19世纪的黄金数：一个科学事实的发展史

The Golden Number of the Century: The History of a Scientific Fact

在18世纪下半叶之前,既没有科学,也没有称之为热功当量的事实。自然哲学的研究方式大约在19世纪初发生了变化。定量实验改变了自然哲学家的注意力,而且必须在这一时期的主流文化的变化中占有一席之地。实验室成为近代教育的一种手段。焦耳测定热功当量的实验,以及物理学家围绕这个实验给出的数值事实展开的争论表明了这个转变过程。当美国参众两院的议员于1894年7月24日把热功当量的数值合法化为功的单位时,物理学家把这个数字称之为19世纪的黄金数。

There was neither science nor a fact called the mechanical equivalent of heat before the second half of 18th century. A change in manners in natural philosophy occurred around the beginning of 19th century. Quantitative experimentation changed natural philosophers’ attention and had to find its place in this period of major cultural changes. The laboratory became a means of modern education. This process of transformation was showed by Joule’s experiment of the dermination of the mechanical equi-valent of heat and the physicists’ debets about the numerical fact given by this experiment. Physicists began calling the number of the mechanical equivalent of heat the golden number of that century when the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of American legalized to it as the unit of work on July 12th, 1894.