall strive to achieve this: that not only will they be easy to explain [proceeding] from the thesis, but they will also prove the thesis itself” (209)5.

Thus, according to Lomonosov, the scientific method is not the deductive method indicated by Descartes, according to which the fundamental principles are first established and then consequences are logically derived from them by deduction; nor is it the inductive method proclaimed by Bacon and then by Newton in physics, according to which the investigator must gradually pass from particulars to ever more general propositions. According to Lomonosov, the scientific method organically includes both deduction and induction as inseparable parts of a single process of cognition.

Rejecting naked empiricism in science and at the same time recognizing experience as the basis of cognition, combining induction and deduction in his method, and assigning special importance to the scientific hypothesis, Lomonosov strides beyond his time and overcomes the limitations of Newtonian and Cartesian methodology.

A remarkable feature of Lomonosov’s scientific method for his time is the requirement that the phenomena and things of the material world be studied in their connection and interaction.

Lomonosov contrasts himself with the Newtonians, with their extreme metaphysical conception of nature. He sharply objects to the “contrivance” of various kinds of forces and their bearers—weightless matters, which violate the unity of the material world and divide it into separate little cells unconnected with one another.

In considering Lomonosov’s scientific activity, it becomes clear what a great role this principle of the unity of the material world played in his scientific method.

Lomonosov directly emphasized the guiding significance of this principle. Thus, in 1760 Lomonosov conceived the idea of writing a large work in which he intended to set forth his philosophy; he intended to place precisely this principle at the foundation of that work, calling his work: “The Concord of Causes.” Lomonosov sketched a plan for this work, which also included a description of the drawing on the title page. This drawing bore the motto: “Everything is in concord.” In the plan itself we read: “everything is bound together by the single force and harmony of nature”; “The concord of all causes is the most stable law of nature” (202)5.

Elsewhere Lomonosov directly pointed to the guiding role of the principle of the unity of nature and the connection of all phenomena. “How difficult it is,” he wrote, “to establish the first principles: for, whatever might impede us, we must, as it were, with a single glance encompass the totality of all things” (109)5.

Lomonosov conceived of nature as a single whole, in which everything is connected with everything else. In nature, according to Lomonosov, nothing disappears without trace and nothing is born out of nothing. Motion in nature likewise cannot be destroyed or arise, but can only pass from one body to another. All changes in nature

occur in such a way that changes in one body lead to changes in another; in the process, nothing disappears and nothing arises anew, but only passes from one to another. This proposition received its expression in the famous Lomonosov law of the conservation of matter and motion, of which more will be said below.

In developing his scientific methodology, Lomonosov overcame the limitations of the metaphysical worldview of his time. And although, in doing so, he naturally could not yet go beyond the framework of the mechanistic worldview, he nevertheless undoubtedly took a major step forward in the history of science, a step forward in the development of the correct scientific method.

The methodology, advanced for its time, by which Lomonosov was guided in his scientific activity, became the basis of those enormous successes which he achieved in the field of the physical sciences. It became the basis for his remarkable discoveries, which were far ahead of their time.

The most important achievement of Lomonosov in physical science was his theoretical and experimental research aimed at establishing and substantiating the law of the conservation of matter and motion. Considering matter the single substance of the real world, and its motion the cause of all phenomena of nature, guided by the idea of the material unity of the world and of the existence of a connection among things and phenomena, Lomonosov, as was said above, recognized that neither matter nor its motion can either be destroyed without a trace or arise from nothing.

Ideas about the conservation of matter and of motion separately, outside their connection with one another, had been expressed even before Lomonosov. The principle of the conservation of matter was put forward as early as by the ancient atomists, who asserted that nothing arises from nothing and that nothing can be destroyed, that all changes occur as a result of the combination and separation of atoms. The atomic hypothesis was revived in the materialist philosophy and natural science of the seventeenth century, after the Middle Ages, marked by the dominance of idealism, scholasticism, and outright clericalism. By Lomonosov’s time this hypothesis had become generally accepted among natural scientists who took the positions of natural-scientific materialism. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the methods of quantitative analysis and the use of balances began, albeit slowly, to penetrate chemistry. At the same time, Newton established the proportionality between weight and mass, considering the latter a measure of the quantity of matter.

Thus, by Lomonosov’s time, the prerequisites were being created for the scientific substantiation of the hypothesis of the conservation of matter, which until then had been expressed in the form of a natural-philosophical principle,

M. V. Lomonosov—Founder of Russian Physics

and the transformation of this hypothesis into a law of natural science. Lomonosov carried out this most important task as well.

The situation was otherwise with the development of the doctrine of the conservation of motion in nature.

Descartes was the first to express the idea of the conservation of motion in general form; according to him, God preserves in nature a constant quantity of motion. In scientific form Descartes formulated this proposition as the conservation of the “quantity of motion” in the collision of bodies, holding that every interaction in nature is reducible to impact and pressure. By the “quantity of motion,” which according to Descartes was the measure of motion, he understood the product of mass and the absolute value of velocity.

However, it soon became clear that Descartes’ law is not confirmed by experiment, that in the impacts of bodies Descartes’ “quantity of motion” is not conserved and may decrease or increase. It turned out that in the collision of bodies it is not the arithmetic sum of the quantities of motion that is conserved, but only their geometric sum. Such a law at first received the name of the law of the “conservation of directions,” but people ceased to attach to it the fundamental significance that Descartes had attached to his law.

In another form, the general idea of the conservation of motion in nature was expressed by Leibniz; between him and his followers on this question, on the one hand, and the Cartesians, on the other, there arose a well-known dispute.

In opposition to the Cartesians, who held that the “quantity of motion” in Descartes’ sense is conserved in nature, Leibniz set forth the principle of the conservation of forces, understanding by force a certain characteristic of the activity of a body. This activity of a body, in the case of its motion, Leibniz called living force, measured by the product of mass and the square of velocity. According to Leibniz, when a body comes to rest as a result, for example, of lifting, living force does not disappear, but is conserved in potential and can again set the body in motion with the same velocity.

