Pierre Duhem, Entropy, and Christian Faith |
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Authors: | Helge Kragh |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Mathematical Sciences, The University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812, USA |
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Abstract: | The French physicist and polymath Pierre Duhem was strongly devoted to Catholicism but insisted that science and religion
were wholly independent. In an article of 1905 he reflected at length on the relationship between physics and Christian faith,
using as an example the cosmological significance of the laws of thermodynamics. He held that it was unjustified to draw cosmological
consequences from thermodynamics or any other science, and even more unjustified to draw consequences of a religious nature.
I place Duhem’s thoughts on “the physics of a believer” in their proper contexts by relating them to the late-nineteenth-century
discussion concerning the meaning and domain of the law of entropy increase. I also consider Duhem’s position with respect
to Catholic science and culture in the anticlerical Third Republic. |
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