Against Idealistic Distortions of the Concepts of Mass and Energy*

I. V. Kuznetsov

The concepts of mass and energy play an enormous role not only in modern physics, but also in all contemporary natural science and technology. They are extremely important for materialist philosophy as well. The history of the emergence and development of these concepts in science, and especially the history of the establishment and disclosure of the content of the law of conservation and transformation of energy, is one of the most vivid pages in the struggle of materialism against idealism, of science against pseudoscience, one of the remarkable victories of materialism over idealism.

Contemporary idealist philosophy, especially Anglo-American idealist philosophy, which plays the role of the offensive theoretical weapon of the Anglo-American aggressive bloc, again and again distorts the true content of these concepts in order to proclaim the “collapse of materialism,” in order to attack progressive scientific thought. It must be admitted that in our Soviet scientific and popular-scientific literature the views of idealism on the indicated questions have also found a certain reflection. These views hinder the development of advanced science and must be removed from its path.

What is the content of the concepts of mass and energy, and what is their role in modern science?

The idea of mass was first arrived at in the study of the phenomena of inertia. Namely, it was established that all physical bodies possess the objective property that each of them, under the influence of a definite external action, acquires a completely definite acceleration, i.e., changes its velocity in a completely definite manner. This property of every physical body—to change its velocity in a definite manner under the influence

* Expanded text of a report read at a meeting of the Academic Council of the Sector of Dialectical Materialism of the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR on May 13, 1952.

the given action is expressed by a certain physical quantity called inertial mass. Different bodies possess equal mass in magnitude if it turns out that, under identical conditions, under the influence of the same external action they acquire the same acceleration.

The notion of mass was also led to by the study of another group of phenomena—phenomena of attraction, or gravitation. It was established that all physical bodies attract one another according to a certain law, the same for all bodies and called the law of universal gravitation. The force of attraction between bodies is determined by a special objective property of bodies, called gravitational (or “heavy”) mass. Careful investigations showed that the so-called inertial and gravitational masses are numerically equal to one another. The view became generally accepted according to which inertial and gravitational masses are two manifestations of one and the same property of bodies. Thus there arose the idea of the mass of bodies, characterizing both their inertial and their gravitational properties.

The development of physics has shown that there are no physical objects that do not possess mass. The notions, long retained in physics, that there exist certain “weightless matters,” possessing no mass at all, proved untenable. The physical forms, or kinds, of matter known in science—substance and field—possess mass as an inalienable objective property.

One of the most important achievements of modern science is the establishment of the fact that the mass of all practically isolated bodies, whose interactions with the surrounding medium are compensated, remains constant in magnitude. This is the law of conservation of mass: the mass of closed material systems, whatever changes may occur within these systems, does not change numerically. The credit for establishing the law of conservation of mass belongs to M. V. Lomonosov.

It should be emphasized that mass has proved essential not only for characterizing the phenomena studied in mechanics, but also for the phenomena of gravitation. The concept of mass plays a most important role in other branches of physical science as well. It is impossible, for example, to investigate thermal processes in bodies without relying on the concept of mass; even such a characteristic of the thermal properties of bodies as their heat capacity is essentially connected with mass, proportional to it. The development of electrodynamics led to a new step in the elaboration of ideas about mass—to the generalization of the concept of mass to the electromagnetic field. In this, the remarkable works of P. N. Lebedev played a decisive role.

The periodic law of the chemical elements eloquently demonstrated the enormous importance of mass for the study of atomic phenomena.

and the periodic system of D. I. Mendeleev is one of the greatest achievements of physical and chemical science, lying at the foundation of the whole modern doctrine of the structure of matter. The arrangement of the elements according to the masses of their atoms served D. I. Mendeleev as a guiding principle. In his Principles of Chemistry he wrote: “...in the sense of all exact knowledge about the phenomena of nature, the mass of a substance is precisely that property of it on which all its other properties must depend... Therefore it is most natural and appropriate to seek dependencies between the properties and similarities of the elements, on the one hand, and their atomic weights, on the other”*).

Modern physics has not only not rejected the recognition of this most important role of mass in atomic physics, but, on the contrary, has provided new confirmations of the fundamental significance of mass.

As is known, the direct attribute of a chemical element is the charge of the nuclei of the atoms corresponding to it, which determines the place of the chemical element in D. I. Mendeleev’s periodic system. However, the increase in the charge of atomic nuclei in passing through the periodic system from one chemical element to another is, in general, connected with an increase in their mass. Elements with a small nuclear charge also have a relatively small mass. There is no considerable gap between the value of the nuclear charge and its mass: in nature there are no nuclei with a very large charge but small mass, or with a small charge but large mass. Mass is one of the decisive conditions determining the stability of atomic nuclei: atomic nuclei are stable in the case when the difference between the mass number and the charge of the nucleus does not exceed certain comparatively narrow limits; otherwise atomic nuclei become unstable and in one way or another decay. The stability of atomic nuclei, characterized by the magnitude of the binding of nucleons in the atomic nucleus, is directly connected with how much the mass of the nucleus differs from the sum of the masses of the isolated nucleons before their combination into an atomic nucleus (the so-called mass defect).

Investigations of “elementary” particles show that mass is very substantial not only for the stability of complex atomic formations, but also for the stability of simpler micro-objects. Mass is, along with electric charge, one of the decisive factors which also determine the stability of the “elementary” particles of matter. Moreover, apparently, what is important is not so much the sign of the charge of the “elementary” particle as the very fact of the presence or absence of charge in the particle. But the presence or absence of charge also affects the stability of “elementary” particles differently under various

*) D. I. Mendeleev, Principles of Chemistry, vol. II, 1947, p. 80.

masses. All this is especially clearly seen in the example of the group of particles called mesons: $\mu^+$-, $\mu^-$-, $\pi^+$-, $\pi^-$-, $\pi^\circ$-, $\tau^+$-, $\tau^-$-, $\tau^\circ$-mesons. If we consider only charged mesons ($\mu^\pm$, $\pi^\pm$, $\tau^\pm$ mesons), then we can state that, while the mass of these mesons increases in the interval from 200 to 1000 units (electron masses), their mean lifetime rapidly decreases, changing in order of magnitude from $10^{-6}$ sec. to $10^{-12}$ sec.*) At the same time, the sign of the meson charge has no influence on their mean lifetime: positively and negatively charged mesons of the same mass and the same spin have equal lifetimes ($\mu^+$ and $\mu^-$ mesons). On the other hand, $\pi^+$ and $\pi^-$ mesons, with numerically equal charges and equal spins, have somewhat different masses; accordingly, their lifetimes are also different, the heavier $\pi^-$ mesons having a shorter lifetime. However, the presence of charge has a substantial effect on the stability of mesons. Thus, the $\pi^\circ$ meson, with a relatively insignificant difference in mass compared with the mass of $\pi^\pm$ mesons and with the same spin, has a mean lifetime not of $10^{-8}$ sec., but less than $5\cdot 10^{-14}$ sec. But the absence of charge at a meson mass of 900 units is no longer in any noticeable way reflected in the mean lifetime of mesons: both the charged $\tau^\pm$ mesons and the neutral $\tau^\circ$ mesons have lifetimes of one order—namely, of the order of $2\cdot 10^{-10}$ sec.

Modern physics of “elementary” particles has revealed the significance of mass in microprocesses from yet another new side. In classical physics the general character of the equations of motion of material objects did not depend on their masses: material objects, however greatly they differed in their mass, were regarded as obeying one and the same equations of motion. In contrast to this, in modern microphysics it has been established that the very type and general character of the regularities of motion of micro-objects is closely connected with the mass inherent in these micro-objects. Thus, for example, photons, which do not possess the so-called “rest mass,” obey one quite definite law of motion, expressed by Maxwell’s equations. Electrons and positrons, possessing rest masses, obey an entirely different law of motion, expressed by the Dirac equation. Mesons—particles with a greater rest mass than electrons and positrons—possess a special law of motion, expressed by other equations. For “elementary” particles possessing still greater mass—for protons and neutrons—the exact form of the laws of motion has not yet been found, but it has become clear that they differ from the already known laws for other micro-objects and cannot be reduced to them.

Apparently, it is not mass alone by itself that determines the regularities of motion of micro-objects: a very essential role

*) See, for example, C. Powell, Mesons, UFN, vol. XLV, p. 99, 1951.

also play a role here, as do the charge of the particles and their spin; and it is precisely by the totality of the values of mass, charge, and spin that the equations of motion are completely determined. But when charge and spin are the same, the difference in the equations of motion is directly connected with the difference in the masses of micro-objects.

All that has been said means, on the one hand, that matter and motion are inseparable: every qualitatively distinctive form of matter has laws of motion characteristic of it. On the other hand, it follows from this that mass is not an accidental, relatively inessential attribute of material objects, but one of the fundamental properties of matter: mass is inherent in all physical objects; it is uncreatable and indestructible; it determines the inertial and gravitational properties of physical objects; the essential features of the motion of physical objects and their relative stability are also closely connected with it.

Expressing mass in the same measure, for example in grams, one should not, however, necessarily think that mass is something completely uniform in all qualitatively different material objects. The totality of the facts now known gives grounds for supposing that the mass of qualitatively different physical objects is qualitatively different. The mass of photons, for example, is one thing, and the mass of electrons is another. It may happen that the mass of a photon of very high frequency will turn out to be, in order of magnitude, comparable with the mass of an electron. But this does not mean that the physical nature itself of the masses of these different particles of matter is one and the same. The qualitative difference between the masses of the indicated particles is already shown by the fact that the photon does not have the so-called rest mass, whereas the electron does possess it.

One of the most important achievements of twentieth-century physical science is the fact that physics has come to recognize the necessity of disclosing the nature of mass, the necessity of its physical interpretation. In contrast to the earlier view of mass as a certain “innate,” immutable property of matter, dependent on nothing, connected neither with the motion of bodies nor with the surrounding material conditions, the existence of which can only be stated but not explained, modern physics strives to understand mass in inseparable connection with motion, in its conditioning by the surrounding material conditions. Modern physics strives to understand the physical nature of mass on the basis of disclosing the essence of the connection of material objects with the fields surrounding them. Thus, the change in the mass of charged moving particles with velocity is explained by a change in the character of the connection of these particles with the electromagnetic field. The difference in the connection of such particles of matter as the electron, meson, proton, and neutron with fields apparently testifies to the presence in them of masses of different nature.

Establishing that the mass of particles of matter, in particular electrons, must be interpreted as a property conditioned by their organic connection with the surrounding fields, in particular with the electromagnetic field, V. I. Lenin regarded as a direct confirmation of dialectical materialism. He pointed out: “...however ‘strange’ the absence in the electron of any other mass except electromagnetic mass, however unusual the restriction of the mechanical laws of motion to only one domain of natural phenomena and the subordination of them to the deeper laws of electromagnetic phenomena, etc.—all this is only an additional confirmation of dialectical materialism”*).

The connection of the mass of macroscopic bodies with fields is veiled and is not directly detected. At velocities small in comparison with the velocity of light, the mass of bodies practically does not change during their motion. This once provided grounds for interpreting mass as a property of matter independent of anything else, an “absolute,” “primary,” “innate,” unchanging property. Such views were dominant for a long time and were directly applied not only to macrobodies but also to microparticles. At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, a new interpretation of mass was advanced in electron theory, and it was shown to be illegitimate to transfer to the smallest particles of matter the notions of mass worked out for macroscopic bodies moving with relatively small velocity and, within certain limits, correctly reflecting the properties of macroscopic bodies.

