The Curious Case of Phlogiston

I'm fascinated by revisionist histories. I grew up in a British colony where we were systematically lied to about our own history. Events in the 1970s and 1980s forced us to begin to confront what really happened when we colonised New Zealand. At around the same time, modern histories began to appear to give us a more accurate account. James Belich's Making Peoples had a major impact on me. Michael King's Being Pakeha also struck a chord, as did Maurice Shadbolt's historical novel Monday's Warriors.

Most people who know a little bit about the history of science will have heard of phlogiston. The phlogiston theory is usually portrayed as exactly the kind of speculative metaphysics that was laid to rest by artful empiricists. Phlogiston became a symbol of the triumph of empiricism over superstition. As a student of chemistry, I imbibed this history and internalised it. 

The popular history (aka science folklore) has a Whiggish feel in the sense that Lavoisier is represented as making a rational leap towards the telos of the modern view. Such, we are led to believe, is the nature of scientific progress. My favourite encyclopedia repeats the standard folklore:

The phlogiston theory was discredited by Antoine Lavoisier between 1770 and 1790. He studied the gain or loss of weight when tin, lead, phosphorus, and sulfur underwent reactions of oxidation or reduction (deoxidation); and he showed that the newly discovered element oxygen was always involved. Although a number of chemists—notably Joseph Priestley, one of the discoverers of oxygen—tried to retain some form of the phlogiston theory, by 1800 practically every chemist recognized the correctness of Lavoisier’s oxygen theory.—Encyclopedia Britannica.

Compare this remark by Hasok Chang (2012b: time 19:00) in his inaugural lecture as Hans Rausing Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, at Cambridge University:

I became a pluralist about science because I could not honestly convince myself that the phlogiston theory was simply wrong or even genuinely inferior to Lavoisier's oxygen-based chemical theory.

When I was reading about the systematic misrepresentation of the work of J. J. Thomson and Ernest Rutherford in physics folklore, Chang's lecture came to mind. I discovered Chang 4 or 5 years ago and have long wanted to review his account of phlogiston, but was caught up in other projects. In this essay, I will finally explore the basis for Chang's scepticism about the accepted history of phlogiston. While I largely rely on his book, Chang pursued this theme in two earlier articles (2009, 2010).

Setting the Scene

The story largely takes place in the mid-late eighteenth century. The two principal figures are Joseph Priestley (1733 – 1804) and Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (1743 – 1794). 

A caveat is that while I focus on these two figures, the historical events involved dozens, if not hundreds, of scientists. Even in the 1700s, science was a communal and cooperative affair; a slow conversation amongst experts. My theme here is not "great men of history". My aim is to explore the historiography of science and reset my own beliefs. Chang's revisionist history of phlogiston is fascinating by itself, but I am intrigued by how Chang uses it as leverage in his promotion of pluralism in science. Priestley and Lavoisier are just two pegs to hang a story on. And both were, ultimately, wrong about chemistry. 

Chang (2012: 2-5) introduces Priestley at some length. He refers to him as "a paragon of eighteenth-century amateur science" who "never went near a university", while noting that he was also a preacher and a "political consultant" (from what I read, Priestley was really more of a commentator and pamphleteer). As a member of a Protestant dissenting church, Priestley was barred from holding any public office or working in fields such as law or medicine. In the 1700s, British universities were still primarily concerned with training priests for the Church of England. That said, Priestley was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1766, which at least gained him the ears of fellow scientists. Priestley is known for his work identifying different gases in atmospheric air. He first discovered "fixed air" (i.e. carbon-dioxide) and became a minor celebrity with his invention of carbonated water. He also discovered oxygen, more on this below. 

However, Chang provides no similar introduction to Lavoisier. Rather, Lavoisier appears in a piecemeal way as a foil to his main character, Priestley. The disparity seems to be rhetorical. Part of Chang's argument for plurality in science is that Priestley was on the right track and has been treated poorly by historians of science. By focusing primarily on Priestley and treating Lavoisier as secondary, Chang might be seen as rebalancing a biased story.

I'm not sure that this succeeds, because as a reviewer, I now want to introduce Lavoisier to my readers, and I have to rely on third-party sources to do that. Chang doesn't just leave the reader hanging; he misses an opportunity to put Lavoisier in context and to draw some obvious comparisons. That Priestley and Lavoisier inhabited very different worlds is apposite to any history of phlogiston.

Lavoisier was an aristoi who inherited a large fortune at the age of five (when his mother died). He attended the finest schools where he became fascinated by the sciences (such as they were at the time). This was followed by university studies, where Lavoisier qualified as a lawyer, though he never practised law (he did not need to). As an aristo, Lavoisier had access to the ruling elite, which gave him leverage in his dispute with Priestley. He was also something of a humanitarian and philanthropist, spending some of his fortune on such projects as clean drinking water, prison reform, and public education. Despite this, he was guillotined during the French Revolution after being accused of corruption in his role as a tax collector. He was later exonerated of corruption.

The contrasting social circumstances help to explain why Lavoisier was able to persuade scientists to abandon phlogiston for his oxygen theory. Lavoisier had money and class on his side in a world almost completely dominated by money and class. 

Having introduced the main players, we now need to backtrack a little to put their work in its historical context. In the 1700s, the Aristotelian idea that the world is made of earth, water, fire, and air was still widely believed. To be clear, both water and air were considered to be elemental substances. 18th-century medicine was still entirely rooted in this worldview.

Alchemy still fascinated the intelligentsia of the day. On one level, alchemists pursued mundane goals, such as turning lead into gold, and on another, they sought physical immortality (i.e. immortality in this life rather than in the afterlife).

The telescope and microscope were invented in the early 1600s. With the former, Galileo observed the Moon and Jupiter's satellites, becoming the first empirical scientist to upset the existing worldview by discovering new facts about the world. 

That worldview was still largely the synthesis of Christian doctrine with Aristotelian philosophy created by Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). The microscope had also begun to reveal a level of structure to the world, and to life, that no one had previously suspected existed. The practice of alchemy began to give way to natural philosophy, i.e. the systematic investigation of properties of matter. Priestley and Lavoisier were not the only people doing this, by any means, but they were amongst the leading exponents of natural philosophy. 

One of the key phenomena that captured the attention of natural philosophers, for obvious reasons, was combustion. The ancient Greeks believed that fire was elemental and that combustion released the fire element latent in the fuel. This is the precursor to the idea of phlogiston as a substance.

Phlogiston Theory

The first attempt at a systematic account of phlogiston is generally credited to Georg Ernst Stahl (1659 – 1734) in Zymotechnia fundamentalis "Fundamentals of the Art of Fermentation" (1697). The term phlogiston derives from the Greek φλόξ phlóx "flame", and was already in use when it was applied to chemistry.

The basic idea was that anything which burns contains a mixture of ash and phlogiston. Combustion is the process by which phlogiston is expelled from matter, leaving behind ash. And we see this process happening in the form of flames. And thus, a combustible substance was one that contained phlogiston. Phlogiston was "the principle of inflammability". 

However, experimentation had begun to show interesting relationships between metals and metal-oxides (known at the time as calx). One could be turned into the other, and back again. For example, metallic iron gradually transforms into a reddish calx, which is a mixture of a couple of different oxides of iron. To turn iron-oxide back into iron, we mix it with charcoal or coke and heat it strongly. And this reversible reaction is common to all metals. 

Chemists used phlogiston to explain this phenomenon. Metals, they conjectured, were rich in phlogiston. This is why metals have such qualities as lustre, malleability, ductility, and electrical conductivity. In becoming a calx, the metal must be losing phlogiston, and by analogy, a calx is a kind of ash. On the other hand, charcoal and coke burn readily, so they must also be rich in phlogiston. When heated together, the phlogiston must move from the charcoal back into the calx, reconstituting the metal. 

This reversible reaction was striking enough for Immanuel Kant to use it, in The Critique of Pure Reason (1781), as an example of how science "began to grapple with nature in a principled way" (Chang 2012: 4).