Particular cases of the law of conservation of living forces as applied to certain concrete problems of mechanics—to the problems of the pendulum and of impact—were known even before Leibniz and were used as basic principles for solving these problems. The subsequent development of this law proceeded chiefly along the same line, that is, along the line of its broader application to the solution of problems of mechanics. Leibniz’s general idea of the universality of this law, although acknowledged by his followers, nevertheless did not receive any sufficiently substantial development, since for this it would have been necessary to go beyond the limits of mechanics. Later, with the development of the Newtonian worldview, with the development of formalism in science, the law of conservation of living forces lost its fundamental significance for the majority of physicists. It

became regarded merely as a formal consequence of Newton’s laws for the case of motion, speaking in modern language, in a field of conservative forces. The dispute between the Cartesians and the followers of Leibniz was recognized as an unscientific, natural-philosophical dispute over words.

Such was the state of science on the question of the conservation of motion by Lomonosov’s time.

Lomonosov once again advanced the general proposition of the conservation of motion in nature and, combining it with the general proposition of the conservation of matter, formulated them together as a single universal law of nature—the law of conservation of matter and motion, the law of the universal, all-embracing connection of the things and phenomena of nature.

This is how Lomonosov formulated this law: “All changes occurring in nature are of such a kind that whatever is taken away from one body, so much is added to another. Thus, if matter is diminished somewhere, it will increase in another place; as many hours as someone spends in wakefulness, just as many he will take from sleep. This universal natural law extends also to the rules of motion themselves, for a body which by its own force sets another in motion loses from itself as much as it imparts to the other, which receives motion from it” (193)5.

In formulating the two fundamental laws of nature—the law of conservation of matter and the law of conservation of motion—together, in the form of a single universal law, Lomonosov as if brilliantly anticipates their connection, established by science only a century and a half later.

Lomonosov did not confine himself to formulating in all its generality the law of conservation of matter and motion. For the first time in the history of science, he broadly applied this law to diverse physical and chemical processes, proceeded from it in constructing his scientific theories and in his experimental investigations.

Thus, in substantiating his theory of heat, Lomonosov proceeded precisely from the proposition that motion is not destroyed and is not created out of nothing. “It is very well known,” said Lomonosov, “that heat is excited by motion: hands are warmed by mutual rubbing, wood catches fire from a flame; when flint strikes steel, sparks appear; iron is heated red-hot by forging with frequent and strong blows…” “Further, on absorbing heat, bodies either turn into insensible particles and are dispersed through the air, or turn into ash, or the force of cohesion in them is so diminished that they melt” (44—45)5. Having given these and a number of other examples of the transformation, as we would now say, of macroscopic motion into invisible microscopic motion and conversely, Lomonosov concludes that the essence of heat consists in motion.

To explain the transfer of heat from a more heated body to a less heated one, Lomonosov directly invokes his law.

He writes: “If a warmer body $A$ comes into contact with another body $B$, less warm, then the particles of body $A$ that are in contact rotate more rapidly than the neighboring particles of body $B$. Because of the more rapid rotation, the particles of body $A$ accelerate the rotational motion of the particles of body $B$, i.e., transmit to them part of their motion; as much motion as is lost by the former is added to the latter. Therefore, when the particles of body $A$ accelerate the rotational motion of the particles of body $B$, they slow down their own. Hence—when body $A$, upon contact, heats body $B$, it itself cools” (51)^5.

On the basis of his law of conservation of motion, Lomonosov explains a multitude of other physical and chemical phenomena.

Thus, Lomonosov develops more deeply the conception of the conservation of motion in nature. He goes further than Descartes and Leibniz: he does not confine himself to applying this proposition only to mechanics, but applies it to the phenomena of heat and to other physical and chemical phenomena. Thereby the idea of the conservation of motion in nature is substantiated by Lomonosov with much broader material than among his predecessors; it becomes a guiding principle in scientific research and is formulated as a most important law of natural science.

Moreover, Lomonosov set himself the task of finding a concrete quantitative expression of his general law and of giving it direct experimental substantiation.

Proceeding from his ideas about the atomistic structure of matter, Lomonosov came to the conclusion that, in physical and chemical transformations, the quantity of matter cannot change, and that only a regrouping of atoms and molecules takes place. And so Lomonosov proposes to test his theoretical conclusion experimentally. For this purpose he chooses the reaction of the oxidation of metals. This reaction interested Lomonosov also because the majority of chemists of his time adhered to the phlogiston hypothesis, according to which the oxidation of metals is a process in which a certain combustible principle—phlogiston—leaves the metal, possessing unusual properties, even to the point of negative weight. The latter assertion was based on the fact that the weight of a metal increases when it is calcined.

In addition to the phlogiston hypothesis, there also existed a theory developed by Boyle, according to which the weight of a metal during calcination increases because of the addition to it of “matter of fire.” Boyle developed this theory on the basis of his experiment with the calcination of a metal in a closed vessel. Boyle calcined lead in a sealed retort, having first weighed it. After prolonged calcination, he opened the retort and, having weighed the lead, found that its weight had increased. Boyle explained this result by saying that during calcination,

“the matter of fire” penetrated through the walls of the retort and, combining with the lead, increased its weight.

Lomonosov, an opponent of all imponderable principles, was an opponent of the phlogiston hypothesis and of Boyle’s theory. He understood Boyle’s error and, in order to explain the increase in the weight of a metal during calcination, proposed his own theory, according to which oxidation of a metal is the process of combination of particles of the metal with particles of air.

Lomonosov turned to experimental investigation and carried out experiments on the calcination of metal in a closed vessel. He writes of these experiments in his notes relating to 1756: “By these experiments it was found that the opinion of the famous Robert Boyle is false, for without the admission of external air the weight of the burned metal remains in one measure” (313) ^14. Lomonosov established that the weight of a sealed vessel with metal before and after prolonged calcination remains one and the same.