Bearing in mind the fact that the former understanding of mass, as a certain “innate,” “primary,” “unchanging” property, is inapplicable to electrons, V. I. Lenin wrote: “...there disappear such properties of matter as formerly seemed absolute, immutable, primary (impenetrability, inertia, mass, etc.) and which now prove to be relative, inherent only in certain states of matter”**).

Sometimes the words of V. I. Lenin cited here are incorrectly interpreted as an assertion that material objects may exist that do not possess mass, in which, so to speak, “mass disappears.” This is incorrect. From the entire text of V. I. Lenin’s reasoning (pp. 239–240, 247, 248) it is clear that Lenin has something quite different in mind: what “disappears” is the “innate,” “primary,” “unchanging” mass—precisely the mass that earlier in physics was called “mechanical mass” and was opposed to electromagnetic mass as something entirely distinct from it.

Wishing to give a definition of mass, we must take into account all the manifestations and special features of mass indicated above. Among

*) V. I. Lenin, Works, 4th ed., vol. 14, p. 248.
**) V. I. Lenin, Works, 4th ed., vol. 14, p. 247.

them, for the most part, mass is defined according to one of its attributes—usually according to its manifestation in the inertia of material objects. In accordance with this it is defined as a “measure of inertia.” The merit of such a definition is the fact that it makes it possible to express mass numerically, in an experimentally measurable way. But this is a narrow and one-sided definition, not encompassing the entire basic content of the concept of mass. In essence, in such a definition only the quantitative expression of mass, its numerical value, is given.

Proceeding from the totality of the facts now known, one may say that mass is such a universal property of physical objects by which their inertia and gravitational interactions are determined; which, together with charge and spin, determines the basic type of regularities of the motion of micro-objects and their internal physical stability; in all physical and chemical processes mass neither disappears nor arises out of nothing.

However important the role of mass may be for characterizing the physical properties of material objects, it is impermissible to confuse it with the material object itself, to identify mass with matter. Mass is one of the most important properties of matter, but it is precisely a property of matter, and not matter itself. The essence of material objects is far from being exhausted by the presence in them of mass and of the properties of mass. Material objects possess a variety of other properties that are not reducible to mass and are in no way dependent on mass. Thus, many of the “elementary” particles of matter possess an electric charge, and its magnitude does not depend on mass; for example, the positron and the proton, sharply different in mass, have the same electric charge, while the neutron, having almost the same mass as the proton, has no electric charge. A number of “elementary” particles have a special “nuclear charge”; they have a special quality called “spin,” and so on. A special property of micro-objects is their internally contradictory corpuscular-wave nature; it is inherent in them to an equal degree independently of mass: it is possessed both by photons and gravitons, which have no rest mass, and by all other micro-objects, even such “heavy” ones as atoms and molecules. There is an influence of mass on the wave properties of micro-objects, but it is not specific: micro-objects of different masses may have the same wavelength if they move with the corresponding velocity.

With the development of physics ever new properties of matter are being revealed. Matter manifests the inexhaustibility of its properties and manifestations.

The identification of mass with matter is an incorrect, metaphysical point of view, impoverishing the inner richness of the manifestations and properties of matter, ultimately imposing limits on the penetration of human thought into the depths of the essence of things.

It should be noted, however, that such a fundamentally erroneous, metaphysical identification of mass with matter is sometimes encountered also in the works of Soviet scholars. As we shall see below, it serves as the basis for an even cruder error, signifying a serious concession to idealism.

However, while noting the essential difference between the concepts of mass and matter, we must at the same time emphasize that the concept of mass is directly connected with the concept of matter, and when severed from the concept of matter it loses its scientific significance; for mass is only one of the properties of matter and does not exist “in itself,” independently of matter. The philosophical significance of the concept of mass consists in the fact that, together with other analogous concepts reflecting the fundamental properties of material objects subject to the “laws of conservation,” it expresses in natural science the basic premise of philosophical materialism—the proposition that matter is indestructible and uncreatable. The separation of the concept of mass from the concept of matter has always been used by idealism to smuggle in anti-scientific views, to attack materialism.

Let us now turn to the concept of energy.

The concept of energy is inseparably connected with the concept of motion: through it one of the most essential features of material motion is expressed.

In physics, motion is the interrelated and mutually conditioned change in the state of material systems, finding expression in the change of quantities characterizing the physical properties of bodies. As F. Engels emphasized, “In the fact that these bodies are in mutual connection there is already contained the fact that they act upon one another, and this mutual action upon one another is precisely motion.”*)

A change in a certain group of physical quantities determining the state of material systems corresponds to some specific form of physical processes—a definite form of material motion subject to its own special laws; a change in another group of physical characteristics of state corresponds to another physical form of motion, distinct from the first, with its inherent laws. Thus, a change in the coordinates and velocities of bodies is characteristic of the mechanical form of motion; a change in temperature, volume, pressure, and similar quantities is characteristic of the thermal form of motion; a change in quantities determining the electrical and magnetic properties of bodies is characteristic of the electromagnetic form of motion, etc.

*) F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, Gospolitizdat, 1950, p. 45.

Natural bodies always exist as qualitatively determinate things. This means that their properties do not accidentally coexist side by side, but are necessarily connected with one another. Owing to the internal interconnection of the properties of bodies, changes in the various physical quantities reflecting these properties of bodies are likewise interconnected. For this reason, in no phenomenon can there ever be any single, unique form of motion: in every phenomenon there is inevitably a definite totality of certain forms of motion. Every real physical process is a process that embraces a number of forms of motion.

One of the most important achievements of science was the establishment of the fact that all physical forms of motion are not isolated, not separated from one another, but are mutually transformable into one another. This means that different physical forms of motion of matter, under definite conditions, can bring about the same change in the state of material systems. Thus, the thermal state of a certain quantity of water can be changed either by simply heating the water over a flame, or by rapidly stirring it, or by passing an electric current through a metallic conductor immersed in the water, and so on. In exactly the same way, a change, for example, in the length of an iron rod can be achieved either by applying an external mechanical load, or by means of heating, or through the imposition of a magnetic field, and so on.

Thanks to this, the possibility opens up of quantitatively comparing qualitatively different physical forms of motion. A common measure of different physical forms of motion can be established according to their capacity to bring about some definite change in the state of a physical system selected by us—for example, the raising of a load of a definite weight to a given height, a definite change in the temperature of a certain quantity of water under given conditions, and the like.

An enormous achievement of science was the establishment of an expression for such a measure of motion through the basic parameters of the physical state of material systems—through coordinates and velocities; temperature, pressure, and volume; the intensities of magnetic and electric fields, and other quantities whose changes constitute one or another form of motion.

The measure of material motion in all its transformations from one form into another was called energy.

The possibility of an exact objective comparison of qualitatively different physical forms of motion according to their effect on the state of some definite system led to the establishment of one of the most important laws of natural science, according to which, in the transformation of forms of motion—wherever and whenever this transformation …

whatever transformation may take place—to a definite quantity of energy of one form there always corresponds a quite definite quantity of energy of another form. This means that in all transformations of forms of motion, motion is neither created nor disappears. The same thought is expressed by saying that energy is neither created nor disappears, but only changes its form. This is the law of the conservation and transformation of energy. An enormous role in preparing the discovery of this law was played by the works of the brilliant founder of Russian natural science, M. V. Lomonosov, who was the first in science to advance the idea of a single, universal law of conservation of matter and motion.

For characterizing the content of the concept of energy, it is very essential that energy is a single-valued function of the state of material systems. This means that any transition of a material system from one state to another always corresponds to a strictly definite change in energy.

Thus, if a system, having undergone a series of changes, returns to its initial state, then the total change in the energy of the system as a result of all the processes is equal to zero. Since the state of the system does not change, neither does the energy inherent in that state.

The quantitative expression of energy is given, as was indicated above, through quantities characterizing the state of physical systems—through their mass, velocity, the coordinates of the bodies entering into the given system, through the intensities of magnetic and electric fields, and similar quantities. This means that energy is inseparably connected with matter, depends on the properties of matter, and is determined by them. Outside matter it does not exist, just as motion without matter does not exist: motion itself is nothing other than a form of the being of matter.

It was F. Engels who first gave a dialectical-materialist interpretation of the concept of energy and of the law of conservation and transformation of energy. And although much time has passed since then, it remains entirely and completely unshakable. The latest physical discoveries not only have not shaken it, but, on the contrary, have brought new proofs of its correctness.

The ideas of Marxism-Leninism constitute the only correct theoretical basis for modern conceptions of energy and motion.

F. Engels attached exceptionally great significance to the discovery of the law of conservation and transformation of energy. It was precisely in connection with this discovery that Engels wrote: “The unity of all motion in nature is now no longer simply a philosophical assertion, but a natural-scientific fact”*). He pointed out: “Now it has been proven—

*) F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, p. 155, Gospolitizdat, 1950.

I know that all the innumerable causes active in nature, which until now had led some mysterious existence not amenable to explanation in the form of so-called forces... are special forms, modes of existence, of one and the same energy, i.e. of motion”*).

Engels called the law of the conservation and transformation of energy “the great basic law of motion.” Science owes to Engels an unsurpassed analysis of the content of this great basic law of motion and its further development, which far outstripped the natural science contemporary with Engels. Above all, Engels showed that the content of this law is not reducible to the purely quantitative conservation of motion, as the natural scientists of Engels’ time supposed. He also revealed the other side of the law, proving the conservation of motion not only in a quantitative, but also in a qualitative sense—in the sense of the indestructibility of the capacity of material motion for ever new qualitative transformations, a capacity that is lost nowhere and under no circumstances. “If even ten years ago,” Engels wrote, “the newly discovered great basic law of motion was understood merely as a simple law of the conservation of energy, as a simple expression of the fact that motion cannot be destroyed or created, i.e. was understood only from the quantitative side, then this narrow, negative expression is being more and more displaced by the positive expression in the form of the law of the transformation of energy, where for the first time the qualitative content of the process comes into its own and the last recollection of the extra-mundane creator is effaced”**).

In accordance with this, the name customarily accepted in physics, “law of conservation of energy,” was replaced by the classics of Marxism with the name: “law of conservation and transformation of energy”***).

Engels revealed and with special force emphasized the connection of the law of conservation and transformation of energy—the basic law of motion—with the law of conservation of matter. In substantiating the law of conservation and transformation of energy, Engels proceeded from the inseparability of matter and motion: “Matter without motion is just as unthinkable as motion without matter. Motion is therefore as uncreatable and indestructible as matter itself...”****). For Engels, the starting point was precisely the law of the indestructibility of matter; Engels regarded the law of conservation and transformation of energy as a consequence of this law. “And if further,” Engels pointed out, “matter confronts us as something given, as something uncreatable

*) F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, p. 155, Gospolitizdat, 1950.
**) F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, 1950, p. 13.
***) See V. I. Lenin, Works, 4th ed., vol. 14, p. 318.
****) F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, p. 57, 1950. (Emphasis mine.—I. K.)

...and indestructible, then it follows from this that motion, too, is uncreatable and indestructible”*). For Engels, the concept of energy was a derivative concept in relation to the concept of matter.

A brilliant example of Engels’ scientific foresight is the characterization he gave of the essence of inertia. Engels pointed out that inertia is nothing other than “the negative expression of the indestructibility of motion”**). By this Engels thereby foretold the existence of a lawful interconnection between energy and mass, for, according to Engels, they characterize from different aspects the indestructibility of material motion.