Priestley is famous for having discovered oxygen, but as Chang emphasises, it was Lavoisier who called it that. Priestley called it dephlogisticated air, i.e. air from which phlogiston has been removed. "Air" in this context is the same as "gas" in modern parlance.

Priestley produced dephlogisticated air by heating mercury-oxide, releasing oxygen and leaving the pure metal. According to the phlogiston theory, such dephlogisticated air should readily support combustion because, being dephlogisticated, it would readily accept phlogiston from combustion. And so it proved. Combustion in dephlogisticated air was much more vigorous. Breathing the new air also made one feel invigorated. Priestley was the first human to breathe pure oxygen, though he tested it on a mouse first.

Formerly considered elemental, atmospherical air could now be divided into "fixed air" and "dephlogisticated air". A missing piece was inflammable air (hydrogen), which was discovered by Henry Cavendish in 1766, when he was observing the effects of acids on metals. Cavendish had also combusted dephlogisticated air and inflammable air to make water. And Priestley had replicated this in his own lab.

Priestley and Cavendish initially suspected that inflammable air was in fact phlogiston itself, driven from the metal by the action of acids. A calx in acid produced no inflammable air, because it was already dephlogisticated. However, the fact that dephlogisticated air and phlogiston combined to make water was suggestive and led to an important refinement of the phlogiston theory.

They settled on the idea that inflammable air (hydrogen) was phlogisticated water, and that dephlogisticated air (oxygen) was actually dephlogisticated water. And thus, the two airs combined to form water. In this view, water is still elemental. 

It was Lavoisier who correctly interpreted this reaction to mean that water was not an element but a compound of hydrogen and oxygen (and it was Lavoisier who named inflammable air hydrogen, i.e. "water maker"). However, it is precisely here, Chang argues that phlogiston proves itself to be the superior theory.

Chang notes that, without the benefit of hindsight, it's difficult to say what is so wrong with the phlogiston theory. It gave us a working explanation of certain chemical phenomena, and it made testable predictions that were accurate enough to be taken seriously. For its time, phlogiston was a perfectly good scientific theory. So the question then becomes, "Why do we see it as a characteristic example of a bad scientific theory disproved by empiricism?" Was it really such a bad theory?

A Scientific Blunder?

On one hand, Chang argues that, given the times, phlogiston theory was a step in the right direction, away from alchemical views and towards seeing electricity as the flow of a fluid, which then leads towards the modern view of chemical reactions involving the flow or exchange of electrons. And on the other hand, Lavoisier's theory is far from being "correct".

If the argument is that phlogiston was an ad hoc concept that could not be observed, then why is the same criticism not levelled against Lavoisier for the role of elemental luminaire or caloric in his theory? Caloric is what we would now call "heat", and it is clearly not elemental.

The terms "oxidation" and "reduction" (and the portmanteau "redox") are generalisations from Lavoisier's explanation of metals and metal-oxides. A metal-oxide can be "reduced" to the pure metal, and a metal oxidised to form the oxide. And one can make them go back and forth by altering the conditions.

While oxidation and reduction apply to metals and their oxides, such reactions are not typical. Most redox reactions don't involve metals or oxygen. When fluorine reacts with hydrogen, for example, we say that hydrogen is "oxidised" (gives up an electron) and that fluorine is "reduced" (gains an electron). And this terminology doesn't make much sense. Even with a BSc in chemistry, I always have to stop and think carefully about which label applies because it's not intuitive.

A commonly cited reason for the collapse of the phlogiston theory is that a metal gains weight in becoming a calx. The implication is that phlogiston theory was at a loss to explain this. Superficially, the early versions of phlogiston theory argue that in becoming a calx, the metal loses phlogiston, so we would expect it to lose weight, rather than gain it. The idea that the metal combines with oxygen is correct in hindsight, and is how we see the formation of metal-oxides in the present.

However, Priestley and another phlogistonist, Richard Kirwan, did have an explanation for weight gain. I've already noted that Priestley's ideas matured and that, latterly, he had concluded that inflammable air (hydrogen) was phlogisticated water, and dephlogisticated air (oxygen) was dephlogisticated water. In Priestley's mature view, the metal formed a calx by combination with water and the loss of phlogiston. The added weight was due to the dephlogisticated water. When the calx was reduced, the metal absorbed phlogiston and gave up water. 

Like Chang, when I review this explanation, keeping in mind the state of knowledge at the time, I can't see how Lavoisier's explanation is any better. Seen in the context of the times (late 18th century), there was nothing illogical about the phlogiston theory. It explained observations and made testable predictions. As Chang (2010: 50) says:

We really need to lose the habit of treating ‘phlogiston theory got X wrong’ as the end of the story; we also need to ask whether Lavoisier’s theory got X right, and whether it did not get Y and Z wrong.

Chang cites several historians of science commenting on this. For example, John McEvoy (1997) notes that...

by the end of the eighteenth century, almost every major theoretical claim that Lavoisier made about the nature and function of oxygen had been found wanting.

And Robert Siegfried (1988):

The central assumptions that had guided [Lavoisier's] work so fruitfully were proved empirically false by about 1815.

These comments are in striking contrast to the claim made by Britannica: "by 1800, practically every chemist recognized the correctness of Lavoisier’s oxygen theory". The story in Britannica is the widely accepted version of history. At the same time, Chang makes clear, the story in Britannica is simply false.

Lavoisier's theory of acids, his theory of combustion, and his theory of caloric were all clearly wrong from the viewpoint of modern chemistry. For example, Lavoisier claimed that all acids contain oxygen (the name oxygen means "acid maker"). However, hydrochloric acid (which we have in our stomachs) does not contain oxygen. Indeed, the action of acids is now thought to be because of their ability to produce hydrogen ions (aka naked protons, aka phlogisticated water), which are extremely reactive.

Moreover, as Chang (2012: 9) shows, the problems with Lavoisier's theory were well known to his contemporaries. Many scientists voiced their concerns at the time. The point is well taken. If we are judging by modern standards, then Lavoisier and Priestley were both wrong, Lavoisier no less than Priestley. Nonetheless, Lavoisier, with his fortune and his access to the French aristoi, had more leverage than dissenting Priestley.

That said, Lavoisier clearly won the argument. And the brief account of his triumph in Britannica is a classic example of the adage that the victors write history.

What We Lost

What Chang tries to do next is declared by the subtitle of section 2: "Why Phlogiston Should Have Lived" (2012: 14). The first section of the book is deliberately written relatively informally with the idea that a general reader could appreciate the argument. In this second section, however, he develops a much more philosophically rigorous approach and introduces a great deal more jargon, some of which is specific to his project.

My aim in this essay is to continue the discussion at the same level. This inevitably means losing exactly the nuances that Chang introduces and probably diverging from his intentions to some extent. I do recommend reading the rest of his argument. What follows is my, all too brief, interpretation of Chang's argument. 

While his history is revisionist, Chang's point is not to promote a speculative counterfactual history (which is to say, a fictitious alternative history). Rather, he seeks to make an argument for pluralism. Where pluralism means the coexistence of different explanations for any given phenomenon, until such time as the best explanation emerges. 

Chang argues that Lavoisier's view that oxygen was being exchanged in chemical reactions was clearly inferior and only applicable to metal/calx reactions. By the time this became clear, phlogiston was discredited and could not be revived. And Lavoisier's counterintuitive oxidation-reduction model became the norm in chemistry, and still is, despite its obvious disadvantages. 

The idea that phlogiston was being exchanged in chemical reactions was not a bad theory (for the time). Moreover, phlogiston was already conceptually linked to electricity. Getting from redox to the exchange of electrons took another century. Chang argues that the conceptual leap from phlogiston to the exchange of electrons could have been considerably easier than it was, starting from Lavoisier's theory.

Chang's argument for pluralism is not simply based on the two theories being equally false. Indeed, he goes to some pains to explain what they both got right. The point is that the phlogiston theory had untapped potential. In prematurely killing off phlogiston and adopting Lavoisier's oxygen theory (which as we have seen was disproved a few decades later), we actually retarded the progress of science. And when Lavoisier was proven wrong, we had no alternative theory and simply retained his awkward and misleading terminology. 

