Toward a Consistent Dialectical-Materialist Treatment of the Achievements of Modern Physics

(On A. F. Ioffe’s Book Basic Concepts of Modern Physics)

I. V. Kuznetsov, N. F. Ovchinnikov

It is well known how ripe the need is for high-quality popular-scientific literature that, from the standpoint of dialectical materialism, illuminates the most important achievements of modern science. The Soviet reader insistently demands from our scholars serious, profound books in which he would find a vivid characterization of the state of various fields of knowledge, an examination of the experimental foundations of science, an analysis of the most important theoretical propositions, and an assessment of their significance from the point of view of the Marxist-Leninist worldview. By broadening the reader’s general outlook, such books serve as no small aid for wide circles of the Soviet intelligentsia in the study of the philosophical works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism.

Soviet physicists still owe a great debt to the Soviet reader. To this day there are almost no such books in our literature on the questions of modern physics. Yet these questions attract especially great attention from our Soviet intelligentsia, Party and Soviet activists. And this is not surprising. The recent decades in the development of physics have been marked by a series of exceptionally important discoveries of an experimental and theoretical character, which have led to a deepening of the knowledge of the laws of motion of matter, on the basis of which new significant successes of modern technology have become possible.

In studying the works of Marx and Engels, Lenin and Stalin, Soviet readers see what great importance the classics of Marxism-Leninism attached, in particular, to the problems of physical science; how widely they used its data for the development of dialectical materialism; what brilliant forecasts they made with regard to its further development. It is therefore natural that readers should wish to understand the principal conclusions of modern

physics and its achievements, to see how in its development the predictions of the leaders of Marxist-Leninist science are confirmed, how their ideas illuminate the prospects for the further advance of physics.

To convey to the reader in an accessible form the dialectical-materialist content of the achievements of modern physics, to apply the ideas of Lenin—Stalin in exposing the decayed bourgeois ideology that tries to cling to the successes of physical science, to show the creative role of Marxism-Leninism in solving the fundamental questions of science—this means rendering great assistance to the cause of the ideological education of our cadres.

In publishing his book The Fundamental Concepts of Modern Physics *), A. F. Ioffe points out: “The task that I should like to solve in the present book comes down to setting forth the most important ideas of modern physics as the inevitable conclusion from experimental facts discovered in the study of the atomic world. I want to show with what completeness the propositions of the philosophy of dialectical materialism are thereby justified” (p. 8). The author emphasizes that “whichever aspect of the physical problems of the twentieth century we take, we arrive at the inevitable conclusion that the only method leading to a correct understanding of the new facts and of the ideas based on them is dialectical materialism; we become convinced that the paths of development of the new physics are the paths indicated by Lenin and Stalin” (p. 357). He rightly says that to show this, while at the same time exposing the philosophical currents hostile to us, is “the direct duty not only of Soviet philosophers, but also of physicists” (p. 357).

In his book A. F. Ioffe attempts to select, from the enormous number of physical facts and theoretical propositions, what is most basic and most essential, what is most important for clarifying modern conceptions of matter and the laws of its motion, and to present all this in a systematic and consistent form. “The proposed book,” writes the author, “is not a textbook of physics. Therefore I have limited myself to describing only a comparatively small number of facts that lead most directly to the conceptions under consideration and that most sharply illustrate the difficulties and contradictions of the old theories... From the entire wealth of physical knowledge I have chosen only a few problems most characteristic of the new physics: the theory of relativity, the new statistics, atomic and nuclear physics” (p. 9).

Of course, a restriction in the choice of the material presented is wholly inevitable in a book of this kind, and in itself a conscious

) A. F. Ioffe, The Fundamental Concepts of Modern Physics*, Gostekhizdat, 1949, p. 368, print run 50,000. Hereafter, references to pages of this book are given directly in the text.

narrowing of the range of questions considered in it is not a shortcoming, provided only that this choice as a whole does not distort the picture of the basic ideas of physical science.

A. F. Ioffe’s book is written in a lively and clear language. In it the reader receives information about the most important physical facts, becomes acquainted with the experimental foundations of modern physical theories and with the content of a number of physical laws.

The book begins with an exposition of the foundations of the theory of relativity and the conservation laws. The author notes that the study of optical phenomena led in its time to the hypothesis of a mechanical ether. The results of Michelson’s experiments showed that the motion of the Earth relative to a hypothetical immobile ether has no effect whatever on the course of optical phenomena. The so-called special theory of relativity rejected the idea of a mechanical ether as a special hypothetical “world medium” and revealed the close dependence of space and time on the motion of material objects; it showed the connection of space and time with one another, and revealed the interrelation of mass and energy. The general theory of relativity established the interrelation of the geometrical properties of space with the gravitational field.

The next section of the book is devoted to the statistical regularities of classical physics. The discovery of Brownian motion in 1827 was one of the most important experimental facts, the detailed study of which, in the subsequent development of science, led to the discovery of specific regularities characteristic of the enormous aggregates of atoms and molecules that make up bodies. Statistical methods of investigation proved extremely fruitful in the study of the atomic-molecular form of motion of matter. Establishing the dependence of the heat capacity of bodies on the structure and character of the motion of the molecules composing them, revealing the connection between absolute temperature and the magnitude of the mean kinetic energy of molecules, discovering a definite directionality of natural processes, and discovering the connection between the probability of a state and entropy—these are some of the most important results of the investigation of the specific regularities inherent in atomic-molecular motion and considered by the author in his book.

In the third and fourth sections of the book the foundations of atomic physics are set forth: ideas about the structure and properties of atoms. The author briefly considers the development of atomic ideas, adduces experimental data substantiating atomic theory, and sketches the picture of the atomic structure of matter from the point of view of modern physics. The discovery in 1895 of X-rays, the author writes, and the subsequent discovery of radioactivity marked the beginning of a new stage in the development of ideas about the structure of matter. The study of radioactive phenomena led to the establishment of the internal structure of the atom. The discovery-

it became clear that the atom is a complex formation consisting of a positively charged nucleus and electrons revolving around the nucleus. The electron, as one of the constituent particles of the atom, discovered in 1895, revealed an astonishing wealth of properties. The development of physics demonstrated the truth and profundity of Lenin’s remarkable proposition on the inexhaustibility of both the atom and the electron. Modern physics has discovered an entire set of “elementary” particles: protons, neutrons, electrons, positrons, mesons, photons, neutrinos, gravitons. In all “elementary” particles a complex, internally contradictory nature has been revealed, manifested in their possessing corpuscular and wave properties. In drawing a picture of contemporary ideas about the structure of the atom, the author analyzes the physical content of Mendeleev’s periodic law.

In the next, fifth, part of the book, contemporary ideas about the structure of the atomic nucleus and the processes occurring in it are considered. The author characterizes the nuclear forces binding protons and neutrons into an integral atomic nucleus. He tells of the fact that the process of forming the nuclei of light elements, for example helium from hydrogen, is accompanied by the release of an enormous amount of energy. The decay of the nuclei of heavy elements and their transformation into nuclei of lighter elements is also accompanied by the release of large amounts of energy. The book discusses the question of the ways in which the use of intranuclear energy for practical purposes becomes possible. A brief description is given of the experimental methods of nuclear physics.

The concluding part of the book is devoted to “Methodological Conclusions”—an attempt to philosophically summarize the data of modern physics.

