The 19th century was a period of great leap in the field of physics: Sadi Carnot’s study of the idealized engine provided a basis for thermodynamics, Ludwig Boltzmann’s reinterpretation of energy laid a significant groundwork for statistical mechanics, and Michael Faraday’s discoveries of electric effects led to the creation of electromagnetism, to name a few. Having said that, there remained an underlying problem in the physics field during the late 19th century in the United States that hindered many physicists from achieving a higher level of excellence — physics was viewed as a means of engineering. Amongst the current of “applied” science was the call for “pure” science raised by Henry Rowland, whose innovative contributions in spectroscopy and electromagnetism earned him high honor amid the 19th century American physicists. Both Rowland’s great efforts in advancing the physics discipline and in constructing a research-friendly environment were substantial, but he considered this as way from enough. Through his speech The Highest Aim of the Physicist, addressed to The American Physical Society by which he aimed to breathe new conduct into physics practices, Rowland had urged the fellow physicists to raise the discipline from a subordinate of engineering to a high professional level, one that delves into science for the sake of science.

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Much attention and most resources were given not to researches but to the advancement of technologies in the late 19th century United States. What the society prioritized in the midst of the Second Industrial Revolution were production and manufacturing technologies that satisfied the industry. It was as described by Rowland, “much of the intellect of the country is still wasted in the pursuit of so-called practical science and but little thought and money is given to the grander portion of the subject which appeals to our intellect alone.” (Rowland, 826) In a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1883, he expressed his disappointment for the difficulties of physics research in America generally: chief universities did not care to hire top researchers and professors regarded research as a waste of time. (Weart)

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The severe condition for the pursuit of pure physics was further reflected in the lack of appropriate, quality laboratories and the deprivation of budget for research in the United States: only “a few straying professors” were “nobly striving to do the best with the feeble means at their disposal” in “miserable structures.” (Rowland, 833) Some of these American researchers were even earning less than the wages of a day laborers or cook. On the contrary, European industries and research institutes were pouring talents and money massively into the area of pure research. Such huge discrepancies alerted Rowland. It was not until Rowland returned to Johns Hopkins with one of the finest collections of research instruments in the world (Weart) that gave birth to America’s first true research institution. He emphasized equipment suited for research rather than for teaching demonstrations, prompting professors to lead the speciality themselves and attracting experts to carry out their experiments in universities. 

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He also forged ahead in the physics discipline as one of the leading experimentalists. Famously known for his “meticulous attention to experimental detail and remarkable mechanical ingenuity.” (Kevles, 578), Rowland was the first to demonstrate that the motion of charged bodies produced magnetic effects. He established an authoritative figure for the absolute value of the ohm, redetermined the mechanical equivalent of heat, showed conclusively that the specific heat of water varied with temperature, and constructed concave spectral grating of unprecedented accuracy and resolving power.  His wavelength tables of the solar spectrum even became the standard for over a generation. Nevertheless, his place in the two most prestigious institutes in the world — the Royal Society of London and the French Academy of Sciences (Kevles, 579) — probably say best of his significant contributions to physics and how his words can be powerful in the physics community.

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Rowland did not stop there. He not only “disparaged technological invention and called upon his fellow countrymen to do more to foster basic research,” (Kevles, 579) but his keenness for the thriving of fundamental research also motivated him to establish The American Physical Society, where pure physics can be pursued free from bounds of the society. In the time when the world mainly praised for inventions and technologies that satisfy the physical needs of mankind, Rowland called upon the physicists to cultivate dignity and pride in their pursuit for pure etherial physics, arguing that intellectual enrichment was just as essential as material contentment in driving human civilization forward. The American Physical Society was precisely the entity that preserved this self-esteem; it was where physicists meet together in its interest, discuss its problems, criticize each other’s work and, best of all, provide means by which the better portion of it may be made known to the world.

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As guidance to how future physicists should approach the most pressing problems of the discipline, Rowland, on the eve of the revolutions of quantum mechanics and relativity, commented on the greater problems of the universe — “What is matter; what is gravitation; what is ether and the radiation through it; what is electricity and magnetism; how are these connected together and what is their relation to heat?” (Rowland, 827). Rowland revealed how little physicists know of the more profound questions involved in the subject and warned the future physicists of their susceptibility to possess an absolute mind. Since our exact knowledge, results we can actually verify, was limited in every aspect — time, space, temperature, pressure, velocity, force, and mechanical rotations — it was a common mistake for young physicists to apply the obtained law beyond the given experimental limits. Such a process, unless carefully guarded, ceases to be a reasoning process and becomes one of pure imagination specially liable to error when the numbers are large. Therefore, he concluded, an ideal scientific mind should carefully “weigh the chances of truth and error” and grades each in its proper position along the line joining absolute truth and absolute error; it is in a “constant state of skepticism”, knowing full well that nothing is certain. (Rowland, 831)

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The highest aim of the physicist, as proposed by him, “is in part purely intellectual” (Rowland, 832); a true physicist not only feeds the intellectual pleasure off the pursuit itself but also is well-aware that the study of the natural laws is itself sacred: every discovery of the Universe a physicist makes blesses the human race with the greatest good and happiness. A true lover of physics is self-motivated by the nobility lying within the pride as a physicist, the skeptical mind that questions every possibility, and the longing for the understanding of the natural world. To his students and colleagues, Rowland was often “a forbidding figure” (Weart), intolerant of mediocrity, so devoted to the truth that his frank criticism could be devastating. However, from hindsight, such elitism precisely reflected his admiration of the highest aim and his eagerness for every physicist to reach a higher level of excellence.

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As a pioneer in research, Rowland was the man who brought physics as both a discipline and a community to the next level, where science serves itself. In addition to advancing the understanding of the natural laws, Rowland had been promoting the dignity as a pure physicist throughout his life, for he believed that the tomorrow of physics lies in research. Helping to establish America’s first true research institution, founding The American Physical Society, and convincing contemporary physicists and investors to set foot in the realm of pure science all set the stage for future physicists to be able to achieve the highest aim.

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Bibliography

 

Rowland, Henry A. “The Highest Aim of the Physicist.” Science, vol. 10, no. 258, 1899, pp. 825–833. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1627046. Accessed 28 June 2021.

 

Weart, Spencer, and Patrick McCray. “Henry Augustus Rowland 1848–1901.” Selected Papers of Great American Physicists: The Bicentennial Commemorative Volume of The American Physical Society, American Institute of Physics, 1976, history.aip.org/exhibits/gap/Rowland/Rowland.html

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Kevles, Daniel J. “ROWLAND, HENRY AUGUSTUS.” Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie, e-book, vol. 11, Detroit, MI, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2008, pp. 577–79.