Had we allowed the two theories to co-exist a little longer, so that Lavoisier's explanation could be thoroughly tested and proven false before it was adopted, there is a possibility that we might have lighted on the electron exchange theory of chemical reactions a century earlier than we did. Indeed, as hinted above, phlogiston was already linked to electricity. Seen with hindsight, the rush to judgment about chemical reactions meant that scientists of the late 17th and early 18th centuries missed a huge opportunity. 

Chang is a pragmatist. He knows we cannot go back. His argument is that we should be alert to this situation in the present and the future and be less eager to settle on a theory where ambiguity remains. Arguably, the temporary triumph of the various Copenhagen interpretations of Schrödinger's equation was a similar example. We settled too early, for reasons unconnected to science, only to have the chosen theory be disproved some decades later. 

I don't read Chang as saying that we should hold on to pluralism no matter what. Only that, where there is room for doubt, we should allow multiple explanations to coexist, because we don't know in advance what the best answer will be. This only emerges over time. And a scientific theory can only benefit from responding to the challenges that other explanations pose.

Conclusions

Hasok Chang aims to demonstrate the value of pluralism through critiquing the history of the so-called "chemical revolution" identified with Lavoisier. And the case of phlogiston is both fascinating in its own right and a compelling study of how the lack of pluralism retarded the progress of science. 

While sources like Britannica follow science folklore in insisting on the "correctness" of the oxygen theory, historians of science tell us a different story. It may be true that Lavoisier's theory was widely adopted by 1800, but historians have shown that it was also largely falsified by 1815. By this time, the phlogiston theory had been "killed", as Chang puts it.

Chang attempts to show that phlogiston was not such a bad theory and that the oxygen theory was not such a good theory. Contrary to the usual Whiggish accounts, the triumph of Lavoisier's oxygen theory was not really an example of "scientific progress". Indeed, Chang supposes that adopting the oxygen theory actually retarded the progress of science, since it pointed away from the role of electricity in chemistry. This important insight took another century to emerge.

The phlogiston theory is arguably the better of the two theories that existed in the late 1700s. Chang argues that had phlogiston persisted just a little longer, at least until Lavoisier was disproved, we might have made the leap to seeing chemical reactions in terms of the flow of electricity between elements much earlier than we eventually did. And who knows what else this might have changed?

The point is not to inaugurate some kind of neo-phlogistonist movement or to speculate about counterfactual (alternative) histories. The point is that when we have competing theories, in the present, we should allow them to coexist rather than rushing to settle on one of them. 

Pluralism is a pragmatic approach to uncertainty. When different explanations are possible, we can compare and contrast the differences. Allowing such challenges is more likely to result in scientific progress than the rush to judgment or the overwhelming desire to have one right answer.

As noted at the outset, in this essay, I have largely overlooked the contributions of Priestley's and Lavoisier's contemporaries. I have emphasised the two main players, even more than Chang does, purely for narrative simplicity (and keeping this essay to a reasonable length). This might make it seem that it was something like a personal competition, when that doesn't seem to be the case. Think of this essay as a taster. My aim is to whet your appetite to go and discover Chang for yourself, or better, to go and read the original papers being published at the time. See for yourself.  

Coda

The pluralism that Chang praises in the case of chemistry is not the same kind of pluralism that exists in so-called "interpretations of quantum mechanics". Chang is in favour of having multiple explanations of a phenomenon until such time as the best explanation unequivocally emerges. But he also considers that the best explanations change over time as new data comes in. Chang is a pragmatist, and this seems to be the only viable approach to science. We do not and cannot acquire metaphysical certainty because there is no epistemic privilege with respect to reality. We are all inferring facts about reality based on experience, a procedure known to be fraught with difficulties that often go unnoticed.

Generally, in science, we see competing explanations that attempt to fit a new phenomenon into our pre-existing metaphysics. In crude terms, scientific theories are made to fit into existing views about reality, and new data changes our view of reality only rarely and often incrementally. Paradigms do change, but only with great reluctance. This conservatism is generally a good thing as long as it doesn't become dogmatic.

In stark contrast to the rest of science, in quantum physics, the mathematical approximations are considered infallible and inviolable, and scientists propose different realities in which the mathematics makes sense. They have become dogmatic about their theory and refuse to consider other models. It has not gone well.

As Sabine Hossenfelder said, "Theoretical physicists used to explain what was observed. Now they try to explain why they can’t explain what was not observed."

~~Φ~~

Bibliography

Chang, Hasok. (2009) "We Have Never Been Whiggish (About Phlogiston)". Centaurus 51(4): 239-264. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0498.2009.00150.x

Chang, Hasok. (2010). "The Hidden History of Phlogiston: How Philosophical Failure Can Generate Historiographical Refinement." HYLE – International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry 16 (2): 47-79. Online.

Chang, Hasok. (2012a). Is Water H20? Evidence, Realism and Pluralism. Springer.

Chang, Hasok. (2012b). "Scientific Pluralism and the Mission of History and Philosophy of Science." Inaugural Lecture by Professor Hasok Chang, Hans Rausing Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, 11 October 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGUsIf9qYw8

Stahl, Georg Ernst. (1697). Zymotechnia fundamentalis.

Is Physics a Scam?

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”—Upton Sinclair

“Theoretical physicists used to explain what was observed. Now they try to explain why they can’t explain what was not observed.”—Sabine Hossenfelder 

Sabine Hossenfelder is a former scientist and now a well-known blogger and YouTuber. Her blog, Backreaction started in 2006 (about a year after mine) and continues today alongside her videos.

Over the years Hossenfelder has built a reputation for well-informed, honest commentary on modern physics (with occasional forays into light entertainment). She is an inveterate fact-checker and debunker of fallacies. Hossenfelder is very direct and forthright in her opinions.

In my opinion, her views on topics outside of her area expertise are no better than average. However, her physics explanations are usually quite good. She has accumulated 1.68 million subscribers (including yours truly) which is good for a channel that mainly offers hardcore science content.

Her blogs and videos cover a wide range of topics. Hossenfelder often takes and defends a stance on issues. Notably, she rejects aesthetics ("elegance", "beauty", etc) as a criteria for judging scientific theories. She also defends instrumentalism in quantum physics ("shut up and calculate"). And she is "against free will" (though I'm not sure which kind of "free will" she means). In this sense, Hossenfelder is very much an orthodox scientist who thinks quantum physics, as it stands, is the best we can do.

Hossenfelder's critical commentaries reliably inform, educate, and entertain. However, in the in the last year the content of the Hossenfelder's channel has begun to change in tone. Hossenfelder has always been critical of reported science, but she is increasingly critical of the science establishment.

On 5 April 2024, she posted a confessional monologue, emotively titled: My dream died, and now I'm here in which she described her harrowing experiences of academia and her realisation that the goal of the most of the research was merely to attract more funding. Derek Muller, the host of another hardcore science channel: Veritasium (~18 million followers) commented in response:

After finishing my PhD I went to a university-led session on ‘What Comes Next.’ What I heard sounded a lot like “now, you beg for money.” It was so depressing to think about all the very clever people in that room who had worked so very hard only to find out they had no financial security and would be spending most of their days asking for money. I realized that even what I thought of as the ‘safe path’ was uncertain so I may as well go after what I truly want. That led me here.

So, yes, academic science is dominated by the scrabble for funding, which means scientists often don't have job security but go from grant to grant, always uncertain. Based on conversations I've had with academics, Hossenfelder's comments on short-term contracts and the funding game also ring true.

But of course, Muller didn't have to also contend with sexism. I've heard very similar complaints about sexism in academia from women in Buddhist Studies, so I am inclined to believe Hossenfelder when she claims to have suffered from sexism. It seems to be very common for women in academia. In this case, the other comments on Hossenfelder's videos are worth looking at. A number of her correspondents are women who report having had similar experiences in academic science departments.