By these experiments both the phlogiston hypothesis and Boyle’s hypothesis were rejected, and one of the most fundamental laws of natural science was established and substantiated: the law of conservation of substance, or mass.

The law of conservation of substance was the most important achievement of eighteenth-century science. It became the basis for the subsequent development of chemistry and of all natural science. Only 17 years later did the Frenchman Lavoisier, to whom the discovery of the law of conservation of substance was for a long time undeservedly attributed, repeat Lomonosov’s experiments and arrive at the same results.

Lomonosov sought a concrete quantitative formulation also for the law of conservation of motion. He did not consider the question of the measure of motion to have been resolved or settled. He was not satisfied with Leibniz’s measure of motion, just as he was evidently not satisfied with the measure of motion of the Cartesians. In the work “On the Relation of the Quantity of Matter and Weight,” Lomonosov pointed out “that the very first principles of mechanics, even of physics, are still in a period of discussion and that the most eminent scholars of this century cannot come to agreement about them. The most brilliant example of this is the magnitude of the forces of motion, which, according to some, increases in a simple ratio, and according to others—in the double ratio of velocity” (233) ^15.

Euler’s pupil Rumovsky writes in a letter to his teacher: “Lomonosov proposed to the academicians, for resolution, the question: is the quantity of motion proportional to the mass multiplied by the velocity or by the square of the velocity?” and further: “Mr. Lomonosov wants to publish a discourse in which he intends to overthrow everything that has hitherto been discovered... because he proves that the quantity of motion is not proportional to the mass multiplied by the square of the velocity” ^16.

According to Rumovsky’s testimony, it is also known that, in order to resolve the question of the measure of motion, Lomonosov carried out some experiment with a small wheel placed in a channel with water.

Unfortunately, from the published materials one cannot draw a conclusion as to how Lomonosov intended to resolve the question of the measure of motion, what further investigations he carried out on this question, and what results he arrived at.

Of course, one cannot think that Lomonosov could have resolved this question and established the quantitative concrete form of the law of conservation of motion—the law of conservation and transformation of energy. This law could be established much later, only after the various forms of energy, and above all heat, had been quantitatively investigated. However, speaking of Lomonosov’s investigations and ideas relating to the question of the measure of motion, it must be noted that he had his own original and remarkable considerations on this score.

Apparently, Lomonosov did not simply adhere to the Cartesian or Leibnizian measure of motion, but introduced his own corrections into this question. He did not think that, when considering a moving body, one could abstract from the medium surrounding it, and in essence he did not believe that the inertial and gravitational masses of a body are determined only by the “quantity of matter” of that body, as Newton had done. He believed that, for the study and characterization of the motion of a body, it was necessary to take into account also the medium surrounding it, which for Lomonosov was, naturally, the ether. In the already mentioned work “On the Relation of the Quantity of Matter and Weight,” Lomonosov, substantiating the idea that the weight of a body cannot be strictly proportional to the “quantity of matter” in Newton’s sense, wrote: “Indeed, taking the ether, which surrounds all bodies and the smallest particles of bodies, as a dense body, one can in no way decide and determine precisely how much motion must be ascribed to the proper matter of the moving body and how much assigned to the share of the resisting ether” (234)\(^{15}\). From these words one may suppose that on the question of the measure of motion Lomonosov did not wholly adhere either to the Cartesians or to Leibniz. These words also testify to how far ahead, with brilliant perspicacity, Lomonosov was looking. In essence (if one sets aside the mechanically simplified form), the idea expressed by Lomonosov was revived in physics at the end of the nineteenth century in the form of the theory that the energy of a moving body is composed not only of the kinetic energy of the body itself, but also of energy localized in the field surrounding it.

The next step after Lomonosov in the development of the law of conservation of matter and motion was made only in the middle of the nineteenth century. Physics, developing under the influence of Newtonian metaphysics, was alien to Lomonosov’s brilliant ideas about the law of conservation of motion and its guiding role in scientific investigations.

Only in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the immediate needs of practice led natural scientists to the necessity of accepting the law of conservation of energy, only then—that is, a hundred years later—did the remarkable doctrine of the first Russian academician on the conservation of motion in nature receive its further development and confirmation.

The most important achievement of Lomonosov in the field of the physical sciences must also be considered his development of the molecular-kinetic theory of matter, to which his very first works are devoted: Elements of Mathematical Chemistry and the dissertation On Insensible Physical Particles, which remained unpublished in his lifetime. In these works Lomonosov sets forth his basic views on the atomic-molecular structure of matter.

Basing himself on numerous facts, in particular on the fact that in chemical analyses no body is decomposed into an innumerable multitude of parts, Lomonosov convincingly proves that there must exist elementary indivisible particles, which he calls “insensible physical particles.” He also gives them the name of physical monads, contrasting them, as the purely material foundations of things, with Leibnizian monads—ideal, unextended units, against the recognition of the very existence of which Lomonosov categorically protested. The basic properties of “insensible physical particles,” according to Lomonosov, are extension, impenetrability, hardness, and inertia. All surrounding bodies consist of these particles.

Already in these first works Lomonosov formulates the basic propositions of chemical atomistics. He distinguishes simple and compound particles, calling them “elements” and “corpuscles.” Lomonosov’s elements and corpuscles are what later, already in the nineteenth century, chemists called atoms and molecules.

According to Lomonosov, corpuscles may be homogeneous and heterogeneous. Homogeneous corpuscles are those which consist of the same number of the same elements, combined in the same manner. A body consisting of homogeneous corpuscles Lomonosov calls a “principle”; of such “principles” consist “complex” or “compound” bodies. At the same time, a “complex” body consists of two or several different principles, so combined with one another that in each of its corpuscles there is the same ratio of the “principles” composing the body as exists in the entire “complex” body between all the individual “principles.” Thus Lomonosov gives an entirely clear concept of the chemical element on the basis of atomistic ideas and establishes the foundations for an atomistic interpretation of the stoichiometric laws.