A positive feature of A. F. Ioffe’s book is the fact that considerable attention is devoted in it to the presentation of the works of Russian and Soviet physicists. In the book the reader will find the names of illustrious Russian scientists: Lomonosov, Mendeleev, Stoletov, Popov, Lebedev; will become acquainted with the content of the works of Vavilov, Skobeltsyn, Kurchatov, Mysovsky, Zhdanov, Cherenkov, Ivanenko, Leipunsky, and others. As a result, a clear idea is created of the significance of the role played by Soviet scientists in the development of modern physics.

In a number of places in his book A. F. Ioffe seeks to reveal the connection between the development of physics and the development of production and industry (pp. 106, 107, 330, 348). He emphasizes that the main driving force of the progress of physical science “has always been the demands of technology” (p. 348). The author convincingly shows this determining influence of technology by the example of the development of atomistic ideas in the nineteenth century. Of interest are his considerations on the influence of technical practice in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on the very character of the basic physical ideas of that epoch. At the same time he emphasizes,

that the connection between physics and technology is not one-sided—the development of physical science and its successes exert a tremendous influence on the development of technology and production.

Throughout the whole book A. F. Ioffe strives to emphasize the correctness of the ideas of Marxist-Leninist philosophy and, in particular, of Lenin’s brilliant thesis on the inexhaustibility of matter in depth. Proceeding from this, A. F. Ioffe stresses that electrons and, in general, all “elementary” particles cannot be regarded as certain “ultimate,” “simplest” elements of the universe. In reality they are complex formations possessing a definite structure. Having listed the “set” of elementary particles now known, the author writes: “Apparently this set of particles is not the final elements of the real world; apparently they are no more elementary than the 92 elements of Mendeleev’s periodic system, although perhaps their ‘complexity’ will receive a different content” (p. 10). One cannot fail to note the circumstance that in our scientific literature incorrect views are still being disseminated according to which the so-called “elementary” particles are certain completely structureless, absolutely simple formations, possessing not even spatial extension—pure geometrical points. The views of the author, who rejects such a point of view, undoubtedly deserve approval and support.

“It is quite obvious,” writes A. F. Ioffe, “that the ‘nuclear’ stage of our penetration into the boundless diversity of the microworld, reached at the present time, is far from exhausted, that it will be followed by a phase of still deeper penetration into the structure of matter, and that the path into the depths of matter is just as limitless as the successes in the study of the universe around us” (p. 322).

In A. F. Ioffe’s book there are a number of excellently written pages combining precision and scientific depth with vividness and accessibility of exposition; such are, for example, the pages devoted to the characterization of the laws of Brownian motion, electron diffraction, and the corpuscular actions of light. It may be noted in general that the author has been most successful in illuminating the experimental side of the achievements of contemporary physics.

The situation is different with the exposition of the basic theoretical questions. One must state with regret that, on the whole, the attempt to solve the task set by the author himself—of giving a dialectical-materialist illumination of the basic ideas and conceptions of contemporary physics—has been completely unsuccessful for A. F. Ioffe. His book suffers from the gravest ideological-theoretical errors, which greatly diminish its value.

The author begins the exposition of concrete physical material with an attempt to reveal the content of the fundamental laws of physics. Part I of his book is devoted to this: “The Theory of Relativity and the Fundam-

“laws of physics.” It must be admitted, however, that this attempt was not successful for the author. The essence of the basic laws of modern physics remained undisclosed; moreover, it is in many respects presented incorrectly.

First of all, it is objectionable that the author includes the theory of relativity among the basic laws of nature. He places it in the same rank as such a law of nature as the law of conservation and transformation of energy. From his exposition the reader may even get the impression that the theory of relativity is something broader, more generally significant, and richer in content than the law of conservation and transformation of energy. Yet this is incorrect. The law of conservation and transformation of energy is indeed one of the most general laws of nature, admitting nowhere and never any exceptions. F. Engels and V. I. Lenin regarded its establishment as an expression of the fundamental propositions of materialism. The theory of relativity does not have, and cannot have, such significance. It has a limited domain of applicability. By its character it is a macroscopic theory. Its applicability in the realm of the microworld is, in essence, restricted to the case of so-called “free particles” that have flown apart to a great distance after interaction or have not yet entered into interaction. In the case of particles that are in the process of strong interaction with one another, the propositions of the theory of relativity require fundamental reconsideration. Precisely how this should be done is still unclear, and such reconsideration is a matter for the future. But the necessity of it is already being recognized.

Equally problematic is the attempt to extend the theory of relativity to very large regions of the macrocosm. In contrast to this, the law of conservation and transformation of energy holds everywhere and always.

By immeasurably exaggerating the role of the theory of relativity as allegedly one of the universal laws of nature, A. F. Ioffe at the same time diminished and narrowed the content and significance of the law of conservation and transformation of energy. In his book this law is treated only from the purely quantitative side. In this law he emphasizes only the fact that energy is quantitatively conserved. It is no accident that everywhere in the book where this law is mentioned, the author calls it simply the law of conservation of energy (see pp. 6, 35—41, 78, 84, etc.). A. F. Ioffe completely bypassed Engels’ remarkable investigations concerning this law. Yet Engels especially emphasized that the qualitative side of this law has exceptionally important significance. The disclosure of the qualitative side of the law of conservation and transformation of energy constitutes one of Engels’ greatest merits before science. He proved that the point is not only that in any processes of nature energy is quantitatively conserved, but

and in the fact that it is qualitatively indestructible, without losing its capacity for ever new transformations.*) A. F. Ioffe does not reveal the profound physical and philosophical content of the concept of energy, its connection with the concept of motion. He does not show that the law of conservation and transformation of energy is a law expressing the indestructibility and uncreatability of the motion of matter, establishing the inextinguishable capacity of the motion of matter for transformations from one form into another. And in this case the most important propositions of Engels have been bypassed. All this is one of the most serious shortcomings of A. F. Ioffe’s book.

The author has completely bypassed the most important question of the law of conservation of matter. What, then, has modern physics said about the indestructibility of matter? How has modern physics confirmed the fundamental proposition of materialism on the eternity of matter? The reader will look in vain in A. F. Ioffe’s book for a clear and definite answer to these questions. Meanwhile, the law of the indestructibility and uncreatability of matter is the foundation of the foundations of all science and, in particular, of physics. And physics has the decisive role in substantiating this law. How, then, is one to explain the fact that neither in the chapter specially devoted to the “basic laws of physics,” nor anywhere else in the reviewed book, is there a single word about this most important of the laws of natural science?

Is there any internal interconnection between the laws which the author characterizes as the basic laws of physics, or are they completely independent of one another? In A. F. Ioffe’s book they are described as completely isolated and unconnected with one another. Yet Engels already emphasized that the indestructibility of motion is an inevitable consequence of the indestructibility, the incorruptibility of matter. Remarkable is M. V. Lomonosov’s idea of the internal interconnection of the laws of conservation, which constituted the content of that proposition which

) The assertion, still not infrequently encountered in our literature, that the second law of thermodynamics is a law of “degradation,” “devaluation,” “deterioration” of energy, in reality does not express the essence of the second law and directly contradicts Engels’ treatment of the law of conservation and transformation of energy. Energy, which according to Engels is the measure of the motion of matter, cannot lose its capacity to be transformed from one form into another. As Engels emphasized, “motion which has lost the capacity to transform itself into the various forms proper to it, although it still possesses dynamis [possibility], no longer possesses energeia [actuality] and is thus partly annihilated” (F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature*, 1950, p. 17; italics ours.—Author). But this is impossible, because it would mean a violation of the law of conservation and transformation of energy. The circumstance that in irreversible processes (in closed systems) entropy increases by no means signifies that energy “degrades” or “deteriorates” in its quality, losing its capacity for transformations.