As such, I'm inclined to give Hossenfelder the benefit of the doubt. Let's look more at the substance of her criticisms.

Hossenfelder's Crisis

In 2017 Hossenfelder published a letter in Nature Physics, one of the premier scientific journals:

Hossenfelder, Sabine (2017). "Science needs reason to be trusted." Nature Physics 13: 316–317

It came with the strapline:

That we now live in the grip of post-factualism would seem naturally repellent to most physicists. But in championing theory without demanding empirical evidence, we're guilty of ignoring the facts ourselves.

This is quite emotive language, right out of the block. The article is paywalled by Nature, but it can be read online here. The kind of problem that Hossenfelder wanted to draw attention to is:

In December 2015, the LHC collaborations CMS and ATLAS presented evidence for a deviation from standard-model physics at approximately 750 GeV resonant mass. The excess appeared in the two-photon decay channel and had a low statistical significance. It didn't look like anything anybody had ever predicted. By August 2016, new data had revealed that the excess was merely a statistical fluctuation. But before this happened, high-energy physicists produced more than 600 papers to explain the supposed signal. Many of these papers were published in the field's top journals. None of them describes reality.

Hossenfelder notes that this practice of of churning out speculative papers on hot topics is so common that physicists refer to it as "ambulance chasing". 600 papers on one experimental result that turned out to be a glitch. No one can possibly read all of them, and it would have been completely unprofitable to do so because, as Hossenfelder notes, none of them describes reality.

Hossenfelder (2017) argues that the problem is ubiquitous across physics and notes:

What worries me is that this flood of papers is a stunning demonstration for how useless the current quality criteria are. If it takes but a few months to produce several hundred 'explanations' for a statistical fluke, then what are these explanations good for?

This information overload inevitably leads to filtering. One doesn't attempt to read everything, one chooses which papers to read. But how? I suspect that they read papers in journals they trust, authored by scientists they recognise and they don't read papers by unknowns. It's not what you know, it's who you know. So social issues are deeply affecting science. Hossenfelder's plea is that physicists pay attention to social sources of bias. For example:

Thousands of papers have been written about [the blackhole information paradox] during my lifetime, and hundreds of solutions have been proposed, but theorists just can’t agree on one. The reason is that they don’t have to: For the black holes which we observe (eg at the center of our galaxy), the temperature of the Hawking radiation is so tiny there’s no chance of measuring any of the emitted particles. And so, black hole evaporation is the perfect playground for mathematical speculation. Backreaction (6 April 2017).

This example gives a sense of what Hossenfelder meant when she wrote about "championing theory without demanding empirical evidence". One might also describe it as fishing for new physics in the absence of any new observations. Science needs to be driven by observation rather than speculation. This was more or less the whole point of the European Enlightenment.

On 11 Feb 2023, Hossenfelder posted a video entitled "What's Going Wrong in Particle Physics? (This is why I lost faith in science.)" which sets out to indict (her erstwhile) field of particle physics claiming that the standard model was complete in the 1970s and no progress has been made since.

The argument goes that, as far as we know, the standard model explains all known observations and does not require any new phenomena (i.e. particles) to account for observations. We don't need a new model of particle physics.

What we have seen is a stream of arbitrary new "models" (computer simulations) which fit the existing data but also make predictions about new particles such as axions, wimps, and dark matter. Hossenfelder points out that all of these predictions have failed basic tests. And science has failed to make much progress because the best minds are wasting their time on toy models rather than investigating nature.

One of the best examples of this is string theory with its many extra unobservable dimensions. String theory soaked up vast amounts of funding but in the end it tells us nothing about the physics of world we live in, though arguably it does tell us something about the sociology of science.

One problem which seems to drive the quest for new particles is that the standard model of particle physics cannot be reconciled with the standard model of cosmology. But there's no principial reason that these theories should be reconcilable. The quest for "unification" is based on beliefs and aesthetics, not evidence. Moreover, the two relevant theories behind the models—quantum field theory and general relativity—are both incomplete on their own. For example, relativity predicts singularities that we know, from other observations, cannot exist. Worse, David Wiltshire has raised some serious doubts about the current cosmological models. Wiltshire persuasively argues that "dark energy" is an artefact of an incorrect assumption about the homogeneity of the universe.

There is some idea that reconciling these two theories requires a quantum theory of gravity. However, there is no reason to believe that gravity is quantised, since there is no known mechanism by which it could be quantised. To the best of my knowledge, in our universe the only mechanism that is known to quantize energy is a standing wave. It is the electron qua standing wave in an atom that accounts for the quantization of electrons and photons.

The 5 April 2024, video My dream died, and now I'm here introduces us to Hossenfelder's backstory, but I'm not sure it helps her case. By introducing her personal story, Hossenfelder reveals a motive for being critical that is personal rather than scientific. The fact that sexist and dogmatic scientists killed her dreams is not irrelevant to her stance as a critic and I think some people (not me) will simply assume that her complaints are sour grapes.

The culmination of Hossenfelder's criticism, to date, is a video titled I was asked to keep this confidential, posted on 15 Feb 2025. In the video, Hossenfelder reads out an email that she says was sent to her, in confidence, after her letter appeared in Nature Physics. The email, ostensibly from a former colleague, expresses concerns about the potential impact on the jobs and careers of scientists of exposing the real nature of science to funding bodies.

The obvious problem with the confidential email is that we have no way of discerning the authenticity of the email. We cannot observe it. If anything, it sounds like a caricature of exactly the kind of practices and attitudes that Hossenfelder is critical of. Which seems a little too convenient. I'm not saying I don't believe her, I'm saying that secret sources and anonymous informants don't contribute to a concrete case. And they give the trolls an easy way to dismiss her. I know it is personal, but I also know that whenever I let my personal feelings show, academics look down their noses at me. It's counterproductive.

Is There a Crisis in Physics?

To be clear, everyone acknowledges that the two best theories of physics—general relativity and quantum physics—are incomplete as they stand. They have been incomplete for a century or more. The fact that these theories remain incomplete has to be seen as a failure. I believe I know why quantum physics has failed, though as an outsider, I doubt anyone is interested in my opinion. But in any case, whether this failure represents a "crisis" is moot.

The sexist treatment of women in science is an egregious a failure as well. The evidence is that women are entirely capable of doing science at the highest levels. Patriarchy has no place in science, and yet... patriarchy continues to play a role. Come on, men, you know sexism is bullshit!

We might argue over whether this or that problem constitutes a "crisis", but given Hossenfelder's observations, I would have thought that no one could argue that science is "going well". I'm definitely wrong about this.

Hossenfelder is not the only one who talks in terms of a "crisis in physics". Sean Carroll (31 July 2023), has used these very words for example. But in his case, the headline is clickbait because in his preamble he says

In this solo podcast I ruminate on the unusual situation fundamental physics finds itself in, where we have a theoretical understanding that fits almost all the data, but which nobody believes to be the final answer. I talk about how we got here, and argue that it's not really a "crisis" in any real sense. (Emphasis added)

Indeed, despite being highly critical of attitudes to the foundations of quantum physics, Carroll apparently believes that physics is a victim of its own success. Hmm. This attitude is hardly credible and looks like good old fashioned denial.

Eric Weinstein (who has a PhD in maths, but has mainly worked in the finance sector) is another trenchant critic of modern physics. This interview seems to be representative of his views: What If the Smartest People Are Lying to You? - Eric Weinstein.

The counterargument with Weinstein is that he has a pet "theory of everything" that scientists have dismissed. When you listen to him talk, there is very obviously sour grapes over this. Hossenfelder at least maintains the impression of being mainly concerned about science. Weinstein is openly annoyed that scientists won't take him seriously and seems to believe that this is personal rather than professional.

As I know from personal experience, it's difficult for an outsider to break into any field that requires expertise, even when outsiders are experts. Nothing I do will change the fact that I'm an outsider. I don't have a PhD or institutional credentials; I don't play the game the way it is supposed to be played. It's not that scholars disagree with me, it's that they ignore outsiders as a matter of course. Given that 80% of humanities articles are never published, it seems that they mostly ignore each other as well. So I feel for Weinstein, but having listened to his pitch, I don't find him credible and was not motivated to look up his theory (I'm more interested in another outsider, John Macken).