Analyzing the concept of force, Engels observed that “the measurability of motion also gives the category of force its value. Without this it has no value at all. Thus, the more accessible motion is to measurement, the more suitable the categories of force and of its manifestations are for investigation”***). But the same can be applied to the concept of energy as well. It is precisely the measurability of physical forms of motion that gives value to the concept of energy. The concept of energy is suitable precisely where motion is accessible to measurement. This is exactly what takes place in the physical forms of motion, which are the simplest forms of motion. The concept of energy belongs to them. All attempts to introduce the concept of energy for such forms of motion as thought or the development of society—a special “psychic energy,” a certain “social energy,” etc.—have revealed their complete untenability and must be rejected as unscientific.

Does this mean that the law of the conservation and transformation of energy has no universal significance? that it has significance only in the field of physics?—No, it does not. Physical forms of motion differ from all the others in that they are universal. Whatever form of the motion of matter we take, always and everywhere, under any conditions, we find in it one or another aggregate of physical forms of motion, including mechanical displacement. With the complication of the forms of motion, these physical forms of motion recede into the background, not expressing the specific qualitative features and laws of the higher forms; but at the same time they always constitute the indispensable condition of their emergence and the foundation of their very existence. In this lies one of the manifestations of the material unity of the world, the unity of material motion.

How does the transformation of different forms of motion into one another take place? Let us take the process of the complication of forms of motion, the process of the development of matter from the lower to the higher. When, by virtue of defi—

*) F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, p. 45, 1950. (Emphasis mine.—I. K.)
**) F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, p. 1, 1950.
***) Ibid., p. 225.

...laws inherent in matter, a new, higher form of motion arises—for example, life—then in this process there by no means occurs a disappearance of the simpler physical and chemical forms of motion that give rise to it; rather, what takes place is their fusion into a certain higher unity, characterized by a qualitatively new regularity and creating entirely new conditions for the existence of these simpler forms of motion themselves. As F. Engels emphasized, “...an organism is the motion of such bodies in which the one is inseparable from the other (i.e., mechanical, physical and chemical processes.—I. K.). For an organism is, undoubtedly, a higher unity that binds mechanics, physics and chemistry into one whole, so that this trinity can no longer be separated”*). In the process of the generation of a higher form of motion there is no such transformation of one form of motion into another in which the lower form completely disappears and, instead of it, a new form of motion arises. The new form exists as a higher unity of the former forms, including them within itself.

On the contrary, in the transition from a higher form of motion to a lower, simpler one, the unity of the subordinate forms that is specific to the higher form of motion is destroyed, and the more complex form of motion disappears as such, releasing the subordinate forms of motion and making them independent.

From all this it follows that the law of the conservation and transformation of energy, expressing the indestructibility and uncreatability of physical forms of motion, at the same time expresses the indestructibility and uncreatability of material motion in general. It is precisely for this reason that it is “the great fundamental law of motion,” although directly it is applicable only to the physical forms of material motion, in relation to which alone the very concept of energy is applicable.

But the concept of energy does not embrace the whole content of the concept “form of motion” even in the domain of physical processes. Each of the physical forms of motion, including mechanical displacement, is richer in its properties than what is determined by the concept of energy. For example, the mechanical form of motion of bodies is characterized not only by the corresponding energy, but also by momentum, by the moment of quantity of motion, and by other quantities. It has its own dynamic law, specific to mechanical motion, expressing the change of the mechanical state in time. The qualitative peculiarities even of the physical forms of motion of matter, therefore, are by no means reducible to their energetic characteristics and are not exhausted by them. Transformations of energy express only one—though a very important—aspect of the process of transformation of the physical forms of motion of matter—

*) F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, 1950, p. 199.

... “natural.” This is all the more true for the higher forms of motion, where the laws governing the physical forms of motion recede far into the background in relation to the specific, fundamental laws of these higher forms of motion.

V. I. Lenin resolutely opposed the attempts of the Machists to apply the concept of energy to the study of the laws of social life, to reduce the investigation of social phenomena to energetic processes. He pointed out that the stringing together of “energetic little words” in the sphere of the social sciences, all this “social energetics,” is a mere collection of words, a gross mockery of Marxism: “This whole attempt, from beginning to end, is utterly worthless, for the application of the concepts of ‘selection,’ ‘assimilation and disassimilation’ of energy, energy balance, etc., etc., to the sphere of the social sciences is an empty phrase. In fact, no investigation of social phenomena, no elucidation of the method of the social sciences, can be given with the aid of these concepts. Nothing is easier than to stick an ‘energetic’ or ‘biologico-sociological’ label on phenomena such as crises, revolutions, class struggle, etc., but nothing is more sterile, scholastic, lifeless than this occupation.”*)

Criticizing Suvorov’s empty, pretentiously pompous attempts to extend the concept of energy to all domains of phenomena—nonorganic nature, life, and society—by inventing a new “universal law” of “economy of forces,” V. I. Lenin, among the arguments directed against this absurd “law,” pointed out that the invented “economy of forces,” as applied to social phenomena, cannot be measured or precisely determined: “...what does ‘economy of forces’ mean, how is it to be measured, how is this concept to be applied, what exact and definite facts fit here—Suvorov has not explained, and this cannot be explained, because this is confusion.”**) It must be noted that this remark of V. I. Lenin’s echoes the opinion of F. Engels cited above concerning the significance of the measurability of motion for the scientific concept of force.

Attaching tremendous importance to the law of the conservation and transformation of energy, V. I. Lenin pointed out that this law is “the establishment of the basic propositions of materialism.”***) Indeed, it is impossible consistently to carry through the standpoint of materialism without defending the proposition of the indestructibility and uncreatability of motion, the expression of which is the law of conservation

*) V. I. Lenin, Works, 4th ed., vol. 14, p. 314.
**) V. I. Lenin, Works, 4th ed., vol. 14, p. 319.
***) V. I. Lenin, Works, 4th ed., vol. 14, p. 318; note.

and transformation of energy. The recognition of a “primordial impulse” imparting motion to matter, which allegedly had previously been at rest, is the recognition of a miracle, is a departure from the standpoint of philosophical materialism. The notion that matter can exist, at least “for a time,” without motion, can be in an “immobile state,” that motion can arise out of nothing and turn into nothing—such a notion inevitably means, in the final analysis, a refusal to recognize the material unity of the world and, in one way or another, appeals, as Engels said in criticizing Dühring, “...to the sole savior, namely—to the creator of heaven and earth.”*)

It is therefore no accident that, from the very moment of its discovery, idealists of every kind and shade came out against the law of conservation and transformation of energy, just as they tried with all their might to distort the genuinely materialist content of the concept of mass and of the law of conservation of mass.

Against the materialist interpretation of mass and of the law of conservation of mass, the physicist Weber came out in his time, rejecting any material content in the concept of mass. Mach also took up arms against the concept of mass. Rejecting matter as an objective reality existing outside and independently of the knowing subject, Mach also rejected mass as a real-objective property of matter. He declared mass to be no more than a numerical coefficient in the equations of mechanics.

A subjectivist interpretation of mass is characteristic also of all other idealists, who refused to see in mass an objective property of matter and in the law of conservation of mass one of the most important laws of nature. Making use of the incorrect identification of mass with matter, which had been admitted by metaphysical materialists, the idealists, by emasculating the objective content in the concept of mass, fought against the concept of matter in general. After the development of science swept aside all these attempts, in their direct form, to distort the genuine content of the concept of mass, the idealist methods of “purging” the concept of mass of its material content assumed a more subtle and veiled form. The essence of the “newest” methods of the “physical” idealists (also going back to E. Mach) comes down to declaring mass to be simply a totality of definite operations or recipes for measurement. This is precisely how the modern “logical empiricists”—adherents of yet another variety of “physical” idealism, specializing in distorting the essence of measurements in physical science and in exploiting the fact of the increased importance of measurements in modern physics—“define” mass (as well as other physical quantities). The interpretation of mass as a certain aggregate of measurement operations is, without doubt, idealism: in it the objec—

*) F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, 1950, p. 58.

tive property of matter, reality, is identified with the procedures of measurement, and thereby this property (and, on this basis, matter itself) is made dependent on the subject.

Among foreign bourgeois physicists such an interpretation of mass is very widespread. A similar “operationalist” point of view has also penetrated the works of a number of Soviet scholars. From the standpoint of operationalism, for example, S. E. Khaikin’s Mechanics was written, for which it was criticized in our press). We find the usual understanding of mass in A. F. Ioffe’s book Basic Concepts of Modern Physics, where mass is treated simply as the ratio between a force and the acceleration caused by it*), as a result of which the basic law of mechanics is reduced to a simple “definition” of mass, while mass itself is torn away from the material object, ceasing to be an objective property inherent in it itself. In essence, Academician B. N. Yuryev undertakes an operationalist attempt to define mass in his work “An Attempt at a New Formulation of the Basic Laws of Newtonian Mechanics.” Here B. N. Yuryev, expressing dissatisfaction with the openly Machist interpretation of the concept of mass as a coefficient of proportionality “in the formula of interaction,” proposes such a definition of mass which, however, not only does not break with Machism but preserves the essence of the Machist point of view on mass. In B. N. Yuryev’s opinion, it is “most correct” to define mass through a description of the “labor process” connected with the measurement of mass. Here is what we read in his book: “We believe that, in defining mass, it is most correct to follow strictly what is actually done for this in practice. Such a definition of mass by means of a description of the scientific labor process is the most correct, clear, and verified by practice.

We propose to define mass (not in the philosophical, but in the physical sense) by means of the following process, divided by us into six separate stages”***). And then the author enumerates the measuring operations, the description of which, in his opinion, is the scientific definition of mass.

Judging from the statement quoted, the author believes that besides the physical concept of mass there also exists some special “philosophical” concept, which he himself does not want to touch upon. But this

) See, for example, S. G. Suvorov and R. Ya. Shteinman, “For a Consistently Materialist Interpretation of the Foundations of Mechanics,” Uspekhi fizicheskikh nauk*, vol. XL, issue 3.

) A. F. Ioffe, Basic Concepts of Modern Physics, 1949, p. 24.

*) Academician B. N. Yuryev, An Attempt at a New Formulation of the Basic Laws of Newtonian Mechanics, 1952, p. 33. We do not touch here upon other questions raised in this book, published, as indicated on the title page, “for discussion.”

delusion: there has never existed, and there ought not to exist, some special “philosophical” concept of mass in addition to the physical one. What would the introduction of such a “philosophical” concept provide? How would it differ from the materialist concept of mass known in science? The task is not to invent some special “philosophical” concept of mass, but to develop a genuinely scientific concept of mass, reflecting the full wealth of knowledge accumulated by science and excluding the idealist falsification of scientific achievements. The definition of mass given by B. N. Yur’ev, which substitutes for an objective property of matter a set of a series of measuring operations, is a direct concession to idealism.

For a long time the idealists tried simply to “refute” the law of conservation and transformation of energy. All these “refutations” collapsed. Then the idealists adopted another tactic—they declared it applicable only to processes of inorganic nature, opposing to it the imaginary dominion of a non-material “vital force,” “entelechy,” in the realm of organic nature. But these attempts too were unsuccessful: it was proved with complete persuasiveness that in organic nature as well, physicochemical processes are subject to that very same “great fundamental motion”—the law of conservation and transformation of energy. Then the idealists again changed their tactics: they tried to reduce this law to the level of one among many particular rules having no substantial significance for science. This device was used in particular by E. Mach in his struggle against materialism in natural science.