S. I. Vavilov called the “law of Lomonosov.” Yet all this remained entirely unused in A. F. Ioffe’s book.

In our view, when characterizing the basic laws of modern physics, it was impossible to bypass the law of causality. It is well known that the law of causality forms the basis of scientific knowledge. Thousands of times idealists have tried to rise up against the materialist understanding of this law, striving to undermine the foundation of the scientific understanding of nature. However the concrete formulations of the law of causality in physics may have changed under the influence of new revolutionary discoveries, the recognition of the objectivity of causality remains the unshakable foundation of all real achievements of physical science. The author of the book should have shown the importance and force of this law, revealed the richness of its content and the refinement of its formulation in modern physics as compared with classical physics. Meanwhile, the law of causality received no illumination in the book.

How, then, do matters stand with this law in modern physics? Is it important and essential for it, or has the situation now changed and can science “get by” without it? A Soviet physicist cannot maintain “neutrality” on this question. Taking into account the tasks of the struggle against idealism, A. F. Ioffe should have been especially attentive in assessing the role and position of this law in modern physics. In revealing the true meaning and significance of the law of causality in physics, the author should have shown the correctness of the view of dialectical materialism on causality as an expression of one aspect of the objective universal interconnection of phenomena, without recognition of which neither physics nor any other branch of natural science can be a genuine science.

By elevating the theory of relativity to the level of a universal law of nature, the author made a most serious error. Added to this is the further circumstance that he failed to characterize its scientific content correctly. His interpretation of the theory of relativity is, in essence, subjectivist in character and, in fact, does not differ from what foreign bourgeois physicists write about the theory of relativity.

From the very beginning, in undertaking the exposition of the theory of relativity, A. F. Ioffe emphasizes that the main thing produced by the emergence of the theory of relativity is a radical change in notions about the measurement of time and space and other physical quantities. Thus he writes: “Einstein showed in 1905 that the experimentally established impossibility of detecting an absolute velocity of motion in space and the independence of the velocity of light from the motion of the source require, for their explanation, a radical reconstruction of the customary notions about the measurement of time and space, the velocity and mass of a body—require notions incompatible with the ether hypothesis” (p. 20).

Having attached decisive significance to the question of the measurement of space and time, the author concentrates all his attention on how properly to “agree” to measure intervals of space—time. From his exposition it follows that the method adopted in the theory of relativity for determining the position of bodies and moments of time is a matter of convenience and of our arbitrary agreement: generally speaking, other methods could also have been introduced, but the method based on the use of light or radio waves is “the best.”

“Let us agree,” writes the author, “therefore to determine the position of a body and the moment of time when an event occurs by means of radiolocation or light signals. If the signal has returned, having been reflected from the body, after \(t\) seconds from its dispatch, then we assume that the moment when it reached the mirror that reflected it lies exactly midway between the moment of dispatch and the moment of return of the signal” (p. 21; italics ours.—Author).

In short, A. F. Ioffe reduces the entire substantiation of the theory of relativity to a purely logical analysis of the procedure of measurement, to the appropriate choice of logically non-contradictory rules for measuring segments of space and intervals of time.

The point, of course, is not that one should deny the necessity of a strictly scientific definition of the rules for measuring space and time. Such a definition and analysis of methods of measurement are absolutely necessary. But in the present case the task is not somehow to agree upon the measurement of space and time, but to show from what properties of material objects, from what properties of space and time themselves, these “rules” follow of necessity. A. F. Ioffe does not show this in his book. The “rules” he formulates for measuring space and time are, in essence, presented as something ready-made, as the result of a conventional agreement.

Of course, the theory of relativity, understood materialistically, has led to a change in ideas about the measurement of space and time. But this is a derivative result, a consequence of the discovery of new specific regularities of the motion of material objects at great velocities, a consequence of changed conceptions of the properties of the object itself, of the properties of space and time themselves. Space and time are forms of the existence of matter. Their properties and the laws of their measurement must follow not from procedures of measurement, more or less successfully defined by one physicist or another, not from how we agree to define space and time, but from the fundamental properties and regularities of moving matter itself. Meanwhile, in A. F. Ioffe’s exposition, matter and its properties in the foundations of the theory of relativity have receded into the background. What remains is the bare procedure of measurement and the notorious “observer,”

to the manipulations to which the author has in fact reduced the whole content of the theory of relativity. The author directly and most closely connects the formulation of the basic propositions of the theory of relativity with the presence of “resting” and “moving” observers, and he reduces the very content of these propositions to the connection between the results of measurements by a resting and by a moving observer. The “observer” simply teems on the pages of Parts I and VI of A. F. Ioffe’s book. For example, we refer the reader to pp. 12, 22—24, 30, 31, 326, 340—341. Here is what we read on p. 30: “One of the most fundamentally important and at the same time unexpected conclusions of the theory of relativity may be considered the assertion that not only measuring rods and clocks give different readings when they move past an observer, but that even the simultaneity of two events cannot be unambiguously established.” Here is another assertion of the author of the same kind, elevated by him to the rank of a most important proposition of modern physics: “Having posed realistically the question of measuring lengths and intervals of time in a rapidly moving system, we at once discover the impossibility of measuring these quantities with the same result for different observers moving relative to one another” (p. 340).

An even more sharply expressed formulation of the role of the “observer” is found on p. 12; here we read: “The dimensions of objects, intervals of time, depend on the motion of the body with respect to the observer” (italics everywhere ours.—Author).

The question arises: does the theory of relativity establish any propositions independently of observers? Do the propositions of the theory of relativity pertain to the material objects themselves? From A. F. Ioffe’s book the reader will not be able to form a correct idea of this. The author, willingly or unwillingly, imposes on the reader the completely incorrect thought that in the theory of relativity the chief role is played by the observer himself, the procedure of measurement, and that the theory of relativity does not deal with objective laws not connected with the observer.

One sometimes hears the opinion that all the shortcomings of such an exposition of the foundations of the theory of relativity, to which A. F. Ioffe has also subscribed, can be corrected simply by ceasing to speak of the “observer,” and by putting in place of the observer an automatically operating instrument that does not require the presence of a living person at the moment of measurement. In reality this is not so. Replacing the observer with an instrument does not correct the essence of this whole conception, does not change the fundamental interpretation of the theory of relativity. In this case, as before, space and time remain something resulting from the procedure of measurement, reduced to aggregates of measurement results, but they will not be objectively real forms of the existence of matter, whose properties

...derive from the properties of matter, are determined by the latter. As before, the reader will have foisted upon him the idea that the changes in intervals of time and spatial intervals required by the Lorentz transformations follow not from the properties of matter, but from the way in which we have agreed to measure space and time.

The author attempts to “rest” the exposition not only of the special, but also of the general theory of relativity upon the notorious “observer.” In trying to explain to the reader the basic propositions of the general theory of relativity, A. F. Ioffe refers, as the most important argument, to the fact that a passenger in a tramcar without windows would not be able to distinguish a change in the tramcar’s velocity from an external force acting upon him (p. 33). And although immediately thereafter A. F. Ioffe qualifies the limited nature of this “indistinguishability” of inertia from a change of velocity, he draws none of the necessary conclusions from this. He presents the matter as though the decision of the question whether a certain objective motion of a material body is free motion “in a space of a special kind” or motion in the presence of, and under the action of, a gravitational field depends entirely on the choice and whim of the observer (p. 33).