I do believe that Weinstein has met "trolls with PhDs". I've met them too. My sense is that people who are smart but not creative (don't have original ideas) become gatekeepers and station-keepers. They know they can never tackle any of the big problems, that they will never win a Nobel, but they want to stay in the game. So they appoint themselves as keepers of "standards" which is what they have instead of ideas. And thus the religion of scientism was born.

Where I sympathise with Weinstein and Hossenfelder, is that physicists do seem to be caught up in ambulance chasing, gaming the system, and other unprofitable activities because, they believe that this what is required of them. Dissenters and outsiders are treated poorly, especially in the face of massive information overload. The insiders feel no compunction to be polite to outsiders who they regularly describe as "crackpots" (whether we are or not). And yet, the main theories of physics are still incomplete.

From where I sit, physicists do seem to be more interested in continuing to live in the manner to which they have become accustomed than they are in explaining the world.

Note added 14 May 2025. See also the essay just published in Nature by Carlo Rovelli (2025), which expresses similar criticisms, though framed rather differently. 

"But an epochal sequence of experimental results has proved many such speculations unfounded, and confirmed physics that I learnt at school half a century ago. I think physicists are failing to heed the lessons — and that, in turn, is hindering progress in physics... My hunch is that it is at least partly because physicists are bad philosophers."

I certainly agree with the last proposition. Moreover, as Mary Midgley said in 1979 (with reference to "the selfish gene": "There is now no safer occupation than talking bad science to philosophers, except talking bad philosophy to scientists."

As Hossenfelder highlights when reading out the "confidential email", there is a lot at stake in this spat: tens of thousands of physicist's jobs, and the identities and social standing of physicists.

There is clearly a sense of entitlement amongst physicists who think we should spend £billions on, say, a new super-collider despite having no reason to believe it will find anything new. Because, to them, physics is intrinsically important. Physics tells us how the world works. Except, of course, quantum physics (Hossenfelder's field) has largely abandoned any attempt to explain the world, replacing it with aimlessly twiddling the sliders on virtual models in the hope that something of value might turn up.

It might be interesting to consider how physics got into this mess. Which is all about politics.

Physics and the Military Industrial Complex.

Adam Becker (2018: 79-83) notes that after the war and the "success" of the atomic bomb program, and with the Cold War just beginning, money flooded into physics. A good deal of that money came from the US military.

In 1938 the total spend on physics research was ~$17 million per annum. Almost none of which came from the public purse. By 1953 the total funding was $400 million p/a. Similarly, in 1941, 170 students were awarded PhDs in physics. By 1951 that figure was over 500 and rising.

Moreover, by 1954, 98% of the funding for "basic research in the physical sciences" was coming from public funds. This is a dramatic change. Under the current political-economic regime, when you use public funds, there has to be some kind of public accountability.

With the ascendency of physics and the glut of funding came a sense of entitlement. Becker (2018: 80-81) cites Samuel Goudsmit:

It's been a shock. We've got marvellous laboratories for basic research, which is the real love of any self-respecting physicist, but somehow we don't have the same tender affection for them that we would have had years ago, when acquiring a three-hundred-dollar spectroscope was reason enough to throw a party. Today we're given a multimillion-dollar piece of equipment, and the minute the dedication ceremonies are over, we're poring over the plans for an even more powerful one.

With the flood of money and new graduates into physics, obtaining funding rapidly became a game. The aim of the game is to secure funding while promising as little as possible and providing little or no return on investment. While the Cold War arms race helped to push things along, the situation became considerably worse with the advent of target culture in the 1980s.

In the 1980s, science, along with everything else in life, became a matter of setting arbitrary targets and defining "success" as having met those targets (target culture). Whether or not meeting those targets represented any kind of contribution (often it does not). For example, quantity of publications became a common measure of "success" ("publish or perish"). And this led to an explosion in scholarly publication, but not to an explosion in knowledge. Roughly the same amount of knowledge is now swamped by a vast amount of noise.

There are clearly some real problems in science in 2025. However, scientists are not responsible for the competitive funding models. That is actually the fault of the funding bodies themselves. The neoliberal zeitgeist emphasises individualism, competition, utilitarianism, and commerce. Making scientists compete for short-term funding was their idea of driving improvement in science, because they have an ideological belief in the value of competition and of keeping their clients hungry.

The fact that science is a collective, collaborative, and cooperative knowledge-seeking activity seems not to have registered with neoliberals. That sounds like socialism. Better to divide and conquer!

And this is not restricted to science. We live in an era of the commodification and monetization of everything, including the commodification of the self. Commodification and monetization is almost always followed by enshittification.

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Cory Doctorow (2023).

This clearly affects all social media, for example, and things like Google Maps, and this blogging platform which was considerably better when it launched than it is now (every "upgrade" breaks something that was important to me).

Science was commodified after the atom bomb. Scientists became merely workers. This process was already well underway when Marx and Engels published the Communist Manifesto in 1848:

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into it's paid wage-labourers. (1992: 5)

This should not be read as an endorsement of Marx and Engels generally. I'm not advocating for Marxism per se. I'm just pointing out that it was obvious in 1848 that social changes in capitalism tend to downgrade the the status of petite bourgeoisie. 

Multinationals and governments became the patrons of science with the expectation that they could exploit the products that scientists produced. And physics in particular seemed to promise more weapons of mass destruction like the atom bomb (and duly produced the H bomb and neutron bomb). Those "glory" days seem to be over. 

On the other hand, no one living in Cambridge can fail to notice that Cambridge University is constantly spinning off science-driven business ventures like a rat shedding fleas. Vast amounts of time and resources are still being spent to commodify and monetize science. In Cambridge, at least two former shopping centres are being converted into science labs funded by venture capitalists. 

Changing Tack

What I hear in Hossenfelder's recent videos is a distinct change in her critique. She is no longer complaining that the unhelpful attitudes or fraud scandals are "killing science". Rather, she emphasises that the science funding model is economically incoherent.

Hossenfelder appears to have concluded that scientists are not listening to her and that they won't ever listen. In adopting the language of return on investment, she appears to be addressing her remarks to funding bodies, i.e. governments, militaries, and multinationals, i.e. to the military-industrial complex itself.

If the military-industrial complex are listening then they might be annoyed to think that their investment has been largely wasted in recent decades because scientists are gaming the system. They might feel that the whole exercise has been a scam (though to be fair, funding bodies made the funding of science a competitive game).

If the military-industrial complex were to take Hossenfelder's critique to heart, they might want to drastically rethink how science is funded and how quality is assessed. They might want to reassess the return on investment of multi-billion dollar projects that don't produce any income or useful products.

Looking at the push-back on social media, I don't think physicists have even noticed the change in language. The trolls-with-PhDs are still vocal defenders of the system of taking public money and getting no results: the sense of entitlement is palpable. They seem to believe that this is how science works and that they are entitled to public funds without public accountability.

And a lot of what Hossenfelder complains about are the results of this process in which neoliberalism revolutionised our lives in detrimental ways. For this reason, I'm not delighted to see Hossenfelder adopting the language of neoliberalism. I get it, since the chances of funding bodies listening is higher if she speaks their language. On the other hand, have scientists remained wilfully blind to the problems within their own field. Hubris, meet Nemesis.

I did see several people on social media responding to Hossenfelder by whining that "politics should be kept out of physics". My response to this is simple. When scientists began to take vast sums of public money, they also signed up for public accountability. There is no entitlement to funding.

Conclusion

I find Sabine Hossenfelder an intriguing figure. On one hand, based on her letter to Nature, Hossenfelder might be seen as a dissenter and critic. On the other hand, Hossenfelder is also a conservative defender of scientific orthodoxy. As far as I can tell, she's not someone who has contributed much in the way of new ideas or even new ways of seeing old ideas. But she clearly understands complex concepts and mathematics very well, and she is an effective science communicator with a popular YouTube channel. An influencer.