Mach fiercely opposed the law of conservation and transformation of energy as an objective law of nature expressing the indestructibility and uncreatability of material motion. In Mach’s opinion this law is no more than a certain rule that is a “limitation of subjective expectations.” Its significance is allegedly as small as, for example, that of Boyle–Mariotte’s law, which states that, at constant temperature, for a given mass of gas the product of volume and pressure is a constant quantity. In order to diminish the significance of the law of conservation and transformation of energy and thereby weaken the position of materialism in science, Mach declared that Boyle–Mariotte’s law too can be given a form in which it will express the constancy of the sum of certain quantities—in this case, the constancy, under the specified conditions, of the sum of the logarithms of the volume and pressure of the gas—and then the “identity” of the two laws would supposedly become obvious, since the law of conservation of energy is expressed in the form of the constancy of the sum of various kinds of energy. But, of course, these conjuring tricks of Mach’s were based on a glaring distortion of the essence of the matter. The constancy of the sum of the logarithms of the volume and pressure of a gas does not express any real transformation of these

quantities into one another). Whatever form may be given to the Boyle–Mariotte law, it remains the expression of a particular relation between the volume and pressure of a gas, valid only under very limited conditions, whereas the law of conservation and transformation of energy is, as Engels emphasized, a fundamental one, admitting of no exceptions, the basis for the study of the process of transformation of the forms of material motion—“...that great fundamental process, in the understanding of which all knowledge of nature finds its generalization”*).

And this device of idealism was defeated. In exactly the same way the subsequent attempts of “physical” idealists (Bohr, Slater, Kramers) to declare the law of conservation and transformation of energy “inapplicable” to elementary microprocesses were refuted. This law triumphs also in the domain of microprocesses. It is precisely on its basis that the whole modern theory of quantum phenomena is built.

A roundabout maneuver in the struggle against the law of conservation and transformation of energy was the idealistic “theory” of the heat death of the universe. In appearance this “theory” not only did not reject the law (since its incontestability had already been proved beyond doubt!), but even seemed to “rely” on it. The essence of the antiscientific “theory” of the heat death of the universe is the assertion that energy, while being quantitatively conserved, gradually “degrades,” losing its capacity for transformations, and that all processes in the universe supposedly ultimately come to a halt and the world “dies.” This “theory” of the degradation of energy has as its logical consequence not only the recognition of an “end of the world,” but also of its “beginning,” its “creation”: the “clock of the universe,” before stopping, must at some time have been “wound up” by someone—and this is precisely the miracle of divine creation.

Adapting themselves to new conditions and distorting the latest achievements of physical science, contemporary “physical” idealists revive the “theory” of the heat death of the universe. Here is one of the typical statements of contemporary “physical” idealists on this subject. Bearing in mind the state of the universe in the future, the idealist physicist Jeans writes: “Energy is still present here, but it has lost all its capacity for transformations; it is just as incapable of making the universe work as water in ponds on level ground is incapable of turning a mill wheel. We have remained with a dead, though perhaps warm, universe—with heat death. Thus teaches modern thermodynamics.” And further: “The entropy of the universe has not yet reached its final maximum: we could not think of it if it had already been reached. This maximum

* On this question see also: S. G. Suvorov, “M. Planck’s Book and the Struggle for the Law of Conservation and Transformation of Energy,” in the book: M. Planck, The Principle of Conservation of Energy, 1938.

* F. Engels, Anti-Dühring*, 1950, p. 13.

increases rapidly, but this increase must have had a beginning; there must have occurred what we call “creation,” and in time, not infinitely remote from us”*).

Such antiscientific views, irreconcilably contradicting the foundations of the dialectical-materialist world outlook, also penetrate our Soviet literature. Here is what, for example, we read in one of the physics textbooks for higher schools: “... even an ideal process is connected with a qualitative deterioration of a part of the energy; every process of friction, emission of radiation, and thermal conductivity leads to the fact that part of the energy is dissipated, i.e., so distributed among bodies that it becomes less capable of further transformations.” Or further: “In real processes, transformations of energy are always accompanied by the dissipation (degradation) of a part of the energy, by which we understand a lowering of the ability of this part of the energy for further transformations”**).

Unfortunately, such vicious views and statements are also to be found in a number of other works by Soviet scholars.

Materialist physicists have always risen up against the false theory of the heat death of the universe and have sought to show its complete untenability. A crushing criticism of this harmful vulgar false theory was given by F. Engels. The proposition he developed on the qualitative indestructibility of motion showed that the “theory” of the degradation of energy stands in direct contradiction to the absolute law of nature—the law of the conservation and transformation of energy. Engels emphasized: “The indestructibility of motion must be understood not only in a quantitative, but also in a qualitative sense. Matter whose purely mechanical displacement, although it contains within itself the possibility of being transformed under favorable conditions into heat, electricity, chemical action, life, but which is not in a position to produce these conditions from itself—such matter has suffered a definite loss in its motion. Motion which has lost the capacity to be transformed into the various forms proper to it, although it still possesses dynamis [possibility], no longer possesses energeia [actuality], and is thus partly destroyed. But both the one and the other are unthinkable”***).

Thus, the loss by matter of the capacity to create from itself the conditions for ever new qualitative transformations of energy is, in Engels’ thought, a loss of motion, its destruction. The dialectical-materialist understanding of the content of the law of conservation and transformation of energy, expressing not only the quantitative but also the qualitative indestructibility of the motion of matter, refutes all and every attempt of idealism to proclaim the “degradation” of energy, the “heat death of the universe.”

*) Jeans, The Universe Around Us.

**) Kashin, Course of Physics, 1948, p. 414.

***) F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, 1950, pp. 16–17.

An attempt to pervert the true content of the law of conservation and transformation of energy and to use this perversion for the “refutation” of materialism was “energetics,” composed by W. Ostwald, “a major chemist and a petty philosopher” (Lenin). Making use of the fact that the law of conservation and transformation of energy occupied the most important place in natural science and that the investigation of the energetic aspect of physical and chemical processes had yielded many new and significant results, W. Ostwald declared “…as though one could conceive motion without matter”*), as though energy were some independent entity eliminating matter. Since energy is conserved, is not destroyed, and since transformations of energy occur in space and in time, this means, according to Ostwald, that energy is a substance—a special all-embracing substance. Here is what we read in Ostwald: “Energy is the most general substance, since it is that which exists in time and space”**); or: “we must consider it (energy.—I. K.), taking into account the law of its conservation, a substance in the most proper sense of the word”***).

The most important proposition advanced by Ostwald in justification of his energetics was the assertion that the concept of energy was supposedly the broadest concept, and that all phenomena in nature could be brought under it, completely exhausting their essence by indicating what kinds of energy and in precisely what quantity are transformed in the corresponding processes. Bearing in mind the concept of energy, Ostwald wrote: “we can in fact bring under this concept all physical phenomena given us in experience. We observe that everything occurring in the external world can be characterized exhaustively when the kind and quantity of those energies which are expended or transformed in the given process are indicated”****).

In reality, the investigation of the energetic aspect of processes reveals, as was emphasized above, only one of their aspects and in no case can exhaust even such a relatively simple form of motion as mechanical displacement, which, in the richness of its aspects and manifestations, and in the essence of its basic laws, goes far beyond what can be represented and reflected by the concept of energy and the law of conservation and transformation of energy, understood moreover by Ostwald as a purely quantitative law. Still more impossible becomes the “exhaustion” of more complex forms of motion of matter by a simple characterization of the energetic aspect of the processes underlying them.

*) V. I. Lenin, Works, 4th ed., vol. 14, p. 256.
**) W. Ostwald, Lectures on Natural Philosophy, p. 109.
***) Ibid., p. 205.
****) W. Ostwald, ibid., p. 179.

Trying to ridicule the materialist views of natural scientists, Ostwald reasoned as follows: after all, energy must have a bearer!—say the adherents of matter.—But why? Is nature obliged to consist of subject and predicate?*).

V. I. Lenin exposed this sophism of Ostwald’s. He showed that “...the mental elimination of matter as the ‘subject,’ from ‘nature,’ means the tacit admission of thought as the ‘subject’ (i.e., as something primary, original, independent of matter) into philosophy. What is eliminated is not the subject, but the objective source of sensation, and sensation becomes the ‘subject,’ i.e., philosophy becomes Berkeleian, no matter how much the word sensation is afterwards twisted”**).

In fact, if the transformations of energy are interpreted as the expression of objectively occurring processes of the transformation of various forms of motion into one another, then the concept of energy cannot eliminate the concept of matter, for the concept of matter is precisely the philosophical category designating this objective reality, whose form of existence is motion. The “elimination,” under these conditions, of the concept of matter, or the subordination of it to the concept of energy, is confusion and glaring inconsistency.

If, however, the concept of energy is used in such a way that the concept of matter is denied, then this means that motion is regarded as immaterial, as something subjective, since the concept of materiality expresses independence from the subject, from consciousness. But to acknowledge motion as immaterial means that such motion is only the motion of thoughts, of representations, without an objectively existing world outside us. Thus, the attempt to think motion without that which moves signifies the anti-scientific recognition of the existence of thought without matter, without the objective world.

The essence of Ostwald’s energetics was precisely an attempt to think motion without matter, to eliminate matter and to declare motion without that which moves to be a certain independent essence, whose properties are supposedly determined by the properties of our consciousness. Ostwald wrote: “That all external phenomena can be represented as processes between energies is most simply explained by the fact that the processes of our consciousness themselves are energetic and transmit (aufprägen) this property of theirs to all external experiences”***). But this is exactly, as V. I. Lenin pointed out, pure idealism: it is not our thought that reflects the transformation of energy in the external world, but the external world that reflects the “property” of our consciousness!

) See V. I. Lenin, Works, 4th ed., vol. 14, p. 257.
) V. I. Lenin, Works, 4th ed., vol. 14, p. 257.
) V. Ostwald, “Lectures on Natural Philosophy,” cited from the book of V. I. Lenin, Works, 4th ed., vol. 14, p. 258.

Ostwald’s energetical philosophy was not consistent; Ostwald mixed two irreconcilable philosophical camps, tried to rise “above” both of them by means of an indefinite and confused use of the word “energy.” In many cases Ostwald regarded the transformation of energy as a process independent of consciousness. Because of this, the confused energetics, using the achievements of science for the struggle against materialism, was especially dangerous for philosophically unsophisticated natural scientists who spontaneously stood on the positions of materialism. Preserving the appearance of a connection with the data of science, with natural science, it smuggled in the vicious, anti-scientific idea of the existence of motion without matter and thereby paved the way for philosophical idealism.

V. I. Lenin repeatedly noted the eclecticism and confusion of Ostwald’s energetism, its difference from consistent idealism. It is characteristic, for example, that Lenin, considering the alignment of the contending philosophical parties in physics at the turn of the twentieth century, emphasized that energetics should not be incorrectly confused with Machism: “This confusion of energetics with Machism in Rey is, of course, not quite correct...”*) Lenin notes that Ostwald’s energetics may be considered among the main contending philosophical parties “as an intermediate system”**), which is an associate of “pure dynamism,” i.e. of idealism.