The author characterizes in a wholly formal manner the connection between space and time that was discovered by the theory of relativity in the study of motion at high velocity. In his exposition of these questions there is not even a trace of concrete physical analysis, of an attempt to reveal the real physical meaning of this connection. A. F. Ioffe reduces the whole matter to the fact that “we can mentally add a fourth dimension—time \(t\)” to the three ordinary dimensions of space (p. 27). He “derives” the relativity of simultaneity from a conventional geometrical construction that in no way reveals the physical essence of the matter (pp. 30–32).

One manifestation of the erroneous treatment of the foundations of the theory of relativity in A. F. Ioffe’s book is the arguments he develops in connection with the so-called “principle of equivalence” of mass and energy. The content of the well-known physical proposition: \(\varepsilon = mc^3\) the author interprets confusedly, contradictorily, and often even in the spirit of those bourgeois physicists who try to use it as a “confirmation” of energetism.

In A. F. Ioffe’s book we find, on the one hand, repeated statements that mass and energy are supposedly equivalent to one another (pp. 25, 26, 27, 37, and others), that “instead of the law of conservation of energy one may apply the equivalent law of conservation of mass. In essence, this amounts merely to measuring energy in other units—in units of mass, for example in grams (\(1 г = 9 \cdot 10^{20}\) ergs) instead of ergs” (p. 37).

On the other hand, he asserts that “mass is a measure of energy” (pp. 37, 86, 354). In a number of cases A. F. Ioffe writes that “ener-

“energy possesses mass” (pp. 26, 354). Thus, on the one hand, energy and mass are “identical,” since even the fundamental laws to which these quantities are subject are “equivalent” to one another and the whole difference “amounts only to measuring energy in different units.” At the same time, mass turns out to be some special property of energy, for energy possesses mass. This may give occasion to the erroneous view of energy as a certain independent substance. The confusion is aggravated by the definition of mass that the author gives in his book. According to A. F. Ioffe’s definition, “by the mass \(m\) we mean the ratio between the force and the acceleration caused by it: \(m=\frac{f}{a}\)” (p. 24).

The so-called “law of equivalence” of mass and energy in fact does not mean their equivalence or equal value, or, still less, identity, but expresses their close, inseparable interrelation. This law should be called, in accordance with its real content, the law of interrelation of mass and energy, and by no means the law of their “equivalence.” The latter name of the law may lead, and in fact often does lead, to a distorted interpretation of the relation between mass and energy. Statements frequently encountered in the literature, especially foreign literature, that modern physics has supposedly proved “the transformation of mass into energy” or even “the transformation of matter into energy,” are supported, in particular, by reference to their so-called “equivalence.” If A. F. Ioffe himself nowhere in his book speaks of such a “transformation” of mass, or even of matter, into energy, then in his exposition the law establishing the inseparability of two fundamental properties of matter is turned into a simple arithmetical rule that permits energy to be measured now in ergs, now in grams.

Of course, from the magnitude of the change in the mass of a system one can, with complete definiteness, judge the magnitude of the change in its energy. It is precisely the law of interrelation of mass and energy considered here that makes this possible. But it by no means follows from this that mass is equivalent or identical to energy. Supporters of such an incorrect point of view usually refer to experimental data and, in particular, to the so-called mass defect. In reality there is not a single fact confirming this view. In all experimental facts we are dealing not with the “transformation” of mass into energy or with their “equivalence,” but with the directly observed circumstance that every change in the mass of a system corresponds to a quite definite change in its energy and, conversely, every change in energy is necessarily connected with a change in the mass of the system. The untenable conclusion that mass and energy are equivalent to each other, as though mass is transformed into energy or energy into mass—

does not exist; it is not a consequence of the experimental data of physics, but the result of an idealistic theoretical-cognitive attitude.

It should be noted, however, that in his concrete characterization of the energetic aspect of nuclear processes (pp. 251, 255, 311), A. F. Ioffe departs from his erroneous interpretation of the relationship between mass and energy and correctly says that a definite quantity of mass corresponds to a perfectly definite quantity of energy*).

Astonishing is A. F. Ioffe’s desire to give the fundamental laws of physics a deliberately negative formulation. He presents the law of the conservation and transformation of energy as the law of the impossibility of a perpetual-motion machine. He expresses the law of conservation of momentum as an “assertion” of the impossibility of changing the velocity of motion of an isolated system by internal forces, etc. (pp. 39–40). Quite apart from the fact that such a negative formulation extremely narrows the content of the indicated laws, and especially the content of the law of the conservation and transformation of energy, it imparts to the laws of science a specific tone especially dear to the hearts of agnostics and idealists. It is known that many foreign physicists who specialize in distorting the data of contemporary science in favor of idealism consciously strive to give precisely such a form to the laws of physics. They then declare that the essence of scientific knowledge allegedly consists in establishing ever new boundaries for human action: we cannot create a perpetual-motion machine of the first or second kind; we cannot simultaneously measure with arbitrary accuracy the velocity and coordinate of an electron; we cannot exceed the speed of light, etc., etc. Having distorted the meaning of the laws of physics, they call them “postulates of impotence” and try to reduce the entire content of science to these “postulates of impotence.” Instead of criticizing this sort of idealistic fabrication, the author himself involuntarily paves the way for it.

A. F. Ioffe sees the chief merit of the general laws of physics in the fact that “these laws protect newly established theories from gross errors” (p. 40), that they perform a “function of control.”

True, the author immediately adds that the significance of the general laws is not limited to this negative aspect, and in several

*) Serious errors in the exposition of the foundations of the theory of relativity and of the law of the interrelation of mass and energy are admitted not only by A. F. Ioffe. We find the very same errors in the books and articles of various authors in our Soviet literature. Especially numerous are the faulty interpretations of the law of the interrelation of mass and energy. In this respect some authors have gone considerably “farther” than A. F. Ioffe and speak of an alleged transformation of matter into energy.

in a few lines, extremely cursorily and schematically, tries to sketch a picture of the positive significance of these laws. But here, too, his conclusions are very one-sided. It turns out that “alongside the task of testing new theories, the basic laws considered often serve as a source of new ideas” (p. 41). That is all.

However, in addition to all this we learn that these laws set “certain quantitative limits for natural phenomena” (p. 40); but what exactly the author has in mind, and how legitimate it is in general to speak here of any kind of limits, remains entirely unclear. Of course, if the author had undertaken to explain the meaning of these “limits,” he would have been unable to say anything intelligible. The notion of certain “quantitative limits” which the general laws of physics supposedly impose on nature is utterly meaningless.

In the concluding chapter, devoted to “methodological conclusions,” A. F. Ioffe once again returns to an assessment of the essence and significance of the general laws of physics. Yet what he says here does little to improve matters. Moreover, to his earlier inaccuracies and errors the author here adds new ones. Here is a sample of his statements on this subject: “At first glance it may seem that general laws in advance limit the diversity of natural phenomena” (p. 339; italics ours.—Authors). And although the author hastily rejects this supposition immediately afterward, there remains a feeling of extreme awkwardness at the very posing of the question that the laws of nature might “limit the diversity of natural phenomena.”

Still greater bewilderment is caused by the author’s next assertion: “The framework of general laws therefore in no way contradicts the possibility of endlessly improving scientific knowledge, bringing it closer to full knowledge of real actuality” (p. 339; italics ours.—Authors). Everyone knows very well that the establishment of “general laws” is the basis for the development of scientific knowledge, for its deepening. But in A. F. Ioffe it turns out that these laws merely “do not contradict” the possibility of endlessly improving scientific knowledge! How, then, can one imagine scientific knowledge outside the “framework of the general laws” of nature?