I think Hossenfelder is sincere and my limited experience of academia is consistent with her complaints. Patriarchy is, sadly, alive and well in academia. There is also no doubt that the neoliberal revolution has, long since, thoroughly penetrated to the heart of our universities in the form of treating the education of our children as a business opportunity. This is accompanied by target culture, short-termism, over-emphasis of competition, insensitivity to social inequality, utilitarianism, treating commerce as the highest form of human culture, and all the other faults of liberalism. All the things that are fucking up the world right now. The process of commodification, monetization, and enshitification is just a specific instance of how this plays out.

I think there is a crisis in physics. The most important physics theories remain incomplete and the efforts to complete them have been spectacular and costly failures. Moreover, gaming the system has become a raison d'être for academics. And computer models make it all too easy to practice "ambulance chasing" and flood the literature with noise. Although, to be fair, this funding model was imposed on science rather than being a choice that scientists made. Focussing on insoluble problems like the blackhole information paradox helps to perpetuate this dynamic (and, anyway, Noether's theorem gives us no reason to believe that "information" should be a conserved quantity since there is no associated symmetry).

But is it a "conspiracy"? It's clear that the commodification and gamification of everything is part of the capitalist agenda. And capitalism is a conspiracy amongst those who have excess capital to ensure that they and their children can continue hoard resources and have power over other people.

Most scientists have no new ideas to speak of and make no lasting contribution. They are happy to shut up and calculate, because calculating is difficult and they are good at it; so it is rewarding. The fact of not making any contribution to science is no longer a concern, since attracting funding is now seen as a science activity in its own right.

Is physics a scam? Not really, or at least not entirely. I think the physics community is scamming the funding bodies (and deluding themselves). But physics per se is still a very useful paradigm for thinking about the world and I genuinely appreciate all those science communicators trying hard to make science accessible to people like me. I'm currently revising all the mathematics I've forgotten in the last +40 years, with a view to doing some online physics courses. I love science. I hope the ideas in these essays might find an audience, though I'm likely to remain firmly in the "crackpot" category as far as the gatekeepers are concerned.

If funding bodies take notice of Hossenfelder, then science funding is likely to be redistributed and physicists are likely to face mass redundancies. Given the reach of her YouTube channel and the fact that she is now talking the language of return on investment, I think it highly likely that funding bodies are going to notice.

Also we cannot ignore that the tide is turning in the world. Fascism is ascendent once more. It's one way to ensure a compliant workforce for the capitalism without forcibly enslaving everyone. And fascism seems to be blind to systemic/existential problems like climate change, pollution, overpopulation, and ecosystem collapse. Fascism is also anti-intellectual, since intellectuals are the first line of defence against fascism. As we transition from neoliberalism to fascism, there are going to be casualties. And this will be true in science as much as any other walk of life.

~~Φ~~

Bibliography

Becker, Adam. (2018). What is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics. John Murray.

Doctorow, Cory (2023). "The ‘Enshittification’ of TikTok Or how, exactly, platforms die.". Wired. 23 Jan 2023. https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/

Marx, K and Engels, F. (1992). The Communist Manifesto [1848]. Oxford University Press.

Midgley, Mary. (1979). "Gene-juggling." Philosophy. 54(210): 439-458. 

Rovelli, Carlo. (2025) "Why bad philosophy is stopping progress in physics." [essay] Nature. 12 May 2025. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01465-6

A selection of Hossenfelder's critical videos in reverse chronological order.

• 15 Feb 2025: I was asked to keep this confidential.
• 16 Nov 2024: Science is in trouble and it worries me.
• 4 Nov 2024: The crisis in physics is real: Science is failing. .
• 9 Oct 2024: These new scientific fraud cases worry me: Now also in material science.
• 5 Oct 2024: This is why physics is dying.
• 9 May 2024: Scientific Progress is Slowing Down. But Why?
• 5 April 2024: My dream died, and now I'm here.
• 1 Mar 2024: Astrophysicists keep finding things that “shouldn’t exist”. I think I know why.
• 18 Feb 2024: Alarming: Fraud spreads in Science -- and I fear it will become worse.
• 10 Feb 2024: Prominent Physicist Misleads Public about Prospects of Expensive Particle Collider.
• 5 Aug 2023: Do we have evidence for new physics?
• 11 Feb 2023: What's Going Wrong in Particle Physics? (This is why I lost faith in science).
• 5 No 2022: The Quantum Hype Bubble Is About To Burst.

Notes on Early Atomic Models

In attempting to explain quantum mechanics, many authors take the approach of providing a linear historical narrative of "heroic failure" (a theme of special importance to the British). Thomson's "plum pudding" model failed and was replaced by Rutherford's "planetary" model of the atom, which in turn failed and was supplanted by Bohr's model. And Bohr's model was more or less upheld by quantum mechanics (which Bohr helped to formulate). I learned a lot of this "history" at school or picked it up as part of physics folklore.

Lately, I've been searching the literature on the development of quantum mechanics and reading selected papers (and cramming to get my reading level to the required heights). It was with considerable interest, then, that I stumbled on a paper by two Norwegian historians of science, Renstrøm & Bomark (2022). The paper has been posted on the science preprint server, ArXiv (i.e. "archive"), but has not subsequently been published as far as I can see.

The authors compare what is found in physics textbooks to what the founders of atomic physics actually said in their publications. And what they found was a systematic misrepresentation of the facts. As Renstrøm & Bomark say in conclusion:

Physics is perhaps the most exact of all sciences and we pride ourselves with extremely well tested and precise laws that allows us to make firm statements about the world we live in. This should be reflected in the way we present our field to the outside world as well.

My notes and comments on their article follow. I note that the folklore in question has spread to every corner of the internet as well.

Before diving in, I want to comment on the word "model". Although both Thomson and Rutherford published their articles in The Philosophical Magazine, here a "model" is not simply a conceptualisation of the problem, as we might expect in a work of philosophy. In this context, "model" means a mathematical model, i.e. a series of equations that can be used to describe the behaviour of the system in question at any arbitrary time. Most of the original papers that I mention below consist of page after page of complex mathematical calculations that are difficult to follow because they are written for experts who already know the topic and its literature. In this context, the speculations about what the model means in physical terms are secondary (though not unimportant). Like many religious texts, physics papers can often only be understood via commentaries.

Thomson's "Plum Pudding" Model.

Joseph John "J. J." Thomson (1856–1940) won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1906 for his work on the conduction of electricity by gases. This work also led to the discovery of electrons ca 1897. Thomson was the first to demonstrate that electrons—Thomson called them corpuscles—can appear to behave like particles. It took some time for the idea to catch on, however.

Up to this point, it was assumed that electrons were waves, like light. During this period, X-rays were discovered, which led to the realisation that light, X-rays and various other forms of radiation (UV, IR, radio, microwave) were all related. Indeed, they are the same phenomenon, at different wavelengths.

Thomson was able to experimentally estimate the mass and mass-to-charge ratio of the electron, accurately noting that the electron was of the order of 0.1% of the mass of the atom. Thomson (1906) showed that the number of electrons in an atom was "of the same order as the atomic weight".

The standard narrative is that Thomson proposed an atomic model in which negatively charged electrons were distributed in a sphere of positive charge, like "plums in a[n English] pudding" or "raisins in a cake". Encyclopedia Britannica, the acme of a reliable source, repeats this spiel and provides a helpful illustration:

Renstrøm & Bomark note that this static picture with randomly distributed electrons is what physics textbooks also give. It is part of physics folklore. And if you search online for images of Thomson's model, this is what they all look like. However, when Renstrøm & Bomark went and looked at Thomson's first publication on this, they found something quite different. For example, the title of Thomson (1904: 237) is:

On the structure of the atom: an investigation of the stability and periods of oscillation of a number of corpuscles arranged at equal intervals around the circumference of a circle; with application of the results to the theory of atomic structure. (emphasis added)

And in his model, the electrons are moving at high speeds. Thomson (1904: 254) says:

In this way we see that when we have a large number of corpuscles in rapid rotation, they will arrange themselves as follows: - The corpuscles form a series of rings, the corpuscles in one ring being approximately in a plane at right angles to the axis of rotation, the number of particles in the rings diminishing as the radius of the ring diminishes.