By substituting the concept of energy for the concept of matter, basing himself on a distortion of the law of the conservation and transformation of energy, Ostwald’s energetics performed its servile role in relation to idealism and fideism, drawing into the camp of idealism natural scientists who spontaneously stood on the positions of materialism but were not versed in philosophy. The point was that in the terms of “energetics,” as V. I. Lenin noted, one can express both idealism and materialism; this also confused a certain part of the natural scientists. However, such an expression of materialism could not be consistent, and through the distortion of the concept of “energy” the path to idealism was directly opened.

Materialist physicists such as A. G. Stoletov, N. A. Umov, and L. Boltzmann fought against Ostwald’s energetics and proved its scientific untenability. V. I. Lenin spoke approvingly of Boltzmann’s criticism of energetics. He wrote: “Against Ostwald’s energetics L. Boltzmann repeatedly polemicized from the standpoint of the physicist, proving that Ostwald can neither refute nor eliminate the formula of kinetic energy (half the mass multiplied by the square of the velocity), and that he turns in a vicious circle, first deriving energy from mass (accepting the formula of kinetic energy), and then defining mass by—

*) V. I. Lenin, Works, 4th ed., vol. 14, p. 244.
**) Ibid., p. 272.

against the idealistic distortions of the concepts of mass and energy

as energy”*). The great Russian scientist D. I. Mendeleev rejected energetics as completely incompatible with science: “The energetists,” wrote D. I. Mendeleev, “altogether deny matter, for, they say, we know only energy... consequently, matter is only energy. Such, in my view, a purely scholastic notion is very reminiscent of that abstract ‘I’ according to which nothing exists except the ‘I,’ because everything passes through consciousness. It may be supposed that such notions... cannot hold out in the minds of any reasonably sound people”**).

It should be noted that Lenin’s critique of energetism, revealing that the chief thing in the theoretical sophistries of energetics lay in attempts to think motion without matter, in the substitution of energy for matter, in the subjectivist interpretation of energy, was essentially rejected by the Menshevizing idealists. They saw the essence of Ostwald’s energetics simply in the fact that Ostwald denied atomism, denied the existence of atoms. In the preface to his book Introduction to the Philosophy of Dialectical Materialism, A. Deborin, concerning the absence in that book of a critique of energetism, wrote: “...this omission can no longer be regarded as very substantial, all the more so since during this time much has changed in favor of materialism. The founder and preacher of the energetic world-view—... W. Ostwald, having lived to see the latest discoveries in the field of physics, found it necessary to acknowledge the existence of atoms”***). This means that A. Deborin considered that the essence of Ostwald’s energetics lay in the denial of atoms, and that with the recognition of atomism energetics “falls away” of itself and there is nothing with which to struggle. Such an understanding of the essence of Ostwald’s energetics meant a belittling of the significance of V. I. Lenin’s book Materialism and Empirio-Criticism: according to Deborin it turned out that, since Lenin’s book appeared in 1909, while as early as 1908 Ostwald recognized atoms, Lenin’s critique of energetism was therefore beside the mark, as though one year earlier Ostwald’s energetics had collapsed of itself and the enemy of materialism was already dead.

But the essence of Ostwald’s energetics is by no means in the denial of atoms in itself (although the denial of atoms flowed from Ostwald’s idealistic position), and with Ostwald’s verbal recognition of the existence of atoms the struggle of materialism against energetics is by no means removed from the order of the day. Moreover, it becomes still more acute and necessary, for the forced recognition of atoms eliminated in energetics that most obvious—but not the chief!—defect which caught the eye of the majority of natural scientists who rejected it. With the elimination of this defect

*) V. I. Lenin, Works, 4th ed., vol. 14, pp. 274–275.
**) D. I. Mendeleev, Foundations of Chemistry, vol. I, 1947, p. 476.
***) A. Deborin, Introduction to the Philosophy of Dialectical Materialism, 1931, p. 5.

(but with the preservation of all its anti-scientific essence) energetics became more dangerous for natural scientists—spontaneous materialists who did not consciously see the fundamental opposition between materialism and idealism. That this is so is evident even from the statements of Ostwald himself, made after he had already recognized atoms. In the works of W. Ostwald published after 1908, Ostwald still stubbornly asserts that energy is a “universal concept,” that energy “has displaced matter,” that energetics is “monistic,” whereas materialism is allegedly “dualistic.” Speaking of his public recognition of atoms, Ostwald resolutely emphasized that from this recognition “energetics has not suffered in the least, for it represents a universal formation of concepts and does not depend at all on whether atoms are given or not”*).

The force and significance of Lenin’s criticism of Ostwald’s energetics lies in the fact that it strikes energetics despite the fact that the energetists were compelled to recognize atomistics, despite the fact that the energetists are trying to preserve their positions by making use of the recognition of the existence of atoms. This means that Lenin’s criticism cuts energetism to its very root, at its very foundation.

Modern “physical” idealism, distorting the essence of the latest discoveries of physical science, is trying to revive reactionary energetics. The basis for this is the social environment of decaying capitalism, which demands, as V. I. Lenin pointed out, reactionism from its professors.

The world-famous experiments of the Russian physicist P. N. Lebedev on measuring the pressure of light led to new views on mass, on its connection with energy. From these experiments there followed the inevitable conclusion that the electromagnetic field possesses a mass characterizing, in particular, its inertial properties, and that this mass is inseparably connected with the energy possessed by the given field. From P. N. Lebedev’s experiments it followed that the energy of any volume of an electromagnetic field is equal to the mass possessed by the field in this volume multiplied by the square of the speed of light: $E = mc^2$. Later this conclusion was generalized to all other material objects, and the law $E = mc^2$ acquired universal significance.

The clear physical meaning of the indicated law, the establishment of which was a most serious achievement of science, indicated that there can be no material object possessing mass but not at the same time possessing energy, or possessing energy but having no mass; mass and energy are inseparably connected with one another.

Meanwhile the “physical” idealists interpreted this law differently. They declared that since mass and energy are connected with one another—

) W. Ostwald, Autobiography*, vol. 2, p. 185.

...therefore, mass is transformed into energy, and energy supposedly is transformed into mass. Moreover, having identified mass with matter, they proclaimed that matter was allegedly “transformed” into energy. From this an immediate conclusion is drawn: materialism has collapsed, for “matter has disappeared”!

On what basis do the “physical” idealists build these assertions?

In modern physics the following fact has been established: the sum of the masses of particles of matter taken separately from one another is greater than the mass of an integral material system formed from these same particles joined with one another. Thus, for example, two protons and two neutrons, under suitable conditions, can form a single nucleus of a helium atom; in this case it turns out that the mass of the nucleus formed will be somewhat less than the sum of the masses of two protons and two neutrons taken separately from one another. The decrease of mass in such cases is usually called in physics the “mass defect.” It is known that in the indicated formation of an integral system from particles previously scattered, a definite quantity of energy is imparted to the bodies or field surrounding this system; from the magnitude of this energy, incidentally, one may judge the “strength” of the system formed. The quantity of energy transferred \(\Delta E\) is related to the “mass defect” \(\Delta m\) in the following way: \(\Delta E=\Delta m\cdot c^2\).

In this entire process of the formation of a complex system from simpler particles, the “physical” idealists see only one thing: when the particles are joined into a system, their mass has decreased, while the bodies or field surrounding the system have received a definite quantity of energy. Hence, they conclude, here mass has “been transformed” into energy. Moreover, they assert that there has become less matter in the system, while energy has been released from the system—therefore, matter has “been transformed” into energy, and the released energy exists in itself as “pure energy,” without any matter.

The enemies of materialism also make use of the following phenomenon, discovered by modern physics: two particles—an electron and a positron, having directly opposite electric charges—under certain conditions of interaction can disappear, having been transformed into photons with a definite energy. Here too the “physical” idealists declare that “matter has disappeared,” having been transformed into “pure energy,” independent of matter.

Thus argues contemporary “physical” idealism, reviving the old fable of Ostwaldian energetics, as though energy could exist by itself, as though motion could exist independently of matter, without matter. Hundreds and hundreds of bourgeois professors and writers who have entered the service of fideism repeat in every key the lie about the “disappearance of matter” and conduct an organized and systematic attack on the foundations of the scientific materialist worldview from the positions of energetics.

This campaign of the energetists against materialism became especially active in connection with the man-hating use of the atomic bomb by the American imperialists. The explosion of the atomic bomb was declared to be the “disappearance of matter,” the transformation of matter into immaterial energy, and atomic energy was proclaimed “God’s will in action.”

Here are several examples.

The American physicist K. Darrow, in his book published in the USA in 1948, wrote in connection with the explosion of the atomic bomb: “This is a process involving the transformation of matter in large quantities into something that is not matter”*). Another American physicist, Chace, asserts that “energy is released when mass, matter, is destroyed”**). And further: “The most striking verification of the theory of relativity has recently been carried out in the release of atomic energy. Skeptics who did not believe in the transformation of matter into energy are more easily convinced of this by the cataclysmic (explosive) transformation of matter into energy that characterizes the action of the atomic bomb”***). From all this, conclusions are directly drawn: “The phenomenon of the materialistic age (i.e., matter.—I. K.) ... came to an end amid the peals of thunder of Hiroshima and Bikini”****).

The attack on matter, its expulsion from science, the exaltation of the “idea” of the existence of energy without matter—all this occupies many, very many reactionary certified lackeys of priestcraft. Some of them do not wish to make those openly clerical conclusions proclaimed by the most rabid supporters of the idea of “pure” energy, and try, at least outwardly, to dissociate themselves from them, hiding the same anti-scientific conclusions in a science-like shell. Here, for example, is F. Frank—a physicist known for his pseudoscientific operationalist constructions. He asserts: “In nuclear physics there are phenomena which easily lead to the conclusion of the transformation of matter into energy (for example, in the atomic bomb)”*****). He states directly that this is interpreted by many “as a refutation of materialism and a support for spiritualism.” Not wishing finally to expose himself as an enemy of science by openly joining the spiritualists, F. Frank “dissociates himself” from them in the following way: “The destruction (annihilation) of mass is not infrequently interpreted as a refutation of materialism and support for spiritualism. But this is possible only if one uses language without regard to the operationalist meaning of words and judgments. If, however, careful—

*) K. Darrow, Atomic Energy, 1948, p. 5.
**) C. Chase, The Evolution of Modern Physics, 1947, p. 5.
***) Ibid., p. 149.
****) Ibid., p. 227.
*****) P. Frank, Foundations of Physics, 1950, p. 34.

AGAINST IDEALISTIC DISTORTIONS OF THE CONCEPTS OF MASS AND ENERGY

Frank calls for “introducing an operationalist meaning into the terms matter and energy,” then we shall rid ourselves of spiritualism, which demonstrates “dematerialization”*).

It is well known, however, what is hidden behind F. Frank’s “operationalist meaning of words and judgments.” It is a special “system” for exterminating materialism. In this “system,” physical quantities are not objective properties of phenomena, but aggregates of measuring operations. From this point of view, the whole world is a certain construction made up of measuring operations conventionally adopted by the observer.

All these anti-scientific attempts to refute materialism by means of the assertion of the “transformation” of matter into energy rely on the authority of A. Einstein, who states that “mass and energy are essentially alike”**), that “what acts upon our senses in the form of substance is in fact an enormous concentration of energy in a comparatively small space”***) and so forth.

In short, in the capitalist countries a quite definite militant front of contemporary energeticists has taken shape—from Einstein and other bourgeois physicists to the English bishop Knox, who is engaged in “linking” the application of atomic energy with the medieval scholasticism of Thomas Aquinas. Contemporary energetism is one of the most active varieties of “physical” idealism, waging a bitter struggle against materialism. The interests of advanced science demand the exposure of the anti-scientific essence of contemporary energetism in all its manifestations.