The examination of the material of the second part of the book—“Statistical Regularities of Classical Physics”—is given without any connection with the preceding exposition. It remains entirely unclear to the reader for what purpose he studied the pages devoted to the theory of relativity, and in what way, specifically, the assimilation of the propositions of this theory is supposed to help him understand the content of the second part of the book. The issue here is not simply one of method of exposition, nor that the author “po-

“forgot” to use the theory of relativity, but rather that his idea of assigning the theory of relativity to the basic, most general laws of physics was false.

In his exposition of questions of molecular physics and statistical physics, to which the second part of A. F. Ioffe’s book is devoted, the author also commits a number of fundamental errors.

The root defect of this part is that in it what is given, in essence, is a subjectivist interpretation of the laws of molecular-thermal motion. The very character of these laws the author derives not from the objective properties of molecular-thermal processes, but from certain peculiarities of the knowing subject. The author writes that “the most radical path toward understanding these laws” is the path of a detailed tracing of the mechanical (“thermal”) motion of individual molecules. “This path, however, immediately proved unattainable because of the great number of particles and the chaotic character of their motion” (p. 65; italics ours.—Auth.). To this is added the circumstance that for us “individual particles are indistinguishable.” Therefore the detailed tracing of the thermal motion of individual molecules, as unattainable, is set aside and “is replaced by the establishment of average statistical regularities” (ibid.). Statistical regularities of thermal motion are thus not an expression of the fundamental peculiarities of heat, but a reflection of our inability to distinguish molecules from one another and to trace the motion of each of them.

The author repeatedly focuses the reader’s attention on this “inability” of the investigator—on the “impossibility” of knowing “the total number of particles in a given volume,” the impossibility of knowing “what kinetic energy a given molecule possesses,” the impossibility of “tracing the individual impacts” of molecules (p. 65).

This subjectivist understanding of the laws of statistical physics appears still more clearly when the author considers problems of quantum statistics.

Attempting to substantiate these laws, A. F. Ioffe again proceeds from how we perceive micro-objects, from the “indistinguishability of identical particles” for us (p. 161). In this connection he first of all emphasizes that when, for example, two electrons approach one another, “we have no means whatever of finding out which of them we are dealing with at a given moment,” that, as a result of the diffusion of atoms or molecules that has occurred, “we cannot say whether the very same electrons enter the given system that were in it before the encounter, or electrons that have passed over from the second system,” and so on. The most important concept of statistical physics—the concept of probability—and the very method of defining it, the author places in close connection with whether we can “provide with a mark and distinguish” from one another the “elementary” particles of matter, “individualize them” (p. 164).

Probability is thus deprived of its objective meaning, the meaning of an objective characteristic of a phenomenon.

Attempting to justify the necessity of the statistical method, A. F. Ioffe points out: “Thus, if, even without knowing the actual motion of all the molecules of a gas, we were able to determine how the average values change, then we could correctly predict the change of such properties as density, temperature, and pressure in individual parts of the body” (p. 66). Here we again see that the author considers the detailed tracing of the mechanical motion of each individual molecule to be the decisive method for investigating thermal processes, adequate to their very essence. But, in his opinion, one may also be satisfied with the statistical approach, since in one way or another, in the final analysis, it makes it possible correctly to predict the change of a number of properties of bodies. Such an exposition of statistical physics creates an entirely erroneous impression, as though modern physics lacked methods of investigation adequate to the nature and character of molecular processes. By declaring the statistical method to be “the basic procedure for studying atomic phenomena” (p. 66), A. F. Ioffe, under these conditions, arouses a similar doubt with respect to atomic physics as well.

The statistical laws of physics are thus portrayed by the author not as something objective, inherent in the phenomena themselves, but as something subjective, conditioned by our mode of perceiving the phenomena of the microworld.

Considering the second law of thermodynamics, A. F. Ioffe presents the matter as though nature must inevitably arrive at some final “state of equilibrium.” Without in any way limiting the generality of his assertions, the author declares: “Every system must reach its most probable state, near which, with small deviations, it will remain for the overwhelming part of the time. This most probable state is the state of equilibrium. The circumstance that all these assertions are not unconditional but only highly probable is immaterial, since usually their probability is practically indistinguishable from certainty” (p. 76). A. F. Ioffe applies this proposition to the entire universe, interpreting the state of the stellar world known to us merely as a chance “departure from the most probable state” of equilibrium as a result of a certain “fluctuation” (pp. 80, 344).

Thus, in nature there exists a certain final “most probable” state of equilibrium toward which it inevitably strives. In this state all processes cease.

But how is one to reconcile the idea of nature’s striving toward some final “state of equilibrium,” near which the world does not develop, does not undergo an actual history, but disorderly and chaotically, according to the laws of pure chance, changes its own

state, with the dialectical-materialist view of the world as an infinite process of ascent from the lower to the higher, as a process of genuine historical development? Such an “reconciliation” is impossible. The views developed in A. F. Ioffe’s book are metaphysical and mechanistic. If one also takes into account the circumstance that A. F. Ioffe everywhere speaks only of the quantitative conservation of energy and nowhere shows the most important aspect of the law of conservation and transformation of energy—the qualitative indestructibility of energy—then it becomes clear that in his book, in essence, the door is opened to speculations about the “heat death” of the universe, although subjectively the author, undoubtedly, is their resolute opponent.

The author commits very serious errors in his treatment of the history of atomistics, and also in his exposition of the basic ideas of modern atomic doctrine.

Speaking of the physical views of the nineteenth century, A. F. Ioffe states: “There was no direct evidence of the atomic structure of bodies before the beginning of the twentieth century. Atoms were little more than a means for explaining observed phenomena. Therefore reality was often not ascribed to them, and they were used merely as a working hypothesis for discovering new regularities. The true content of natural science was seen in the establishment of quantitative relations between observed magnitudes, and not in the discovery of the hidden mechanism of phenomena. Moreover, the philosophy most influential among natural scientists, in the person, for example, of Du Bois-Reymond and Ostwald, asserted that the atomic mechanism could never be known, that we must forever renounce this task, as we must in general renounce knowledge of the real external world. Formal laws of thermodynamics alone were regarded as the model of scientific knowledge” (pp. 94–95).

One can only be astonished at the extent to which the author here incorrectly depicts the state of physics and chemistry in the nineteenth century.

Of course, there was no direct evidence of the existence of atoms in the nineteenth century. But one cannot say of all scholars of that epoch that for them “atoms were little more than a means for explaining observed phenomena.” Such views were shared by natural scientists who slid into agnosticism. But they were opposed by the progressive views of such scientists as Butlerov, who created the theory of the chemical structure of organic compounds on the basis of a firm recognition of the reality of atoms and molecules; as Mendeleev, who regarded the reality of atoms as the support of scientific knowledge; as Fyodorov, who created the foundations of scientific crystallography precisely because he was a convinced supporter of the recognition of the objective existence of atoms. Butlerov, Mendeleev,

Markovnikov and Fedorov never regarded atoms simply as a “means for explaining observed phenomena,” merely as a provisional “working hypothesis.” The absurd and, in essence, idealistic point of view according to which atoms are only a convenient means of explanation, a fiction, was criticized with striking precision already by Herzen, who called it “cynicism in science.”

The real existence of atoms was recognized by Joule, Krönig, Maxwell, Clausius, and other major foreign scientists.

How, then, could the author “write off” the views of all these scientists when trying to characterize the state of atomistics in the nineteenth century? Not to notice them means not to notice the main thing.