In a number of subsequent works on chemistry and physics, Lomonosov further develops the fundamental propositions of chemical atomistics. He concretizes the concept of the chemical element. The individual properties of a chemical element are linked by him with definite peculiarities inherent in the particles of that element alone. Such peculiarities of the elementary particles are, according to Lomonosov, their size (all particles are recognized as spheres) and their roughness, i.e., their ability to adhere to certain other particles.

Chemical atomistics began to develop again only in the nineteenth century, chiefly after the works of Dalton. But Lomonosov, the first Russian physicist and chemist, should rightly be considered its originator.

What was set forth in the dissertation “On Insensible Physical Particles” Lomonosov regarded as his first hypothesis about the “bricks” of the universe, about the principle on which he intended to build an “explanation of nature.” This dissertation was not published, and the manuscript of it that has come down to our time is unfinished.

Further work was to consist in developing this hypothesis and, on its basis, explaining physical and chemical phenomena, which at the same time meant confirming the hypothesis itself. This would have been the execution of the plan for an “explanation of nature” that Lomonosov had outlined for himself, a plan for the construction of physics and chemistry.

All the scientific work of the great Russian scholar is permeated by the purposeful and consistent execution of the plan for constructing his system of nature, or, as he called it, “corpuscular philosophy.” The theory of heat, the theory of gases, the ether theory of electricity and the ether theory of light, and the chemical theories developed by Lomonosov—all these were separate steps in the execution of this plan.

The first step in the development of “corpuscular philosophy” was Lomonosov’s construction of the theory of heat, set forth by him in the dissertation “Reflections on the Cause of Heat and Cold.”

Sharply protesting against the invention, for the explanation of physical phenomena, of all kinds of weightless fluids that violated the unity of the material world and divided it into separate little compartments, Lomonosov energetically objected to the caloric theory that prevailed in his time. In opposition to this theory he developed a kinetic theory of heat.

The conception of heat as the motion of the smallest particles had been fairly widely developed among physicists of the pre-Lomonosov period. However, everything that had been written on this subject consisted only of isolated assumptions and guesses, poorly substantiated and not united into a sufficiently complete theory.

(In Lomonosov’s own time, as was emphasized above, the material theory of heat had begun to prevail.) Lomonosov developed these conjectures to the level of a scientific theory. For the first time in the history of physics, with great thoroughness and persuasiveness, on the basis of observations and experiments, Lomonosov substantiated the doctrine of heat as molecular motion.

The chief arguments on which Lomonosov relied were, as we saw above, the phenomena of the transformation of mechanical energy into heat. Most physicists among Lomonosov’s contemporaries, who stood on Newtonian positions, passed by these phenomena. Lomonosov, however, for whom the principle of the conservation of motion was a guiding principle, made it the basis for constructing the theory of heat and therefore arrived at the correct conclusion that the essence of heat consists in motion. “And since no motion can occur without matter, it is necessary that the sufficient basis of heat consist in the motion of some matter,” says Lomonosov, emphasizing here one of the basic principles of materialism (45)5.

According to Lomonosov, thermal motion is the rotational motion of “insensible particles” that make up bodies. He arrives at this conclusion because, not recognizing forces of attraction acting at a distance, he believed that in solid bodies the particles must necessarily be in contact. And since, when heated, solid bodies retain their external appearance, thermal motion can only be rotational. Hence it also follows, according to Lomonosov, that the particles of bodies must have the form of rough little spheres.

Lomonosov’s theory of heat contains a whole series of extremely valuable details that are consequences of the basic conclusion about the essence of heat. In these consequences Lomonosov expressed a number of propositions that later formed the foundation of the physics of heat.

One of the most interesting consequences is Lomonosov’s establishment of the existence of the lowest temperature, at which the thermal motion of particles ceases, i.e. absolute zero. “Just as no motion can be ascribed the highest degree of velocity, so there is no highest degree of heat,” says Lomonosov (38)5. “Conversely, the very same motion can diminish so much that, finally, the body reaches a state of complete rest—and no further diminution of motion is possible. Consequently, of necessity there must exist the greatest and final degree of cold, consisting in the complete rest of the particles, in the complete absence of their rotational motion” (53)5. Thus Lomonosov formulates with complete clarity the concept of absolute zero.

At the same time, in Lomonosov’s reasoning there is quite clearly contained the proposition that the temperature of a body is the “de-

“the degree of heat” is determined by the speed of motion of the particles composing bodies.

In his theory of heat, Lomonosov comes very close to the concept of heat capacity, although he still incorrectly connects specific heat capacity with other constants of a body, in particular with specific weight.

In developing his theory of heat, Lomonosov relied on experimental investigations carried out by himself. It is known that during the period when he was writing his dissertation “A Meditation on the Cause of Heat and Cold,” he worked a great deal in the physics laboratory of the Academy of Sciences together with his friend, Academician Richmann, on the investigation of thermal phenomena. Richmann’s experimental investigations led, as is known, to the establishment of a formula for the temperature of mixtures, which also served as the beginning of the development of calorimetry.

The next step in Lomonosov’s development of the molecular-kinetic theory of matter was his theory of gases, set forth in the dissertation “An Attempt at a Theory of the Elastic Force of Air.”

Lomonosov begins this dissertation by rejecting false opinions about a non-existent matter of elasticity, allegedly the cause of the elasticity of air. He constructs a kinetic model of a gas, in its basic features coinciding with the model which in the nineteenth century became generally accepted among physicists.

The difference between Lomonosov’s model and the model that was later adopted in the kinetic theory of gases lay only in the mechanism of interaction. If in the kinetic theory of gases the molecules of a gas are taken to be elastic little spheres, then Lomonosov, regarding gas molecules as “insensible physical particles” having no physical structure, could not consider them elastic. The particles of a gas, according to Lomonosov, rebound from one another upon collision in the same way as two rotating tops. The rotation of the gas particles is due to the fact that the gas has been heated to a certain temperature.