Unfortunately, erroneous views have penetrated our Soviet scientific and popular-scientific literature, reflecting the attitudes of contemporary energetism. In a number of works by Soviet physicists and chemists—A. F. Ioffe, T. P. Kravets, Ya. K. Syrkin, A. F. Kapustinsky, S. Z. Roginsky, E. V. Shpolsky, and others—erroneous views were developed to the effect that mass is transformed into energy, and energy into mass; that matter allegedly is transformed into energy, and so on. Some of the authors named asserted as if energy were a special substance, as if energy itself were matter. A confused terminology, adopted among foreign energetists, according to which energy is allegedly “equivalent” to mass, has become widely disseminated in our literature. This terminology, in essence, opens the possibility for a transition to notions of the “transformability” of matter into energy, and similar views.

*) P. Frank, Foundations of Physics, 1950, pp. 34–35.
**) A. Einstein, The Foundations of the Theory of Relativity, 1935, p. 41.
***) A. Einstein and L. Infeld, The Evolution of Physics, 1948, p. 222.

Here is what we find in one of A. F. Ioffe’s earlier works: “If one proceeds from the fact that matter can be only that which is conserved..., then energy may be regarded as matter, the only magnitude at present which neither disappears nor is created anywhere... If energy itself is physical matter, then the conception of matter as the bearer of this energy, as one of the properties of this bearer, falls away; energy itself then becomes matter”*).

In subsequent works A. F. Ioffe did not repeat the above propositions; however, he did not free himself from his former erroneous views, attributing mass to energy, in essence identifying the law of conservation of mass with the law of conservation and transformation of energy**), which again leads to the incorrect proposition of the identity of mass and energy.

A. F. Kapustinsky, calling the law \(E = mc^2\) “Einstein’s principle,” wrote: “Einstein’s principle consists in the fact that energy and mass are mutually convertible”; joining this “principle,” A. F. Kapustinsky declared that mass and energy “can pass one into the other: mass into energy and conversely”***).

In setting forth the question of the transformation of an electron–positron pair into two photons, E. V. Shpolsky incorrectly asserted that “the interest of this phenomenon consists in the fact that here, before our eyes, there occurs the transformation of matter into energy and of energy into matter”****).

The same error was committed by S. Z. Roginsky, who recognizes not only the transformation of mass into energy and conversely, but also the transformation of matter into energy. S. Z. Roginsky’s error is all the more serious in that he attempts to ascribe the false idea of the transformation of matter into energy to D. I. Mendeleev, who resolutely fought against energetics, regarding it as akin to subjective idealism*).

T. P. Kravets, in his article “The Evolution of the Doctrine of Energy”**), came forward with an attempt to give an extended substantiation of the proposition that energy is allegedly a “substance,” that it supposedly is “that which we call matter.” This erroneous in its very—

) A. F. Ioffe, The Development of Atomistic Views in the Twentieth Century*, “Under the Banner of Marxism,” No. 4, 1934, p. 62.

) A. F. Ioffe, Fundamental Concepts of Modern Physics, 1949.

*) A. F. Kapustinsky, Energy of the Atom, 1947, pp. 4 and 5.

) E. V. Shpolsky, Atomic Energy, 1946, p. 12. It should be noted that assertions of this kind were not contained in his book Atomic Physics, published in 1944, 1948, and in subsequent years.

*) S. Z. Roginsky, D. I. Mendeleev on the Inevitability of the Change of Mass in Processes of Transformation of Elements. “Advances in Chemistry,” vol. XX, issue 3, 1951, p. 272.

**) T. P. Kravets, The Evolution of the Doctrine of Energy, UFN, vol. XXXVI, issue 3, 1948, pp. 338–357.

... at its very foundation, the article incorrectly illuminates both the question itself of the essence of energy and the whole course of the development of the physical doctrine of energy.

According to T. P. Kravets, the entire history of the physical doctrine of energy allegedly led inevitably to the conception that energy is a special “substance,” and that with every success of physical science “the thought of the substantiality of energy” found an ever firmer justification.

How, then, according to Kravets, did Ostwald’s energetics arise, and how does the “thought of the substantiality of energy” that he defends differ from it? To these questions we find the following answer in T. P. Kravets’s article: in connection with the “substantialization of energy” in physics there arose “a certain dualism”—two substances appeared: matter and energy. Then began a struggle over which of them should be endowed with “the title of the chief and fundamental” substance. This struggle was used by the idealist philosophers; when victory “began to incline toward energy, a directly triumphant howl went up: the physicists have abandoned their traditional materialist position and are going over to spiritualism” (p. 345). For this “conclusion,” in T. P. Kravets’s opinion, “physicists cannot be made entirely responsible”; “however, certain ideological errors were also made by physicists; among these is the so-called ‘energetics’” (p. 345). In reality, according to Kravets, the matter was not that energy should be given “the title of the chief and fundamental substance,” but that two substances in general should be left on an equal footing. In keeping with this, summing up his entire article, T. P. Kravets writes: “Energy appears to us as a certain substance, in every way similar to ponderable matter and endowed with all those properties which compel us to consider ponderable matter a substance: it is indestructible and uncreatable; it is localized in space; it moves and is transmitted; it possesses inertial mass; it is ponderable; it is divided into atoms. An exact law of equivalence is established between energy and matter. It may be asserted that both are, to an equal degree, what we call matter” (p. 357).

In drawing such a conclusion, T. P. Kravets completely ignores Engels’s point of view on the question of energy and the law of conservation and transformation of energy as the great and fundamental law of motion, expressing the quantitative and qualitative indestructibility of motion; he passes over in complete silence V. I. Lenin’s views, which shared Engels’s point of view on the transformation of the various forms of energy as the expression of the change of the various forms of motion. T. P. Kravets, in essence, bypasses Lenin’s critique of energetics, and does not, in accordance with Lenin’s indications, reveal its fundamental defects. His point of view is in complete

contradiction with the achievements of the materialist doctrine of the electromagnetic field and other fields.

Objectively, regardless of whether T. P. Kravets wants this or not, his article is an attempt to justify Ostwald’s energetics, reviving the “idea of the substantiality of energy.” T. P. Kravets does not find the necessary words for a critique of energetics, not seeing its antiscientific essence, and merely scolds the energetists for having entered the scientific arena with too little scientific baggage: “Reading now the works of the energetists,” writes T. P. Kravets, “one is struck by how little baggage they had when they entered the scientific arena. Even in those cases when their statements are close to modern views, it is easy to convince oneself that with them they remain absolutely unsubstantiated; having no connection whatever with experimental facts, they remained completely aloof from the further successes of physics” (p. 345). But it is well known that the energetists did not simply “remain completely aloof from the further successes of physics,” but actively hindered the development of physical science, diverting it away from the solution of fundamental problems, doing enormous harm to science.

The essence of Ostwaldian energetics consisted in the fact that the idea of the possibility of motion without matter was smuggled into it. What is the aim of T. P. Kravets’s conception, which corrects energetics by lowering energy from the position of the “chief substance” to the position of a substance equal in rights with matter, existing with it, so to speak, on equal terms?

In order to clarify this, we are compelled to quote at length from T. P. Kravets’s article; here is what we read on p. 354: “The theory of relativity, denying the system of absolute coordinates in space, in general casts overboard from physical knowledge the conception of a physical world medium filling the geometrical space of the universe. This creates great difficulties for us in interpreting the concepts of field: what is field strength, field energy, field force, mass in the field, if the material substrate of this field—the substrate bearing all its physical properties—does not exist?

Then Lenin’s words that ‘motion without matter is impossible’ appear in all their strictness: what can we oppose to them if there is no ether, no stresses in the ether, and so on?—

Only one thing: as yet we know too little about the physical structure of the field and must wait for the time when further investigations will clarify this question.”

Let us consider the meaning of what is written here.

First, T. P. Kravets acknowledges that the conception of a physical world medium filling world space has been cast “overboard from physical knowledge”; consequently, he

agrees with the recognition of the existence of “empty space,” i.e., space without matter. But the separation of space from matter is inadmissible from the standpoint of dialectical materialism, for space is a form of the existence of matter and cannot exist outside matter.

Secondly, the author admits that the “material substratum” of the field does not exist, or at least considers its existence unproved. It follows from this that we must regard the energy of the field, its mass, etc., as quantities pertaining to the field and existing without a material substratum. But this is inadmissible from the standpoint of dialectical materialism.

Thirdly, the author essentially arrives at the conclusion that, at least with respect to the field, Lenin’s words that motion without matter is impossible, “when taken in all their strictness,” are at present not sufficiently substantiated; we must content ourselves with “waiting for the time when further investigations will clarify this question”! But to call into question the question, long since resolved by dialectical materialism, of the inseparability of motion from matter means abandoning the positions of Marxist-Leninist philosophy.

From all that has been said it follows that the exposition of the “evolution of the doctrine of energy” and the illumination of the most important results of this evolution by T. P. Kravets are completely erroneous. T. P. Kravets’s standpoint is an attempt, in a new form and with new “justifications,” to restore Ostwald’s discredited energetics, so to speak, in a truncated form*).

Serious errors of an energeticist character are also found in the works of certain Soviet philosophers.

One cannot but welcome the recent article of the journal Bolshevik against contemporary energetics). With this article Bolshevik rendered great assistance to Soviet scholars in exposing the antiscientific essence of contemporary energetics and in overcoming errors of an energeticist character in the works of Soviet scholars.

As Bolshevik correctly emphasized, “In the fact that certain physicists to one degree or another pay tribute to ‘energetics,’ entering into contradiction with contemporary science and with the proposition of dialectical materialism on the inseparable connection of matter and motion, some Soviet philosophers are above all to blame. Instead

*) T. P. Kravets’s article contains other serious errors as well (for example, the question of the essence of scientific explanation of phenomena is incorrectly illuminated, the causes of the collapse of mechanism are erroneously interpreted), on which we have no opportunity to dwell here.

) Bolshevik, No. 6, 1952, pp. 43–54, A. Vislobokov, “Against Contemporary ‘Energetics’—a Variety of ‘Physical’ Idealism.”

of resolutely exposing “energeticism,” they themselves sometimes make mistakes, make concessions to “energeticism,” and perceive and use the terminology of the “energeticists.” Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences A. A. Maksimov, being a specialist in the philosophy of natural science, correctly criticizes contemporary “physical” idealism on a number of questions. At the same time, A. A. Maksimov conducts almost no struggle against such a variety of “physical” idealism as “energeticism.” Moreover, in some of his works he himself develops views that are fundamentally incorrect on the relation between mass and energy, and even between matter and energy.*)

One cannot agree with all this!

Over a considerable period of time A. A. Maksimov, in his works, has defended the notion of the transformation of mass into energy, and in recent years even the notion of the transformation of substance (matter) into energy. He adheres to the widespread energeticist interpretation of the law $E = mc^2$, as if it were a law of the “equivalence” of mass and energy—“equivalence” in the sense of their mutual convertibility—nowhere criticizing the vicious notions of contemporary energeticists and at the same time bringing energy to the fore, subordinating matter to it. Here are only some of A. A. Maksimov’s statements. In the article “Matter and Mass”) he writes that “energy is equivalent to mass” (p. 132), that “every mass has its origin in the concentration of energy” (p. 134), that “the concept ‘mass’ is a subordinate concept of the more general concept—the concept ‘energy’” (p. 135). In the book Introduction to the Contemporary Doctrine of Matter and Motion*, A. A. Maksimov repeatedly speaks of the “equivalence” of mass and energy, and—what is most important—of “equivalence” in the sense of their transformation into one another, in the sense of their identity). He raises the relation between mass and energy, interpreted in an energeticist manner—the so-called “principle of the equivalence of mass and energy”—to the rank of a “fundamental conception of motion” in contemporary physics, putting forward, as an equally “fundamental conception” of contemporary physics, the relation of indeterminacies****). It is well known, however, that neither the “principle of the equivalence of mass and energy” nor the relation of indeterminacies plays or can play the role that A. A. Maksimov ascribes to them.