Nor does A. F. Ioffe’s assertion correspond to reality, as though nineteenth-century natural scientists “saw the true content of natural science in establishing quantitative relations between observed quantities, and not in finding the hidden mechanism of phenomena.” Such a point of view was shared by some of them, but it was not the principal, leading one among the greatest scientists of the epoch, who determined the state of science at that time. It is enough to refer at least to the names of the scientists mentioned above, to whom the most important achievements of nineteenth-century science belong, and who proceeded precisely from the idea of the necessity of revealing the internal mechanism of phenomena.

The author’s assertion that the “most influential” philosophy among natural scientists was the anti-scientific philosophy of Du Bois-Reymond and Ostwald evokes the most decisive objections. The agnosticism and subjectivism of Du Bois-Reymond and the idealistic energetics of Ostwald never were and could not have been “the most influential philosophy among natural scientists.” It is enough to recall V. I. Lenin’s indication that reactionary views of this sort took hold of only a certain insignificant part of natural scientists, while the overwhelming majority of them remained on the positions of spontaneous natural-historical materialism.

Finally, in the statement by A. F. Ioffe cited above, an incorrect assessment of thermodynamics also attracts attention. For reasons unknown, he considers its laws “formal.”

The characterization that the author gives of the essence of Machist philosophy in connection with his attempts to characterize the atomistic views of the nineteenth century is vague and indefinite. Criticizing Machism, A. F. Ioffe notes that, according to Machist philosophy, the task of natural science is “only the most convenient description of accumulated experience” (p. 95). But the point is that the Machists themselves understand experience in a purely subjectivist way, and not as natural scientists and materialist philosophers understand it. Therefore, the task of science according to Mach, and those like him, is the description and simpli—

...the ordering merely of our own experiences, sensations. This could not but be pointed out in characterizing reactionary Machist philosophy.

In A. F. Ioffe’s book, the question of the role of D. I. Mendeleev’s periodic system of elements in the development of modern atomic doctrine did not receive proper treatment. The author, it is true, indicates that “for 80 years Mendeleev’s system has been the basis of our chemical knowledge and at the present time remains this basis” (p. 189). But he sets forth the history of the development of modern atomic conceptions in physics in such a way that an entirely incorrect impression is created, as though the periodic system had had no significant importance in the development of conceptions of the structure of the atom, as though these conceptions had taken shape apart from and independently of Mendeleev’s periodic system. The author clearly underestimates the circumstance that the periodic system of elements was the genuine basis for the development of all modern conceptions of the structure of matter.

Precisely as a result of this, A. F. Ioffe depicts the emergence of Bohr’s model of the atom not only as something independent of the periodic system, but, more than that, as something that “illuminated” Mendeleev’s periodic system “from a new side” (p. 325). Of course, after the quantum theory of the atom had been created, it contributed extraordinarily much to the understanding of the periodic system of elements itself. But the indisputable fact is that it was precisely the regularities of the periodic system that served as the starting point and guiding star in the creation of modern conceptions of the structure of the atom and, in particular, in the emergence of the most important idea of the distribution of electrons in the atom among regularly arranged groups and shells. In exactly the same way, A. F. Ioffe depicts the establishment of one of the most important propositions of the modern theory of the atom—the so-called “Pauli principle” (p. 268)—as something completely independent of the periodic system. The author depicts this principle from only one side—from the side of what it contributed to the understanding of the periodic system. But the author says nothing about the fact that the very discovery of this principle was possible only on the basis of the periodic system. As S. I. Vavilov quite correctly pointed out, the “principal source” of the Pauli principle was precisely Mendeleev’s periodic system.

In contradiction with reality, A. F. Ioffe presents the periodic system of elements not as a powerful instrument of scientific research, not as the general basis for the development of modern physical conceptions of the structure of the atom, but simply as passive empirical material awaiting its explanation and interpretation from physics.

It is characteristic that, after setting forth the question of the distribution of electrons in the shell of an atom on the basis of the Pauli principle, the author then writes: “Let us compare (italics ours.—Authors) with these conclusions the periodic system of elements constructed by D. I. Mendeleev” (p. 211). As though the matter concerned something wholly independent of the periodic system and not something that had grown up on its basis.

In the extensive third part of A. F. Ioffe’s book, considerable experimental material is presented, characterizing the properties of atoms and of the so-called “elementary” particles as discovered by modern physics—the atomism of charge, spin, the quantization of the magnetic moment, and the presence of wave properties. However, the author was unable to give a correct theoretical generalization of all this material. The basic ideas of modern atomic physics, to the exposition of which he devoted one of the most significant sections of his book, are on the whole illuminated from erroneous positions.

The main thing in which, in A. F. Ioffe’s opinion, modern physics differs from classical physics is a different solution of the question of measuring physical quantities, a different solution of the question of the accuracy of measurement.

The question of measurement in classical physics was posed, in A. F. Ioffe’s opinion, “abstractly, without taking into account the results of experiment, and sometimes without even thinking about how it would be possible to measure the quantity that interests us” (p. 340). A. F. Ioffe believes that in classical physics many concepts were allegedly “taken on faith”; in particular, such a basic concept as the concept of measurement was taken on faith. The decisive step that modern physics has taken in comparison with classical physics consists, according to A. F. Ioffe, in a “deepened analysis” of concepts, and especially of the concept of measurement.

In characterizing the ideas of classical mechanics about the possibility of precisely specifying the initial data that determine the state of a system, and of precisely predicting the motion of the system at subsequent times, the author considers these ideas an “error,” an “arbitrary assumption,” “ignorance of the properties of the object being studied” (p. 146).

But the matter, of course, is not in an imaginary “error” of classical mechanics, not simply in the “arbitrariness of assumptions” or “ignorance of the properties of the object being studied.” The ideas developed by classical mechanics are fully applicable to the object studied by it. They are not arbitrary and not erroneous, and are based precisely on knowledge of the real object—the macroscopic body. That is why classical mechanics to this day correctly serves the needs of practice, being the theoretical foundation of a number of fields of modern technology. This could never have been the case if its

the most important concepts would be arbitrary, erroneous, would not reflect the properties of real objects, would be based on “ignorance of the properties of the object under study,” and would not take account of “the results of experience.” It is clear that the issue lies not in the “error” of classical mechanics, but in the fact that in the domain of the microworld a fundamentally new object was found, for the study of which the means of macroscopic mechanics are completely insufficient.

What general results, then, has modern physics reached on the question of measurement? A. F. Ioffe writes: “Earlier it was assumed that, although measuring instruments are not ideally exact, in principle an instrument can give the measured quantity with any degree of accuracy. This has turned out to be not entirely true. There exist limits to the accuracy of our measurements which no real instrument can surpass, limits that depend on the properties of the object under study, which differ from the properties of the material point of classical mechanics” (p. 146).

Thus, as the most important conclusion from the achievements of modern physics, in the author’s opinion, there follows the conclusion that there exists a certain insurmountable limit to the accuracy of measurement. The author attempts to confirm this conclusion by the so-called “thought experiment” of determining the position of a microparticle by irradiating this particle with a light wave (pp. 146–147). The whole point here, according to A. F. Ioffe, is that, for a maximally exact measurement of the position of a particle, a wave of maximally short wavelength is required. But a photon of short-wave light possesses great energy (and quantity of motion), and therefore, when measuring the position of the particle, it strongly changes the particle’s velocity, and in such a way that we cannot say exactly how great this change will be. True, quantum mechanics makes it possible to determine what the magnitude of the product of the errors in measuring position and velocity will be. This magnitude, in A. F. Ioffe’s opinion, is given by the so-called “uncertainty relation,” whose meaning he sees precisely in the establishment of a definite correlation between the errors of measurement in all general cases, “whatever perfect instrument we might use” (p. 147).