Having constructed a model of a gas, Lomonosov explains Boyle–Mariotte’s law on the basis of this model. A very interesting circumstance is that Lomonosov, while giving an explanation of Boyle–Mariotte’s law, emphasized the inevitability of deviations of gases from this law and, in essence, correctly pointed to one of the causes of this—namely, the finite volume of gas molecules. As is known, this idea of Lomonosov’s received its development only in the second half of the nineteenth century.

The ideas about the molecular structure of gases that Lomonosov developed were not entirely new. Such ideas were used by Daniel Bernoulli, an academician of Petersburg. Bernoulli even derived Boyle–Mariotte’s law from these ideas. The same law was also derived by Newton. But Newton proceeded from a static model, according to which a gas consists of particles between

by which central repulsive forces act. As for Bernoulli, although he proceeded from the notion that a gas consists of moving particles, he nevertheless did not develop the kinetic model of a gas in sufficient detail and, in particular, did not emphasize the question of the interaction of particles. Only Lomonosov proposed and, with complete clarity, developed the kinetic model of a gas, gave it a physical foundation, connected it with the kinetic theory of heat, and emphasized the moment of interaction of particles.

The development of the theory of the elasticity of gases, like the development of the theory of heat, was connected in Lomonosov with a whole series of experimental investigations. It is known that Lomonosov worked on experiments with the “Antlia,” i.e. the air pump, and even attempted experimentally to verify the deviations of gases from the Boyle–Mariotte law.

Lomonosov’s investigations on the theory of heat and gases, published in the academic journal Novi Commentarii, were well known to the scholarly world.

Lomonosov’s theory of heat met with a hostile attitude from the majority of physicists contemporary with him. The German physicist Arnold even wrote a special dissertation refuting Lomonosov’s theory of heat[^14].

Lomonosov’s theory of heat was discussed also at a later time. Thus, in Gehler’s solid German physical dictionary, Gehler’s Physikalische Wörterbuch[^17], published in the first half of the nineteenth century, in the article “Die Wärme,” Lomonosov’s theory of heat is examined and given a negative assessment; the author recognizes the caloric theory as the correct theory.

Lomonosov’s theory of gases was also known, but it was not discussed in the scientific literature of that time and was forgotten.

Only in the nineteenth century, after a hundred years, did Lomonosov’s brilliant theories on the nature of heat and the elasticity of gases receive their further development.

The molecular-kinetic theory of matter was developed by Lomonosov also in a number of his other works on physics, as well as on chemistry, on which we have no opportunity to dwell.

These works, like Lomonosov’s dissertations on the theory of heat and gases, did not receive sufficient appreciation in his time. Only one person in Europe, Leonhard Euler, the famous St. Petersburg academician, was able to rise to an understanding of Lomonosov’s theories and his grand designs. In his letter to the Academy concerning Lomonosov’s works Euler wrote: “All these dissertations are not only good, but also very excellent, for he writes on physical and chemical matters, very necessary ones, which until now the most acute-minded people did not know and could not interpret. He has done this with such success that I am completely certain

...of the correctness of his explanations. In this case Mr. Lomonosov must be given his due: he has an outstanding gift for explaining physical and chemical phenomena. It is to be desired that the other Academicians, too, should be able to produce such revelations as Mr. Lomonosov has shown” (94)^5.

A great merit of Lomonosov must also be considered the consistent development by him of ideas on the single nature of optical, electrical, and magnetic phenomena, as well as of so-called thermal radiation and the connection of these phenomena with thermal phenomena, and also with the chemical properties of bodies.

Continuing to advance in the execution of his plan for constructing a “corpuscular philosophy,” Lomonosov devoted much attention to experimental and theoretical research in optics and electricity; at the same time, not wishing to invent electrical and magnetic fluids, or a luminous matter, Lomonosov tried to explain optical, electrical, and magnetic phenomena, as well as the phenomena of thermal radiation, by means of various kinds of motions of only one matter—ether.

Lomonosov developed in considerable detail his original theory of light and colors and set it forth in the scientific work “Discourse on the Origin of Light, Presenting a New Theory of Colors.” With the aid of a whole series of ingenious arguments that were new for his time, Lomonosov refuted the Newtonian theory of the “propagation” of light and substantiated a wave theory. According to Lomonosov’s theory, light is an oscillatory process propagating in the ether. The ether, according to Lomonosov, fills all world space and the pores of bodies. It consists, like ordinary bodies, of the smallest elementary spheres—only of smaller size than the particles of ordinary bodies. The spheres of ether everywhere are in close contact with one another; being rough, they can, along with transmitting oscillatory motion, also transmit rotary motion. Naturally, Lomonosov’s conception of the mechanism of light phenomena as being a certain kind of motion of the spheres of ether is, in the light of modern physics, primitive. Equally primitive, purely mechanical conceptions were characteristic of physicists not only of Lomonosov’s time, but also of a later period, right up to the second half of the nineteenth century. What is remarkable is that already in the middle of the eighteenth century—that is, more than 50 years before Young and Fresnel, in the period of the dominance of Newtonian views—Lomonosov resolutely, with a whole series of new and very convincing arguments, came out in defense of the wave theory of light and refuted the Newtonian corpuscular theory.

In this respect Lomonosov can be compared only with Euler, who, like Lomonosov, defended and developed the wave theory of light.

One cannot but admire a number of ideas, new for that time, set forth in Lomonosov’s theory of light and colors.

Lomonosov attempted to establish a definite connection between the color of a body and its chemical composition; moreover, according to his theory, this connection is determined by the body’s reflecting power, which in turn depends in a definite way on its refractive power, and also on the chemical composition of this body. These considerations of Lomonosov’s were not fantasy or the fruit of abstract speculations, but were based on the enormous experimental material he had collected in experiments on the coloring of glasses, of which Lomonosov carried out more than three thousand.