As no one else among those who have made errors of an energeticist character in Soviet literature, A. A. Maksimov especially

) Bolshevik, No. 6, 1952, p. 52.
) A. A. Maksimov, “Matter and Mass,” Under the Banner of Marxism, No. 9, 1939.
) See, for example, pp. 96, 97, 133, 134, 152, 154 of the indicated book.
) A. A. Maksimov, Introduction to the Contemporary Doctrine of Matter and Motion, p. 139.

dwells in detail on the “substantiation” of the very idea of the “transformation of mass into energy.” To this end he even develops a far-reaching comparison of the imaginary “equivalence” (identity, transformability) of mass and energy with the allegedly existing “equivalence” of the moment of inertia and angular velocity. Considering the change in the angular velocity of a rotating body when its mass is redistributed relative to the axis of rotation—in particular, the increase in the angular velocity of a figure skater when he brings his outstretched arms closer to his torso—A. A. Maksimov declares that here the decreasing moment of inertia passes into angular velocity, is transformed into it: “We arrive,” writes A. A. Maksimov, “at the establishment of a certain kind of equivalence between the moment of inertia and the angular velocity of rotational motion.”*) This completely absurd conclusion, which does not withstand criticism even on purely physical grounds, is elevated by A. A. Maksimov to the level of a certain generalizing principle, from the standpoint of which he examines the very concept of mass and its relation to energy. He further states that here there allegedly takes place a “remarkable mutual transformation of the moment of inertia and the speed of rotation.”**) However, there is as much basis for speaking of this “remarkable mutual transformation” of the moment of inertia and angular velocity into one another as there is for speaking of the “transformation” of heat into the length of a body because the body changes its dimensions when heated! Nevertheless, “relying” on this imaginary “transformation” of the moment of inertia into angular velocity, A. A. Maksimov develops his views on the “equivalence” of mass and energy, on their “transformation” into one another.

In his work Essays on the History of the Struggle for Materialism in Russian Natural Science, A. A. Maksimov states that in modern physics “it has been proved that mass and energy can be mutually transformed (Einstein’s law).”***) Moreover, here A. A. Maksimov takes the next step along the path of energetics, asserting that modern science has confirmed the supposition that “the quantity of matter changes, transforming into energy.”****)

Having accepted the assertion of the energetists that mass is transformed into energy, that matter is transformed into energy, A. A. Maksimov consciously takes the path of revising the classical Engelsian propositions on energy as the measure of motion and on the law of conservation and transformation of energy as a “great fundamental

*) A. A. Maksimov, Introduction to the Modern Doctrine of Matter and Motion, p. 88.
**) Ibid., p. 89. (Emphasis mine.—I. K.)
***) A. A. Maksimov, Essays on the History of the Struggle for Materialism in Russian Natural Science, 1947, p. 267.
****) Ibid., p. 266.

of the “law of motion,” onto the path of revising the fundamental concept of Marxist philosophical materialism—the concept of matter.

Putting forward the proposition of the “equivalence” (convertibility) of mass and energy as supposed evidence of the penetration of dialectics into physics*), A. A. Maksimov, on this very shaky basis, undertakes, as he himself writes, an attempt “to clarify certain propositions previously developed by dialectical materialism”**). What, then, does this “clarification” consist in?

A. A. Maksimov points out that Engels, in his time, accepted the notions of energy generally accepted in the physics of the nineteenth century and did not know of the “equivalence” of mass and energy. He supposed, like all natural scientists of his time, that in the concept of energy there is given the formulation of a “general concept of motion.” Meanwhile, according to A. A. Maksimov, the time has come to abandon these notions and to pass over to new ones. What, then, that is new, in A. A. Maksimov’s opinion, has modern physics provided in comparison with the standpoint of Engels (and with Lenin’s standpoint—we add, for Lenin’s standpoint does not differ from Engels’ standpoint), who saw in energy and its fundamental law the expression of motion, of the indestructibility and uncreatability of motion? It turns out that “modern physics, having discovered the variability of mass, revealed what had already been contained in the definition of energy, namely, that the concept of energy embraces not only the concept of motion, but also that of matter (physically defined as mass, charge, etc.). In this sense Engels’ formulation is clarified”***).

First of all, what attracts attention here is the circumstance that Engels is presented as an ordinary follower of the views on energy “generally accepted” in nineteenth-century physics. In reality, as we emphasized above, Engels gave such an interpretation of the concept of energy and of the law of the conservation and transformation of energy that not only was not generally accepted in nineteenth-century physics, but was far ahead of it, broke with the generally accepted views, and developed the fundamental propositions of science further. In A. A. Maksimov’s opinion, modern physics “revealed what had already been contained in the definition of energy,” but only Engels, apparently, was short-sighted and simply did not notice all the richness of the content of the concept of energy; he, you see, “did not notice” that the concept of energy is broader than the concept of matter!

But in reality it was not Engels who was short-sighted, “not noticing” that the concept of energy supposedly “embraces” the concept of matter, but A. A. Maksimov, who in fact, without quotation marks, failed to notice his own departure from the fundamental propositions of dialectical—

*) A. A. Maksimov, Introduction to the Modern Doctrine of Matter and Motion, p. 154.
**) Ibid., p. 154.
***) Ibid., p. 154. (Emphasis mine.—I. K.)

…of materialism toward reactionary energetics. Subsuming the concept of matter under the concept of energy is not a development of dialectical materialism, but a distortion of Marxist-Leninist philosophy.

But what, in fact, served as the basis for A. A. Maksimov’s such erroneous views, which revise the fundamental propositions of dialectical materialism? If one traces the considerations developed by A. A. Maksimov, one can see that the main thing for him was the circumstance that energy is quantitatively expressed through mass and velocity, or through charge, etc.—magnitudes characterizing the physical properties of matter. From the fact that energy is expressed through mass and velocity, A. A. Maksimov erroneously concluded that the concept of energy is supposedly broader than the concept of matter, that it “embraces” the concept of matter!

But in reality it by no means follows from this that the concept of energy is “broader” than the concept of matter, and there are no grounds here for revising the concept of matter developed by dialectical materialism as an ultimately broad concept embracing all objective reality existing outside and independently of consciousness.

If energy is quantitatively expressed through magnitudes characterizing the properties of matter, this means that it is determined by matter, depends on its properties, and does not subsume matter under itself, does not “embrace” it. Engels knew perfectly well that, for example, the kinetic energy of a moving body is expressed by one half of the product of the mass and the square of the velocity, but from this he did not draw the conclusion that the concept of energy is “broader” than the concept of matter, “embracing” both the concept of matter and the concept of motion.

It cannot but be acknowledged that A. A. Maksimov’s position on the question of mass and energy, on the question of the relation between matter and energy, which he defended for many years, disoriented Soviet scholars; its particular harm and danger lay in the fact that the rejection of certain most important propositions of dialectical materialism was presented by him under the guise of a “refinement” and “further development” of Marxist-Leninist philosophy. Moreover, in some of his works A. A. Maksimov gave a contradictory and confused evaluation of the essence of Ostwald’s energetics, mixing correct critical remarks against it with completely erroneous interpretations of Ostwald’s statements. Thus we read, for example, in A. A. Maksimov’s work Essays on the History of the Struggle for Materialism in Russian Natural Science: “By substituting the concept of energy for the concept of matter, Ostwald confused the philosophical question of the source of knowledge with the physical doctrine of energy. At the same time he did not intend to deny the objectivity of the processes of energy transformation; moreover, he sometimes uses …

used ordinary materialist terminology. Thus, for example, Ostwald wrote on the question of radiant energy: “Even more independent of matter, i.e. of other kinds of energy, is radiant energy”*) (pp. 455–456).

That Ostwald, substituting the concept of energy for the concept of matter, confused the solution of the philosophical question of the source of knowledge is, of course, true. But how can Ostwald’s words, cited by A. A. Maksimov, be passed off as “ordinary materialist terminology”?! For here Ostwald declares, first, that energy is “independent of matter”; second, Ostwald states that matter is supposedly energy. On what grounds does A. A. Maksimov pass off the energeticist coloring characteristic of Ostwald as “ordinary materialist terminology”? Only because the word “matter” occurs in it, although this very concept was rejected by Ostwald? Why does A. A. Maksimov state with such decisiveness that Ostwald “did not intend to deny the objectivity of the processes of the change of energy,” when Ostwald himself declares: that all processes are processes between energies is determined by the properties of our consciousness, which transfers this property of its own to external phenomena?

A. A. Maksimov’s very serious errors undoubtedly served as a basis for the appearance and spread of errors of an energeticist character in the works of a number of other Soviet scholars.

The journal Bolshevik rightly subjected to criticism the energeticist errors in the works of Soviet scholars, and rightly pointed to A. A. Maksimov’s very serious errors on the question of mass and energy, of matter and energy. The task consists in completely eliminating the manifestations of energetism in our literature, in correcting these errors, and in further developing the fundamental concepts of science along the path indicated by the classics of Marxism. Here genuine Bolshevik self-criticism must be displayed.*) It may be noted with satisfaction that a number of Soviet scholars have embarked on the path of criticizing previously committed errors, on the path of struggle against modern energetism. Unfortunately, A. A. Maksimov has not yet embarked on such a path. Undoubtedly, this hinders the eradication of erroneous views in our literature and pulls back some Soviet scholars who wish to take the

) I consider it necessary to note that I myself had earlier committed an error. In my article “Positron” in vol. 4 of the Physical Dictionary* (1937, p. 241), the vicious term “materialization of kinetic energy” was used, although the process of transformation of an electron–positron pair into photons considered in that article was correctly interpreted as the transformation of matter from one form into another, and not as the transformation of matter into energy. I did not repeat this error in my subsequent oral and printed statements. In subsequent oral and printed statements I subjected to criticism conceptions of the “transformation” of mass into energy, as well as of matter into energy.

against idealistic distortions of the concepts of mass and energy

the path of revising his former erroneous views, as though mass and even matter were transformed into energy*).

*
* *

The reason for the appearance of the indicated erroneous views in our scientific and popular-science literature is an insufficiently profound assimilation of the works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism and the uncritical attitude of some Soviet scientists toward the views and theories of foreign bourgeois scientists. It is precisely for this reason that in the works of some Soviet scientists there have wandered in vicious interpretations of the law connecting mass and energy, as supposedly a law of the transformation of mass into energy and of matter into energy. Some of our scientists, without grounds, agreed with the assertion of foreign energetists that, in the formation of an integral material system from particles previously isolated, the decrease in the mass of the system in comparison with the sum of the masses of the individual particles is accompanied only by the transfer of energy outward. In reality, however, the process taking place here has a very complex character, accompanied by a certain internal rearrangement of the very particles forming the system and by the emission of the material field that carries the energy released in this process (or also by the ejection of particles of substance). As a special form of matter, this field possesses a definite energy exactly equal to that which the forming system loses. There is no “disappearance” of mass—of which the energetists speak—here either even in mention: here the law of conservation of mass is strictly fulfilled. A definite share of the mass of the system of particles is transformed into a quantitatively equal mass of the arising material field or into the “mass of motion” of the particles of substance flying out. In exactly the same way, throughout all this the law of conservation and transformation of energy is also strictly fulfilled: part of the energy of the system of particles is transformed into the energy of the material field. The most essential feature of the process is that to a definite change in the mass of the system there always corresponds a quite definite change in its energy. This is precisely what the law expresses: \(E = mc^2\), in which, thus, the inseparability of mass and energy is revealed, and not their imaginary “transformability.” In this one may see one of the manifestations of the validity of the general law of dialectical materialism on the inseparability of matter and motion, and not the “transformation” of matter into motion.