The existence of the uncertainty relation, which, in A. F. Ioffe’s opinion, establishes a connection between the errors of measurement of the position and velocity of microparticles, “explains the statistical character of the laws of quantum mechanics” (p. 148).

This entire conception provokes the sharpest objections. To reduce the essence of the theoretical achievements of modern atomic physics to the establishment of certain limits of measurement means to interpret modern physics in an agnostic spirit.

It is completely wrong, as A. F. Ioffe does, to explain the character of the laws of quantum mechanics by the existence in the domain

microphenomena of a certain limit of the precision of measurements, by the existence of a correlation between measurement errors. The character of the laws of nature—and the laws of quantum mechanics are laws objectively inherent in the phenomena of the microworld—cannot depend on whether, and with what precision, we measure one or another physical quantity. The subjective interpretation of the statistical character of the laws of quantum mechanics thus echoes the subjectivist interpretation of the laws of classical molecular physics.

In reality the so-called “uncertainty relation” pertains not to the procedure of measurement, not to the errors that characterize the quantitative result of a measurement, not to our information about a micro-object, but to the properties of the micro-object itself. It expresses the most important features of the state of ensembles of micro-objects. The point is not that for ensembles of micro-objects there exist states with simultaneously exact values of coordinate and momentum, but only that we are unable to measure them exactly because, for example, of the interaction of the object with the instrument; rather, it is that ensembles of micro-objects do not possess such a property—a simultaneously perfectly strictly defined value of momentum and coordinate. The uncertainty in the values of momentum and coordinate is by no means an error of measurement, but an expression of the objective features of quantum ensembles as distinct from classical ensembles. The “uncertainty relation” contains not only nothing uncertain; on the contrary, it gives a quite definite law of correlation of the mean square deviations \(p\) and \(q\) in any quantum ensemble.

A. F. Ioffe, wishing to dissociate himself from idealists and agnostics, makes a special reservation to the effect that the uncertainty relation must not be connected with the inability to measure one or another quantity and from this to infer the limits of knowability of the external world (p. 163). But this is precisely a verbal reservation, not connected with his conception as a whole and in no way capable of correcting that conception. The author does not abandon it even when analyzing the concrete physical problems considered in his book. Apart from the author’s will, agnostic conclusions are imposed on the reader, for example, in the exposition of the phenomenon of the passage of micro-objects through a potential barrier (p. 156). Here the author once again emphasizes that we cannot say where exactly the particle is at a definite moment of time, that we could not know the velocity of the particle at the moment of its approach to the top of the barrier, and so on.

The source of these errors lies in the fact that the author has an incorrect conception of the relation between quantum and classical mechanics. Speaking of the presence of wave properties in micro-objects, A. F. Ioffe at the same time actually presents the matter in such a way that

as though, despite this, they possessed a classical momentum and coordinate. The point supposedly consists only in the fact that their state is given not by momentum and coordinate separately, but by their product, called, as the author indicates, the quantity of action. The uncertainty principle, in his opinion, shows simply that the quantity of action changes only discretely by an integral amount \(h\). “However, actual objects also possess wave properties. Their states are determined not by specifying coordinates and momenta separately, but by their product, measured by an integer number \(h\)” (p. 146). We find the same on pp. 148, 153, 355.

In the opinion of A. F. Ioffe, quantum mechanics does not abandon the conception of classical trajectory motion as applied to micro-objects, but preserves it. Here is what we read on p. 153: “In some cases the properties of individual particles moving along definite orbits are manifested.

In other phenomena wave properties are manifested; then one can unambiguously predict the entire course of propagation of the wave, but as applied to individual particles one obtains only the probability of finding particles at a definite place and at a definite time. Yet we always observe only these particles: photons, electrons, atoms, phonons.

Quantum mechanics is a synthesis of these two mutually opposed methods of studying the phenomena of nature. It does not reject, but generalizes them, embracing both sides of atomic phenomena. Quantum mechanics is a higher stage of knowledge of the world in comparison with the one-sided classical mechanics of Newton and the equally one-sided wave theory of Huygens” (italics ours.—Author).

Thus, in quantum mechanics the conception of classical trajectory motion along definite orbits is preserved. Quantum mechanics is simply a synthesis of classical mechanics and Huygens’ wave theory, the shortcoming of each of which, taken separately, lay in their one-sidedness. By supplementing one with the other, we obtain quantum mechanics freed from one-sidedness.

However, such a conception of quantum mechanics is completely incorrect and unfounded. While it is indeed a higher stage of knowledge of the world, reflecting the discrete-corpuscular and wave aspects of the motion of micro-objects, quantum mechanics, nevertheless, is not a synthesis of classical mechanics and wave theory. The state of quantum objects is not given by the product of their momenta and coordinates, but is characterized with the aid of a special \(\psi\)-function, unknown either to classical mechanics or to classical wave theory.

It is precisely because the author, in one way or another, explicitly or implicitly, strives to preserve the conception of classical trajectory motion

in the motion of micro-objects, he also arrives at the conclusion that we do not know the coordinate of the electron, that its velocity is unknown to us, etc. Hence, too, comes his interpretation of the uncertainty relation as a rule determining the magnitudes of the errors in measuring momentum and coordinate.

In A. F. Ioffe’s book the uncertainty relation, as we have seen, is agnostically elevated into the most important, fundamental law of micromechanics. In reality, it does not occupy, and cannot occupy, such a position in quantum mechanics. It is itself a consequence of certain more general propositions. Having inflated the significance of the uncertainty relation and having incorrectly characterized its physical meaning, A. F. Ioffe at the same time refused to consider the genuinely fundamental laws of quantum mechanics that govern the motion of micro-objects. The book almost entirely fails to analyze the physical essence of the new characteristic of the state of micro-objects (the psi-function); it says nothing about the law to which the change of state is uniquely subject (the so-called Schrödinger equation). By this very fact the author deprived himself of the possibility of revealing, with the necessary depth and precision, the peculiar character of the laws of the microworld.

Speaking of the relation between the corpuscular and wave properties of micro-objects, A. F. Ioffe characterizes them as complementary. At the same time he does not oppose his point of view to the so-called “complementarity concept” of Bohr—Heisenberg, nor does he criticize it. Meanwhile, in a popular book intended for broad circles of readers, this would have been especially important. Even a mere external coincidence of terms can in this case be misleading.

The anti-scientific “concept of complementarity” of Bohr—Heisenberg, which uses the contradictory character of the nature of micro-objects for an unfounded renunciation of the principle of causality and for the recognition of the existence of micro-objects in space and time, ought to have met in A. F. Ioffe’s book with the most severe rebuff. Unfortunately, the author did not make use of the experience of the struggle of Soviet physicists and philosophers against the reactionary “concept of complementarity,” and completely bypassed this question.

A serious error, in our view, was committed by the author in selecting the material for his book. He excessively narrowed the scope of the selection and violated the correspondence between the title of the book and its actual content. In its actual content A. F. Ioffe’s book is devoted to the problem of the structure of matter. However, the theme of the book—the basic conceptions of modern physics—obliged the author to—

to devote no less significant a place also to questions of the structure and laws of motion of another fundamental form of matter (alongside substance)—the field, and in particular the electromagnetic field. In essence, the field proved to be outside the author’s attention, and this fundamental problem did not receive any satisfactory treatment. From this point of view, it is very characteristic that A. F. Ioffe, in his table of the basic properties of “elementary” particles (p. 323), completely overlooks such a real “elementary” particle of matter as the photon.