Thomson's actual model does not involve electrons evenly distributed like plums in a pudding. It involves electrons in "a series of concentric rings" (1904: 255). He does place these rings "enclosed in a sphere of uniform positive electrification" (Thomson 1904), but his actual model doesn't resemble the physics folklore version at all.

After finishing this essay, I happened to stumble upon Hon and Goldstein (2013), which confirms what Renstrøm & Bomark have said and gives more details. See also Aaserud & Kragh (2021)—an edited volume of conference papers—which contains a related article, Hon and Goldstein (2021). For more details on the history of Thomson's discovery of the electron, see Falconer (1987), and on its acceptance by the physics community, Falconer (2001).

One of the strengths of Thomson's model was that it was stable.

The problem is that the electromagnetic force is relatively strong. Two oppositely charged particles strongly attract each other. So we might expect the electron to rapidly fall down the potential well to collide with the proton. In this case, reality is somewhat counterintuitive. 

An electron and a proton can fuse into a neutron (plus a neutrino), but the reaction is endothermic, meaning that it requires a considerable input of energy. A neutron is about 0.782 MeV heavier than a proton and an electron combined. In practical terms, the electron and proton would have to have on the order of 20 million times the thermal energy they typically have at room temperature and one atmosphere. Which effectively means that it never happens. It is the sort of process we expect to find in the core of a star with very high temperatures and pressures, or indeed, in neutron stars.

By far the most common occurrence when an electron and a proton meet is that they form a hydrogen atom. This process, by contrast, is exothermic, and the excess energy generated is emitted as a photon.

This highlights the role of thermodynamics in our images of matter. Just because the electron and proton have opposite charge and experience a strong attraction, does not mean that they collapse into each other. The electromagnetic force is not the only consideration. 

To emphasise the importance of stability, Renstrøm & Bomark briefly discuss Hantora Nagaoka’s (長岡 半太郎) (1904) contemporary "Saturnian model", also published in Philosophical Magazine. The Nagaoka model was not stable and is seldom mentioned in standard works.

Thomson continued to speculate on how electrons are arranged in atoms. In 1905, Thomson gave a lecture in which says that mathematical investigation leads us to believe that electrons would form platonic solids with electrons at the vertices:

Thomson (1905: 2)

This is also misrepresented, on Wikipedia, for example, as part of Thomson's model. But Thomson does not endorse this theoretical picture and instead chooses, like a good scientist, to argue from experiment. And before long (1905:3), he is once again talking about arranging electrons in concentric rings. Wikipedia redeems a little itself by noting (without a citation) the first use of the term "plum pudding" in this connection.

The first known writer to compare Thomson's model to a plum pudding was an anonymous reporter in an article for the British pharmaceutical magazine The Chemist and Druggist in August 1906.

While the negative electricity is concentrated on the extremely small corpuscle, the positive electricity is distributed throughout a considerable volume. An atom would thus consist of minute specks, the negative corpuscles, swimming about in a sphere of positive electrification, like raisins in a parsimonious plum-pudding, units of negative electricity being attracted toward the centre, while at the same time repelling each other.

Thomson himself never used the term "plum pudding", and the model illustrated in textbooks and all over the internet is nothing like Thomson's rapidly revolving concentric rings (with his painstakingly calculated energies). Given the information he had, his model is a good attempt to balance the forces that were understood at the time.

However, things would very soon change because Thomson had a brilliant student by the name of Rutherford.

Rutherford's Model

Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908 "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances." When I was growing up in New Zealand in the 60s and 70s, Rutherford was one of only a handful of internationally renowned New Zealanders (outside of sports). Rutherford was known to us as "the man who split the atom".

Renstrøm & Bomark once again outline the textbook story, illustrated with extensive quotes. The story goes that Rutherford proposed a new model of the atom that eclipsed Thomson's. Rutherford's model was like a tiny solar system with the positively charged nucleus at the centre and negatively charged electrons orbiting like tiny planets.

This is still the most recognisable picture of the atom down to the present. If you search online for images of atoms, what you mostly get is versions of tiny solar systems. The official emoji for atom is ⚛️, which is more or less the image we associate with Rutherford. Such a diagram does not appear in Rutherford's published works as far as I can see.

Once again, Renstrøm & Bomark (2022: 10) turn to the original source, Rutherford (1911), and once again find that his conclusions have been misrepresented. They say:

Rutherford did not suggest a planetary atom in 1911. He offered no suggestions of how the electrons were arranged or moved; the electrons’ exact distribution was not important for the experimental results.

The title of Rutherford (1911) is "The scattering of α and β Particles by Matter and the Structure of the Atom." Despite the latter phrase, I agree that the paper barely discusses "the structure of the atom" and constructs no models. What Rutherford showed is that the larger share of the mass of a gold atom is concentrated in a small volume at the centre of the atom.

Renstrøm & Bomark, add

The theory Rutherford presented in his paper was primarily a scattering theory, and it was not considered to be an atomic model. Rutherford’s model was met with indifference and scarcely considered to be a theory of the constitution of the atom. It was not mentioned in the proceedings of the 1911 Solvay Congress, nor was it widely discussed in physics journals.

Something that I picked up from Rutherford (1911: 688)

The deductions from the theory so far considered are independent of the sign of the central charge, and it has not so far been found possible to obtain definite evidence to determine whether it be positive or negative.

He notes that Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden were attempting to determine this by experiment. Just three years later, Rutherford (1914: 488-489) says, referring specifically to his 1911 publication:

In order to account for this large angle scattering of α particles, I supposed that the atom consisted of a positively charged nucleus of small dimensions in which practically all the mass of the atom was concentrated. The nucleus was supposed to be surrounded by a distribution of electrons to make the atom electrically neutral and extending to distance from the nuclear comparable with the ordinary accepted radius of the atom.

Renstrøm & Bomark point out that even in the 1914 paper, Rutherford is still not suggesting that electrons are in "orbit" around the nucleus or moving in any way. His comments on the electron are the minimal corollaries of (1) a massive nucleus, (2) a positively charged nucleus, and (3) an electrically neutral atom.

In my previous essay, I showed by simple logic that these three facts are extremely important when proposing atomic structures, since there is only one configuration that can possibly balance a spherically symmetrical electrostatic field to make for an electrically neutral atom, i.e. a sphere.

Incidentally, Rutherford (1914: 488) also notes that Thomson was in fact developing a model first proposed by William Kelvin, which is also omitted from the folklore.

Lastly, Renstrøm & Bomark note another contemporary atomic structure model by John Nicholson. Nicholson managed to show that angular momentum is quantised. I'm not going to say much more about this.

Reflections

There are several takeaways here:

• Thomson (1904) did not propose a plum pudding model.
• Thomson's model involved concentric rings of negatively charged electrons rotating within a nebulous sphere of (free-floating) positive charge.
• Rutherford (1911) did not propose a model of the atom. And initially, no one thought that he did.
• Rutherford (1911) proved that the bulk of the mass of a gold atom was concentrated in the centre, but was initially unsure about the associated electric charge and did not comment on the arrangement of electrons (since they were irrelevant to his experiment).
• Later, Rutherford (1914) claimed to have said that the nucleus had a positive charge in 1911.
• Rutherford's (1914) picture is accurate as far as it goes: mass concentrated in the positively charged nucleus, surrounded by electrons which balance the electric charge to give an electrically neutral atom. But it's not a model in any formal sense. 

The papers in question are easily obtainable. I didn't even have to leave my desk. So there is no excuse for not reading them.

Renstrøm & Bomark (2022) conclude that such systemic misrepresentation is counterproductive because it can only undermine the confidence of students (if and when they discover the lie). I agree. But I take a much dimmer view of misrepresentation.