In exactly the same way the phenomenon of the disappearance of an electron–positron pair is also explained materialistically. The point is that,

*) The Scientific Council of the Sector of Dialectical Materialism of the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, when discussing the author’s report on this article, specially noted in its decision the lack of self-criticism on A. A. Maksimov’s part.

the interaction of an electron and a positron leads to so profound a restructuring of them that they are completely transformed into particles of another form of matter—into photons, which are not at all “portions of energy,” but are qualitatively distinctive particles of matter. The disappearance of an electron-positron pair has as its result not simply the release of “pure” energy, as the energetists wish to represent it, but the birth of other material particles possessing the corresponding mass and energy, so that the laws of conservation of mass and energy are strictly fulfilled. Investigations show that in such a process there occurs neither a disappearance of mass nor an emergence of energy: the mass of the photons formed in the complete restructuring of the electron-positron pair is exactly equal to the mass of the electron and positron that entered into interaction, and the energy of the photons is equal to the energy of the pair.

Consequently, in reality there are no grounds whatever for speaking of the transformation of mass into energy, or still less of matter into energy; such an interpretation would be possible if it had been found that mass disappears and, at its expense, previously absent energy appears. In reality, both the mass and the energy of closed systems remain constant, and nowhere can we establish either a diminution of mass or an emergence of energy.

The theoretical confusion with mass and energy is explained by the fact that the old conception of matter solely as substance is preserved, and the existence of another form of matter—the field—is not acknowledged. For this reason photons are treated not as particles of matter, but as a certain “pure energy” in itself, without a material substratum. But there are no grounds whatever for such an interpretation. This assertion is completely untenable; nevertheless, it is precisely upon this untenable assertion that the statement is built that the partial loss of mass by a system when a system is formed from particles previously isolated from one another, or the disappearance of an electron-positron pair and the birth of photons, is a “transformation” of mass into energy, or of matter into energy, and so forth.

Meanwhile, the interpretation of the field as energy, as pure motion without anything that moves, not only does not follow from the whole body of data of contemporary physics, but directly contradicts them. The entire development of electrodynamics, of the theory of light, and of the whole modern doctrine of the structure of matter inevitably leads to the conception of the field as one of the forms of matter and refutes the conception of it as “pure energy.” Only on the basis of recognizing the field as a form of matter is a correct understanding of the foundations of modern physical science possible, and a successful struggle against idealism possible. It cannot be regarded as accidental, for example, that A. F. Ioffe, who allowed serious errors of an energetist kind, in his book Basic Conceptions of Modern Physics found no place at all for elucidating questions of the field and in the table

against idealistic distortions of the concepts of mass and energy

of the basic “elementary” particles of matter completely excluded field particles. It is precisely for this reason that in this book he was unable to free himself completely from his former errors, and he treats the question of the transformations of energy, as well as the question of mass, confusedly, incoherently, again slipping back into his former energeticist errors—in particular, ascribing energy to mass.

If we take the works of other Soviet scholars who have made energeticist errors, we shall see quite clearly that their errors too are based on an incorrect understanding of the field. What many of them call “radiation” is in fact a field—a variety of matter, a special form of matter, and not energy. In T. P. Kravets’ work The Evolution of the Doctrine of Energy, all his wrong conclusions are ultimately rooted precisely in an incorrect solution of the problem of the field. With a consistently materialist approach to the matter, T. P. Kravets could have seen that what he presents as energy is the material field, and that those properties which he ascribes to energy (mass, atomic structure, etc.) are in reality properties of the material field.

A major contribution to the development of the materialist foundations of physical science and to the struggle of Soviet scholars against idealism was made by the works of S. I. Vavilov, in which, relying on the ideas of Marxist-Leninist philosophy, he substantiated the conception of the field as a distinctive form of matter, a variety of matter, differing in its special properties but closely connected with substance. It was precisely for this reason that S. I. Vavilov was able to overcome the erroneous assertions about the transformation of substance into energy that had appeared in his earlier work, and to subject to thorough criticism the idealistic interpretation of the transformation of an electron-positron pair into photons. He rejected the term “annihilation of matter,” widespread at that time, as idealistic and wholly unacceptable for materialist science, and spoke out against views about the transformation of mass into energy, which serve as a pretext for subsequent assertions about the transformation of matter into energy. “In order to avoid a rather frequently encountered error,” wrote S. I. Vavilov, “it is important to note here that mass does not disappear, does not turn into energy, as is sometimes said; the mass remains in the form of the mass of the resulting photons, but only the equivalent energy changes from an inaccessible form into a quite accessible one—the energy of light.”*

Bearing in mind the law \(E = mc^2\), S. I. Vavilov emphasized*** that its content is the expression of the “root, inseparable

* S. I. Vavilov, Experimental Foundations of the Theory of Relativity, 1928.
* S. I. Vavilov, The Eye and the Sun, 1950, p. 70.
* S. I. Vavilov, “Lomonosov’s Law,” Pravda*, January 5, 1949.

...of the connection between mass and energy”; he was the first in our literature to point out that this connection between mass and energy in the case of light followed directly from the experiments of the remarkable Russian physicist P. N. Lebedev, and only later was it generalized to the case of the mass and energy of any material objects.

Using the terms “equivalence of mass and energy,” “principle of equivalence of mass and energy,” S. I. Vavilov at the same time, in contrast to the energetists, emphasized that in this “equivalence” he saw not the “convertibility” of mass into energy, not their identity, but precisely the connection between mass and energy, having an exact quantitative expression. He pointed out: “The principle of equivalence of mass and energy indicates only the quantitative value of the energy corresponding to a given mass”*).

Of great scientific significance is the attempt undertaken by S. I. Vavilov to establish the connection between the universal law of conservation of matter, formulated by M. V. Lomonosov and called by S. I. Vavilov “Lomonosov’s Law,” on the one hand, and the law of the interrelation of mass and energy, on the other. He comes to the conclusion that in the law of the interrelation of mass and energy one aspect of the all-embracing “Lomonosov’s Law” is expressed**).

The existence of an inseparable connection between mass and energy presents in a new light the question of the relation between the law of conservation of mass and the law of conservation and transformation of energy. Previously they were regarded as completely independent and isolated from one another; now they cannot be regarded as independent and isolated from one another. However, just as the inseparability of the connection between mass and energy does not mean their identity, so the connection between the two indicated laws does not mean their transformation into one law. These laws, connected with one another, express the indestructibility of different properties of matter, and therefore by their very physical essence they remain different laws.

In the theory of rapid motions occurring with velocities comparable to the speed of light, a new concept is introduced—the so-called “mass tensor,” through which one can express both the law of conservation of mass and the law of conservation and transformation of energy. From this it is not infrequently concluded that mass and energy “merge” into one concept. But this is incorrect. In reality, the indicated fact means that mass and energy are unified, connected with one another, but are not physically identical. It is well known, for example, that spatial coordinates and time are also united into a single concept of a four-dimensional vector, the “components” of which are \(x\), \(y\), \(z\), and \(t\). However, there are no grounds on this account for “merging” them with one another, ignoring

) S. I. Vavilov, Lomonosov’s Law, Pravda, January 5, 1949.
*) S. I. Vavilov, ibid.

principled qualitative difference between space and time. The possibility of introducing a “mass tensor” means the disclosure of still another aspect in the lawful interconnection of mass and energy, but by no means their identification with one another.

As is known, the law \(E = mc^2\) is often called the law of the “equivalence of mass and energy.” The term “equivalence” must be recognized as unsatisfactory for characterizing the relation between mass and energy, and the designation of the law \(E = mc^2\) as the “law of equivalence of mass and energy” must be recognized as incorrect. The very concept of “equivalence” is appropriate for such relations in which one phenomenon or object stands in place of another, as equal in value to it. Thus one says: 1 calorie is equivalent to 427 kilogram-meters. By this is meant that imparting 1 calorie to a physical system leads to exactly the same change in its state as work in the amount of 427 kilogram-meters, that at the expense of 1 calorie of heat there arise 427 kilogram-meters of work. In Marxist political economy, comparing the values of different commodities, one speaks of the equivalence of a definite quantity of one commodity to some quantity of another commodity. By this is meant that the given commodities can be exchanged for one another in a definite proportion.

As for mass and energy, they do not appear as physically equal in value and replacing one another: the law \(E = mc^2\) says not that instead of mass, at its expense, there arises a corresponding quantity of energy, or conversely. From the essence of all the data known in contemporary physics, and from this very law, it follows that one cannot change the mass of a system without changing its energy, and conversely—one cannot change the energy without changing the mass: mass and energy are inseparably interconnected with one another, and the term “equivalence” is not adequate to the essence of the law \(E = mc^2\). True, in the term “equivalence” there is the positive feature that it emphasizes the presence of a constant quantitative relation between mass and energy. However, its essential shortcoming consists in the fact that, while correctly expressing only this one aspect of the content of the law \(E = mc^2\), it covers over fundamentally opposite points of view on the character of the very connection between mass and energy. This term is used both by those who defend the incorrect idea of the transformation of mass into energy and matter into energy (all energetists), and by those who correctly interpret the relation between mass and energy as their inseparable interconnection (S. I. Vavilov and others). Because of such indefiniteness of the term “equivalence of mass and energy,” it ought to be abandoned.

A more suitable term, corresponding to the essence of the matter, is “interconnection of mass and energy,” already introduced into our literature. Of course, this does not exclude attempts to find a better

a term that more fully expresses the essence of the law—in particular, its quantitative aspect.

An annihilating critique of modern energetics and of manifestations of energetics in our Soviet literature is an urgent and important task, for energetics has caused and continues to cause enormous harm to science. However, this by no means exhausts what Soviet scientists must do on the problem of mass and energy. Soviet scientists face major creative tasks in this field as well.

The most important is the problem of investigating the physical nature of mass. It is inseparably connected with the development of a materialist theory of fields. At the same time, it is necessary to clarify the qualitative specificity of the mass of various forms of matter.

On this basis, precise scientific definitions of the concepts of mass and energy must be worked out—definitions grounded in the ideas of the classics of Marxism-Leninism and taking into account the full wealth of the achievements of modern physics. This question is of substantial importance, in particular, for our textbooks as well, where empty, contentless definitions of mass and energy are still not infrequently implanted.

The question of the relation between the laws of conservation of mass and energy must be studied more deeply; in particular, this must be done for conditions of motion with velocities comparable to the velocity of light. Further creative development is needed of the question, posed by S. I. Vavilov, of the relation between the laws of conservation of mass and energy and other conservation laws, and the universal law of conservation of matter.

The success of the undertaking will be aided by the organization of close joint work by physicists and philosophers.