Simultaneously with the process of the propagation of light, Lomonosov also considered the process of the propagation of heat rays. Lomonosov saw the essence of this process in the propagation of the rotational motion of the particles of the ether. Leaving aside the question of the correctness of the explanation of the very mechanism of thermal radiation, we cannot fail to note that Lomonosov was the first to point to the single nature of light and heat rays. And on this question Lomonosov likewise relies on a large body of experimental material, partially set forth by him in the “Discourse on the Origin of Light.”

Lomonosov did not have time to develop a theory of electricity in detail, although he devoted much attention to experimental and theoretical investigations of electrical phenomena. From Lomonosov’s unfinished work, entitled “A Theory of Electricity, Developed by a Mathematical Method,” and from a whole series of his notes, it is known that here too Lomonosov did not wish to invent a special fluid, and proposed to explain electrical phenomena by the motion of the same ether.

According to his conceptions, electrical phenomena must be explained by the rotational motion of the particles of the ether inside bodies. This motion, like heat, is excited by friction; when this motion spreads outward, heat and light are released—a spark leaps. “With this instrument,” writes Lomonosov, “the electric force acts and is clearly represented, interpreted, and can be proved without the aid of incomprehensibly introduced miraculous matters that enter and leave without any cause, in a contrary motion” (155)5.

Thus, Lomonosov supposes that electrical phenomena have the same nature as light phenomena, and directly connects them with thermal phenomena.

Very little is known from published materials about Lomonosov’s views on the nature of magnetism. It is known only that

and magnetic phenomena Lomonosov proposed to explain by the motion of the same ether.

Thus, leaving aside Lomonosov’s purely mechanical and primitive conception of the mechanism of luminous, electrical, and magnetic phenomena and of thermal radiation—which was natural, as we have emphasized, for the physicists of his and even of a later time—one cannot but marvel at Lomonosov’s brilliant anticipation of the unified nature of these phenomena. It is especially valuable that this idea, which permeates all of Lomonosov’s studies in optics and electricity, is not merely a brilliant conjecture but is based on the numerous experimental investigations that Lomonosov carried out. The published materials show with complete clarity that the numerous experiments which Lomonosov carried out, or intended to carry out, were directed precisely toward the study of electrical, optical, thermal, and chemical phenomena from a single point of view, toward establishing the connection among these phenomena. Here, for example, is a record of some experiments that Lomonosov intended to perform or did perform: “It is necessary to test whether the colors of the rainbow will be brighter in hot water than in cold, or the reverse. The same in electrified and plain water” (107)5; “Will electrified tin melt at a lower degree of fire?” (104)5; “What does the electric force contribute in the dissolution of salts?” (419)5; “The color of electric sparks” (419)5; “Will a ray of light be refracted differently in electrified glass and water?” (103)5, and so on. The last experiment, as is known, was carried out by Kerr in 1875, who thereby established the phenomenon of double refraction.

These examples, whose number could be multiplied many times over, show that the guiding idea in Lomonosov’s investigations of optical and electrical phenomena was the idea of the unified nature of light and electricity and of the connection among luminous, electrical, thermal, and chemical phenomena. All this was a concrete expression of Lomonosov’s basic methodological principle concerning the unity of the material world and the organic, inseparable connection of the things and phenomena of this world.

Lomonosov’s remarkable thoughts on the unity of light and electricity, on the method of investigating various physical phenomena in their organic connection, were far ahead of his time. These thoughts became the theoretical foundation on which physicists of a much later period—the nineteenth century—built their investigations.

Speaking of Lomonosov’s merits in the field of the physical sciences, one cannot pass over his famous studies of atmospheric electricity and the aurora borealis.

Lomonosov conducted experimental investigations of atmospheric electricity with the aid of a “thunder machine,” which was a

an iron pole mounted on a roof or a tree, from which a wire was extended into the room. The wire was attached to a very simple electrometer, consisting of a metal rod with a thread suspended from it and having a scale. This first electrometer had been constructed by Richmann, with whom Lomonosov had initially, until Richmann’s tragic death from ball lightning, conducted experimental studies of atmospheric electricity.

With the “thunder machine” Lomonosov carried out many observations; one of their most important results was the establishment of the presence of electricity in the atmosphere in the absence of a thunderstorm. In a letter to Shuvalov Lomonosov wrote: “I noticed at my thunder machine on the 25th day of this April (1753.—B. S.) that without thunder and lightning, so that nothing could be heard or seen, the thread moved away from the iron rod and followed the hand... something not yet observed anywhere...”¹⁸.

It is very often written that Lomonosov began to study atmospheric electricity in 1752–1753, after Franklin’s work had become known in Russia. Of course, Franklin’s investigations had a certain influence on the direction of Lomonosov’s work; however, it is known that Lomonosov began to conduct observations of thunderstorms and other atmospheric phenomena much earlier, as he himself indicates.

Relying on experiments with the “thunder machine,” and also on his observations in the field of meteorology, Lomonosov developed a theory of atmospheric electricity, which he set forth in the “Discourse on Air Phenomena Occurring from Electrical Force,” read at a public meeting of the Academy of Sciences in 1753.

An important place in Lomonosov’s theory is occupied by the fact, first established by him, that there are ascending and descending currents of air in the atmosphere. According to his theory, the origin of electricity in the atmosphere is explained by the friction of “combustible globules” in ascending currents of air with water vapors in descending ones. These electrified combustible globules and water vapors, owing to their enormous quantity, create immense electric charges in the atmosphere.

If one abstracts from the mechanism of electrification and from the ideas about the carriers of electric charges, Lomonosov’s theory is quite a modern one. Indeed, according to present-day concepts, ascending and descending air currents play an important role in the formation of atmospheric electricity, and the electric charges in the atmosphere consist of negative and positive ions formed in ascending and descending air currents.

As recently as the end of the nineteenth century, many physicists considered the cause of thunderstorms to be the high electronegative potential of the Earth,

but they conceived of the cloud as a conductor charged with electricity. They made an error that Lomonosov did not make two hundred years ago.

