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Abstract The aim of the present paper is to outline a method of reconstruction of the historical development of the language of physical theories. We will apply the theory presented in Patterns of Change, Linguistic Innovations in the Development of Classical Mathematics to the analysis of linguistic innovations in physics. Our method is based on a reconstruction of the following potentialities of language: analytical power, expressive power, integrative power, and explanatory power, as well as analytical boundaries and expressive boundaries. One of the results of our reconstruction is a new interpretation of Kant’s antinomies of pure reason. If we relate Kant’s antinomies to the language, they retain validity.

1 Introduction The world of physics extends far beyond our sensory world. It is inhabited by huge objects, whose dimensions exceed everything we can imagine; it contains tiny particles that defy our imagination because of their extreme smallness. These objects are subjected to various forces and invisible radiation. Objects of our sensory world occupy only a tiny slice of the vast scales of physical quantities. Dimensions, temperatures, pressures, and densities which we know from our daily experience form only a small interval on the scale of dimensions, temperatures, pressures, and densities that appear in physics. Unlike the physical world, the world of physics changes along with how scientists proceed in uncovering ever more remote regions of the universe. Before Newton there were no forces in the world of physics, before

L. Kvasz () Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic, Jilsk´a 1, Prague 110 00, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] E. Barbin and R. Pisano (eds.), The Dialectic Relation Between Physics and Mathematics in the XIXth Century, History of Mechanism and Machine Science 16, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5380-8 7, © Springer ScienceCBusiness Media Dordrecht 2013

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Torricelli there was no pressure, before Clausius there was no entropy. Of course, in the physical world force, pressure, and entropy always existed and their properties are independent from the development of our physical knowledge. In contrast to the physical world, the world of physics has undergone a number of fundamental changes. When Kuhn said that two physicists who support different paradigms live in different worlds, he had in mind different worlds of physics and not different physical worlds. The aim of the present paper is a reflection of the most important changes in the world of physics. I will proceed indirectly, using the reconstruction of changes in the language of physics, which I call re-codings. The present article is a development of the ideas from my Patterns of Change, Linguistic Innovations in the Development of Classical Mathematics (Kvasz 2008). By re-coding in physics I mean a change in the world of physics; a change of the way physical phenomena, objects and processes are detected, described, and explained. An example of re-coding would thus be the tran