It is impossible in any way to recognize as correct the ignoring, in a book whose task is to present a picture of the state of contemporary physics as a whole, of the problem of the field and of the basic concepts connected with it. One cannot consistently carry through the standpoint of materialism in physics if one renounces the interpretation of the field as a special form of matter, although inseparably connected with substance, yet at the same time possessing specific laws of motion. In A. F. Ioffe’s book the fundamental problems of field theory as a special form of matter are not considered at all; the most important questions of the interrelation of field and substance are not analyzed. Avoiding these questions creates the incorrect impression that substance is, in general, a synonym for matter and that matter exists in one single form—in the form of substance.

In this connection we would also like to note the fact that in many places in his book A. F. Ioffe gives an incorrect definition of “elementary” particles. Thus, on pp. 111, 118, 318, the electron and the positron are defined simply as “charges” of one sign or another, and not as material particles possessing definite properties, including a definite electric charge.

There are substantial flaws also in the structure of the book. Parts one and two are torn away from each other and from the remaining parts. In essence, only parts three, four, and five, devoted directly to questions of the structure of the atom and the atomic nucleus, form an integral whole. The sixth part of the book—“Methodological Conclusions”—is detached from the remaining parts. These “conclusions” are in fact not a conclusion from the factual content of the book, but embrace a number of questions that were not touched upon in it at all. Such, for example, are the questions of physical models, of the role of mathematics and the mathematical method in contemporary physics. The “Methodological Conclusions” constitute a series of brief fragments on various philosophical questions of physical science, only slightly connected with one another. The order in which the individual philosophical questions are presented in the concluding part of the book is more or less accidental.

Although the author strives to direct a significant part of his “methodological conclusions” against “physical” idea-

of idealism and metaphysics, he himself does not overcome those essential theoretical errors discussed above, remaining, in his interpretation of the foundations of the theory of relativity, statistical physics, and quantum mechanics, on unsound positions. Moreover, in a number of respects the errors of the book in its “methodological conclusions” are even aggravated; a number of errors in these conclusions have already been analyzed above.

Here we find an extremely careless attempt to characterize the fundamental feature of materialist dialectics, by which the author understands not the unity and struggle of real opposites, but a “synthesis of opposites”—“of such aspects of a phenomenon as at first appeared contradictory, and sometimes mutually exclusive” (p. 330). In such an exposition the basic law of materialist dialectics is deprived of its genuine content: what is principal in this law—the struggle of opposites—disappears, while the opposites themselves are transformed from real, actually opposing and mutually exclusive aspects of phenomena into such aspects of phenomena as only “at first appeared contradictory.”

In a number of cases the author’s objections to the argumentation of “physical” idealism are inconsistent and do not strengthen the positions of materialism. Thus, for example, having in mind the physical idealists, A. F. Ioffe writes: “The wave laws of propagation, which for the microworld replaced Newton’s mechanics, they turn into the idea of the wave nature of matter. In reality, as we have seen, the wave picture determines only the distribution of particles in space and time. The particles themselves can in no way be replaced by wave packets spreading out with the passage of time” (p. 355). Here completely different things are confused. Indeed, micro-objects absolutely cannot be replaced by spreading wave packets. This had already been established comparatively long ago, and the idealists by no means insist on such a “replacement.” Incidentally, even at the time of its appearance the idea of replacing particles by wave packets in no way had an idealist character. What, then, is wrong with the idea of the wave nature of matter? Are the wave properties of micro-objects not a fact? Does the presence of wave properties in micro-objects contradict dialectical materialism? How, then, can one consider that the motion of micro-objects obeys “wave laws,” while they themselves by no means possess a “wave nature”?

Against what, then, is the author here struggling? This remains completely unclear. One can only guess at it. But in any case, denial of the presence of wave properties in micro-objects, of their wave nature, is not the path of consistent materialism. And, of course, the author is right when elsewhere in his

the book speaks of the wave nature of micro-objects, of their wave properties, as of something entirely beyond doubt.

A. F. Ioffe quite rightly objects to the idealistic term “annihilation of matter.” But his own argumentation is half-hearted and not fully consistent. He writes: “the transformation of two opposite electric charges into two electromagnetic photons is called annihilation of matter, despite the fact that in this process the laws of conservation of energy, momentum, and angular momentum are fully obeyed” (p. 356). First, the whole process of annihilation is here depicted as the transformation of two charges into photons, while nowhere in the book are photons clearly and explicitly included among the particles of matter; nor, similarly, can one simply identify the electron and the positron with a “charge.” Secondly, the author emphasizes that in this process energy, momentum, and angular momentum are conserved, but says not a word about what happens here to matter itself, whether it is conserved. Thus this process is not depicted by the author with complete clarity as a process of transformation of some forms of matter into others.

An attentive reader of A. F. Ioffe’s book cannot fail to notice the circumstance that the author presents modern physical theories, to a certain extent, dogmatically. He shows only their positive aspects, their achievements. And although the author, in general and declarative form, speaks of the inevitability of a deeper penetration into the structure of matter, he does not clearly and explicitly raise the question of the necessity, in connection with this, of a further restructuring of physical conceptions and of deepening the existing physical theories. The book does not show the difficulties of modern physical theories, their limited character, the bounds of their applicability. Without this, the picture of the state of modern physics inevitably proves one-sided, distorting the prospects for the further development of science; the reader forms an erroneous notion of the supposed “completedness” of physical science.

One of the substantial shortcomings of A. F. Ioffe’s book is the fact that it does not give a correct illumination of the question of the relation between modern and classical physics. In a number of places in his book the author tears modern physics away from so-called classical physics, counterposes them as something that excludes one another. Modern physics is depicted by him as something incompatible with classical physics. In the introduction to his book A. F. Ioffe writes: “If in the nineteenth century atomic fields of knowledge peacefully coexisted with the continuous ether and the theory of elasticity, then the further development of atomic physics revealed such profound contradictions that it was impossible to reconcile them with …”

either with the ether, or with all of classical physics” (p. 6, italics ours.—Authors).

The author returns to this same idea in the “Methodological Conclusions.” Here he writes: “The roots of the new concepts are easy to find in the new facts, but they are not to be found in the conceptions of classical physics” (p. 326).

Such a characterization of the development of physics creates the erroneous impression that new views in science arise in complete rupture with the old ones, that classical physics is wholly rejected by modern physics, that in classical physics there was no such objective content as constitutes the unshakable support, the foundation of modern physics. Such a view contradicts well-known facts. It is enough to refer, for example, to the law of the conservation and transformation of energy, D. I. Mendeleev’s periodic law, and the laws of electrodynamics, without which modern physics is unthinkable in any of its branches. The separation of modern physics from classical physics contradicts the dialectical-materialist conception of the development of science as an ever deeper and deeper cognition of the world, each stage of which gives us a particle of absolute truth.

In publishing his book Basic Concepts of Modern Physics, A. F. Ioffe attempted to solve a fully ripe, important, and difficult task. In working on it, it became clear that in recent years the author had taken a certain step forward in the philosophical treatment of the problems of modern physics. In particular, he renounced his former erroneous denial of the inviolability of the law of the conservation and transformation of energy and correctly places it among the fundamental laws of physical science. He correctly characterizes the general philosophical views of Heisenberg, Einstein, Schrödinger, Dirac, Eddington, and Jeans as idealistic (pp. 356–357). However, in the exposition of concrete questions of physical theory A. F. Ioffe was unable to free himself from the influence of their vicious views. As a result, his interpretation of the basic physical theories and concepts in many respects proved to be incorrect and, in essence, contradictory to the extensive experimental material collected by the author in his book.

In order for A. F. Ioffe’s book to solve the important task that faced it and that the author wished to solve, it must be fundamentally reworked.