Thus, despite the meagerness of the information on electrical phenomena known in Lomonosov’s time, he was able, with brilliant insight, correctly to establish the most general features of the modern theory of thunderstorms.

Also remarkable are Lomonosov’s thoughts on the nature of the aurora borealis. In the essay “Discourse on Air Phenomena Proceeding from Electrical Force,” he quite correctly indicated the common nature of the aurora borealis and the gas discharge. He wrote: “An excited electrical force in a sphere from which the air has been drawn out emits sudden rays, which disappear in the blink of an eye and, at almost the same time, new ones spring up in their place, so that there seems to be a continuous flashing. In the aurora borealis the flashes or rays... have a similar appearance” (310)15. These remarkable thoughts of Lomonosov’s on the nature of the aurora borealis received their confirmation and development only in our century.

Considering the whole many-sided scientific activity of Lomonosov, it is necessary to emphasize the brilliant experimental skill that Lomonosov possessed.

Regarding experience as the source of knowledge, placing the success of science in direct dependence on the development of experimental art, Lomonosov devoted much strength and energy to the development of experimental technique, instrument-making, and the improvement of methods of measurement.

This aspect of Lomonosov’s scientific activity has been studied considerably less than his theoretical works and his scientific and philosophical worldview. His great merits in this area have become known only in recent times.

It is known that Lomonosov was responsible for a whole series of original designs of optical instruments, fundamentally new for his time. Some of them later entered experimental practice and various branches of technology. Thus, Lomonosov’s original design for a reflecting tube was later used by Herschel and other astronomers for the manufacture of large reflecting telescopes. In modern practice, the idea of Lomonosov’s “night-vision tube” is used for night optical instruments and, in particular, in military technology.

Less is known about Lomonosov’s other optical instruments. Thus, for example, little is known about the photometer he built for measuring the brightness of stars, about the underwater tube, and others. However, even what is known about Lomonosov’s optical work shows that

Lomonosov, as Academician S. I. Vavilov emphasizes, was “one of the foremost opticians of his time.”¹⁹

Of very great interest and originality were Lomonosov’s experimental investigations in measuring the force of gravity and tidal force. Lomonosov constructed a number of instruments with which he carried out measurements of variations in the force of gravity and tidal force. Lomonosov conducted these measurements for more than four years; their result was a dissertation compiled by Lomonosov, “On the Perturbation of Gravity,” with a table of observational results (639),¹⁴ which unfortunately has not survived. Lomonosov carried out the measurements with the help of a “pendulum” he had built, i.e., a pendulum, and also of a new, very ingenious instrument—a universal barometer. This instrument was sufficiently precise for determining the tidal force and convenient to use. The idea of this ingenious instrument has also received its development in recent times in the technique of gravimetric measurements.²⁰

Examples of Lomonosov’s experimental skill could be multiplied by mentioning his meteorological and geophysical instruments, instruments for measuring the hardness of bodies, temperature, etc. All these examples testify to us that Lomonosov was concerned not only with the development of advanced scientific theory and advanced scientific methodology, on the basis of which Russian science was to develop in the future, but also with the creation of the experimental technology necessary for such development.

The entire scientific activity of the father of Russian science was closely connected with his practical activity, directed toward the development of Russia’s productive forces and the strengthening of its economic and military power.

In creating physical theories, carrying out experimental investigations, and developing new physical instruments, Lomonosov not only solved the task of founding and developing advanced national science, but also strove at the same time to apply science directly to practice, immediately and as quickly as possible, for the benefit of the fatherland. Lomonosov’s scientific investigations were always, to a greater or lesser degree, connected with solving the practical problems of his time.

When Lomonosov engaged in optical investigations and developed the theory of light and colors, this was connected with the development of the technology of colored glass. Lomonosov developed the technology for producing colored glass at his own factory, built specially for this purpose. From colored glass Lomonosov made numerous articles: beads and bugles, cuff links, snuffboxes, decanters, mugs, cups, and various colored—

utensils, and also mosaic pictures distinguished by great artistic mastery. Such mosaic pictures of his as the “Battle of Poltava” and the portrait of Peter are well known.

The optical instruments that Lomonosov built were needed, in his opinion, not only for physics or astronomy, but also for naval and military affairs. Concerning one of the special designs of a reflecting telescope he directly notes that it was intended for sailors. “The tube therefore,” writes Lomonosov, “will be a foot long and two inches thick. It must magnify 60 times… it is excellent for companions at sea”[^21]. A whole series of other optical instruments built by Lomonosov was likewise intended for practical purposes. For practical purposes he also developed the night-vision tube, which we mentioned above.

When Lomonosov studied electrical phenomena in the atmosphere and constructed his remarkable theory of atmospheric electricity, he connected this with the practical task of “weakening the thunder force in the clouds,” in order to “ward off thunder from our temples.” These investigations were further connected in his work with the study of weather. Lomonosov dreamed of organizing regular meteorological observations, for which he proposed a project for building a network of meteorological stations. He designed an “aerodrome machine”—a helicopter that would rise upward by itself and carry with it self-recording meteorological instruments, the design of which he also developed himself.

In general, Lomonosov devoted much attention to the study of meteorological phenomena and, in particular, to the physics of the atmosphere. In this connection he built original meteorological instruments for measuring temperature, wind speed, and so on. Lomonosov was convinced that the study of atmospheric phenomena would make it possible to predict the weather.

Lomonosov’s remarkable ideas about the aerodrome machine, about a network of meteorological stations, and about weather prediction are ideas of the present day, brought to life only in very recent times.

Lomonosov attached not only theoretical but also practical importance to investigations of the force of gravity and of its changes on the earth’s surface.

Measurement of the tidal force was to have been useful, in Lomonosov’s opinion, for purposes of navigation. He dwells especially on this question in the work “Discourse on the Greater Accuracy of the Sea Route,” written by him especially for sailors. In this work he indicates that the processes of change in the force of gravity, in his opinion, play a large role in the phenomena of tides and ebbs, and also influence sea currents. Therefore

he considered it very important for navigation to study changes in the force of gravity on the Earth.

It is almost impossible to point to any cycles of Lomonosov’s research that were not connected with immediate practical tasks.

The inseparable connection between science and practice ran like a red thread through the entire many-sided activity of the great Russian scientist, who devoted all his genius and all his strength and energy to serving his homeland.

It is impossible to overestimate all that Lomonosov did for the benefit and glory of his fatherland, for the development of advanced science. Only now, analyzing Lomonosov’s activity on the basis of the most advanced Marxist-Leninist theory, do we begin to understand the full greatness, the full breadth, depth, and power of his genius and the place he occupies in the history of science.

Relying on correct methodological principles, on his materialist philosophy, advanced for that time, Lomonosov was able to rise head and shoulders above his contemporaries. Like a searchlight, he illuminated the path for the further development of science—not for 10–20 years, but for many decades ahead. He pointed out new paths for science to his contemporaries. Along these paths physical science achieved its most important successes in the following century.

Contemporaries in the West were unable fully to appreciate and understand the paths that Lomonosov indicated for science. They were unable fully to appreciate and understand his physics. Only the greatest scientist of that time, Euler, rose, as we have seen, to an understanding of Lomonosov’s ideas, thoughts, and intentions.

The remarkable theories of heat and the elasticity of gases developed by Lomonosov were accessible to the entire scholarly world, but remained alien to the physicists of his time, just as the methods and principles by which Lomonosov was guided in his scientific work were alien to them. With their inherent metaphysical narrowness they saw in these works of Lomonosov no more than a return to Cartesianism. “Hypotheses had been banished” from physics, and the overwhelming majority of physicists had turned into guild scholars, afraid of broad generalizations and deep ideas that, to one degree or another, went beyond the bounds of their metaphysical worldview.

Lomonosov’s experimental investigations, known to the scholarly world, were already highly valued during his lifetime, and Lomonosov was known in his own time as a major scientist. Descriptions of his works are found in a whole series of scientific publications of his time. For his merits in the field of the natural sciences, Lomonosov

was elected an honorary member of the Swedish and Bologna Academies of Sciences.

However, the majority of Lomonosov’s experimental studies, which might have brought him great fame during his lifetime, were not widely known and sank into the archives of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Lomonosov’s profound patriotism was also manifested in his tireless struggle for the organization of education in Russia. Lomonosov’s descendants will be forever grateful to him for his great service in the development of education in our fatherland—for the organization of the oldest Russian university. The charter of Moscow University was approved according to Lomonosov’s design; the university curricula were drawn up at Lomonosov’s direction; Lomonosov’s pupils Barsov and Popovsky were among the first professors of Moscow University. Lomonosov wrote and translated into Russian a number of textbooks and teaching aids.

For Russian science and culture, Lomonosov’s significance is inestimable. Soviet scholars still have much to do in order to reveal the profound influence of Lomonosov’s ideas on the development of science in Russia. Recent studies show that the development of physics at Moscow University in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries proceeded to a considerable degree under the influence of Lomonosov’s ideas. The finest traits of Lomonosov’s genius can easily be traced among the leading Russian scholars. The Lomonosov traditions, which became the traditions of Russian science, we find in Lobachevsky, Pirogov, Mendeleev, Pavlov, Petrov, Stoletov, Lebedev, Umov, and other luminaries of Russian science.

There is no doubt of Lomonosov’s influence on Russian philosophy through Radishchev, Belinsky, Herzen, and other progressive Russian thinkers. Lomonosov’s influence on progressive public figures, on the advanced intelligentsia of the mid-nineteenth century, which entered the struggle against the landlord-monarchical order, is indisputable.

Two centuries separate us from the period of Lomonosov’s life and activity. But his profound patriotism, his firmness of principle in the struggle for everything progressive and new, bring Lomonosov close to the people of the Stalin era.

CITED LITERATURE

1. A. S. Pushkin, Complete Works in One Volume, Goslitizdat, 1949, p. 1157.
2. V. G. Belinsky, Selected Works, Goslitizdat, 1949, p. 15.
3. People of Russian Science, Gostekhizdat, 1948, p. 81.
4. Lenin and Stalin, Collection of Works for the Study of the History of the VKP(b), Partizdat, 1937, vol. III, p. 523.

1. M. V. Lomonosov, Selected Philosophical Works, OGIZ, 1940.

2. I. Newton, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, translated by A. N. Krylov, 1915.

3. Rosenberger, History of Physics, ONTI, 1935, part III, issue 1, p. 23.

4. N. A. Umov, Works, 1916, vol. III, p. 112.

5. I. Newton, Optics, GIZ, 1927, p. 310.

6. M. V. Lomonosov, Works, vol. V, p. 98. 1902.

7. Marx and Engels, Works, vol. VIII, p. 154.

8. M. V. Lomonosov, Complete Collected Works, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1950, vol. I, p. 424.

9. A. A. Kunik, Collection of Materials for the History of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the Eighteenth Century, part II, St. Petersburg, 1867, p. 522.

10. P. S. Bilyarsky, Materials for a Biography of Lomonosov, St. Petersburg, 1865.

11. B. N. Menshutkin, M. V. Lomonosov’s Works in Physics and Chemistry, Academy of Sciences of the USSR Press, 1936.

12. P. P. Pekarsky, History of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg, 1873, vol. II, p. 600.

13. Gehler’s Physikalische Wörterbuch (1824—1841).

14. M. V. Lomonosov, Works, Academy of Sciences of the USSR Press, 1948, vol. VIII, p. 128.

15. B. N. Menshutkin, M. V. Lomonosov, Academy of Sciences of the USSR Press, 1947, p. 101.

16. Essays on the History of Physics in Russia, edited by A. K. Timiryazev, Uchpedgiz, 1949, p. 18.

17. M. V. Lomonosov, Works, Academy of Sciences of the USSR Press, 1935, vol. VII, p. 441.