As a historian of religious texts, I am all too familiar with systematic misrepresentation. As my studies have shown, the history and philosophy of the Heart Sutra were systematically misrepresented in ways that seemed designed to elevate perceptions of its authenticity and authority. This makes me wonder about the systematic misrepresentation of classical atom models by later (quantum) physicists. As always, with a transgression, the question is "Cui bono?", i.e. "Who benefits from this?" 

As I noted in my previous essay, attempts to reify the Schrödinger equation lead to a series of incoherent, mutually exclusive metaphysics. But if we go back to the early days of quantum mechanics, there was much less in the way of pluralism. Most people accepted some form of the Copenhagen hypothesis, which required a metaphysical dualism: the world behaves in a wholly counter-intuitive manner when we don't observe it, and then, when we do observe the world, it falls into behaving intuitively. And this distinction, they say, is unavoidable. 

As I showed in my last essay, the idea that probabilities all co-exist before an observation and "collapse" at the point of observation is true of every system that we describe using probabilities. It's not that profound, unless we reify the wavefunction. 

The failure to produce a plausible metaphysics from the mathematical formalism is an ongoing problem that few physicists wish to think about, though most privately admit the problem exists. Indeed, physics folklore tells us that many physicists are openly hostile to questions about the foundations of quantum mechanics. "Shut up and calculate" and all that.

I'm not saying this is what happened, but it would not surprise me to learn that stories designed to make classical physics look trivially wrong were invented to help sell the "necessity" of embracing quantum mechanics. Along these lines, I note a comment by Hon and Goldstein (2021)

Bohr’s theory has roots in the theories of Ernest Rutherford and Joseph J. Thomson on the one hand, and that of John W. Nicholson on the other. We note that Bohr neither presented the theories of Rutherford and Thomson faithfully, nor did he refer to the theory of Nicholson in its own terms.

The metaphysical consequences of Schrödinger's approach, especially in the hands of Niels Bohr, were all too obviously problematic. Schrödinger himself was appalled by Born's "interpretation" of his wavefunction in probability terms. In a 1952 letter to Max Born, Schrödinger wrote:

"I don’t like it, and I’m sorry I ever had anything to do with it." 

(This is widely misinterpreted/misrepresented as a comment on quantum mechanics generally.)

I suspect that the quantum crowd were partly able to assert their dominance by exaggerating the failures of classical physics and using them as a stick to beat dissenters. This is an example of "there is no alternative" gas-lighting (which is very much the zeitgeist). More on this in my next essay. 

The bottom line is that there is still no coherent metaphysics associated with quantum theory. Rather, there is a growing list of incoherent metaphysics, with no overlap between any of them, and nothing like a consensus on the horizon. This confusion is reinforced by the insistence that quantum mechanics cannot be understood rationally or even imagined.

Incidentally, it is this claim of ineffability that provides leverage for mystical Buddhists to claim some kinship between their religious ideology and science. All rhetoric of "ineffability" is isomorphic. And thus, quantum mechanics becomes like a cult. And Bohr was very much like a cult leader.

But I can envisage a coherent metaphysics, the existing metaphysics of science, and I find that I can explain the foundations of quantum mechanics in a way that, while yet incomplete, is still far more intellectually satisfying than the nonsense that passes for philosophy amongst quantum physicists. In fact, there are many signs that quantum physics, with its intimate ties to the military-industrial complex, is a scam (an essay on this issue is in the pipeline).

The winners write the history. And even in the field of science, the winners are human beings who try to eclipse their antecedents and present their own view as the culmination of a telos. 

~~Φ~~

Bibliography

Aaserud, F. and Kragh, H. (eds). (2021). One hundred years of the Bohr atom: Proceedings from a conference. Scientia Danica. Series M: Mathematica et physica, vol. 1. 2015.

Falconer, I. (1987) "Corpuscles, Electrons and Cathode Rays: J J Thomson and the ‘Discovery of the Electron.” British Journal for the History of Science 20: 241-276.

Falconer, I. (2001), "Corpuscles to Electrons". In Histories of the Electron, edited by J Buchwald and A Warwick, 77-100. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Hon, G. and Goldstein B. R. (2013). "J. J. Thomson's plum-pudding atomic model: The making of a scientific myth." Annalen der physik https://doi.org/10.1002/andp.201300732

———. (2021). "Constitution and Model: Bohr’s Quantum Theory and Imagining the Atom." In One hundred years of the Bohr atom: Proceedings from a conference, 347-359. Scientia Danica. Series M: Mathematica et physica, vol. 1., 2015 (2021).

Renstrøm, Reidun and Bomark, Nils-Erik (2022). "Textbook myths about early atomic models." October 2022. DOI:10.48550/arXiv.2212.08572. [12 unnumbered pages]

———. (2024) "The Ultraviolet myth." 2024. The European Physical Society Conference on High Energy Physics. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2402.03405

Rutherford, Ernest. (1911). "The scattering of α and β Particles by Matter and the Structure of the Atom." Philosophical Magazine. Series 6. 21 (125): 669–688. doi:10.1080/14786440508637080.

Rutherford, Ernest. (1914). "The Structure of the Atom." Philosophical Magazine. Series 6, 27: 488 - 498

Thomson, J. J. (1904) "On the structure of the atom: an investigation of the stability and periods of oscillation of a number of corpuscles arranged at equal intervals around the circumference of a circle; with application of the results to the theory of atomic structure." Philosophical Magazine, Series 6, 7(39): 237 - 265. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14786440409463107

Thomson, J. J. (1905). “The Structure of the Atom” A Lecture Delivered at the Royal Institution. (Weekly Evening Meeting, Friday, March 10, 1905): 1-15. http://www.ub.edu/hcub/hfq/sites/default/files/Thomson_model(6).pdf

Thomson, J.J. (1906) "On the number of corpuscles in an atom." Philosophical Magazine Series 6. 11(66): 769-781, DOI: 10.1080/14786440609463496

Minor Figures: Prajñā.

Bānrě 般若 or Prajñā, was a Buddhist monk from India who travelled to China and translated Buddhist texts. Prajñā was credited with the translation of Bānrě bōluómìduō xīn jīng «般若波羅蜜多心經» (T 253), though as we saw in the essay on Lìyán 利言, Chinese records show that Prajñā could not communicate in Chinese.

The following comments are my notes based on the biographical sketch of Bānrě 般若 or Prajñā found in the Zhēnyuán xīn dìng shìjiào mùlù «貞元新定釋教目錄» (T2157: 55.891a-), a catalogue of Buddhist texts in Chinese translation, compiled ca 800 CE by Yuánzhào 圓照. I draw additional material from Siu Sai-Yau's 蕭世友 PhD thesis (2019) and his recent book (2024). I'm processing this information for inclusion in my book.

My Thanks to Siu Sai-Yau for pointing me to this passage and for making his (2024) book open access. Bānrě 般若 is important to my work because he is credited with translating the Bānrě bōluómìduō xīn jīng «般若波羅蜜多心經» (T 253), along with Lìyán 利言 and others. 

Prajñā travelled to China by the southern sea route.

Upon learning that Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva was preaching in the Central Plains, Prajña resolved to visit China and propagate Buddhism. Carrying the original Sanskrit scriptures, he arrived in Guangzhou, during the early years of Emperor Dezong’s Jianzhong 建中 period (780–783) via the sea route. From there, he made his way to the capital. Upon the onset of the Zhenyuan 貞元 period, Prajña took up residence at the home of his relative, Luo Haoxin 羅好心, who held the position of a commander in the forbidden army, and patiently awaited an opportunity to commence his scripture translation endeavors. (Siu 2024: 61)

Introducing himself to the Emperor Táng Dézōng 唐德宗 (779 – 805 CE), Bānrě 般若 says:

I humbly state that I was born in Kapiśa. At fourteen, I left my homeland and travelled south to India, where I heard teachings I had not understood before. For over twenty years, I made pilgrimages to the sacred sites, including the Twin Trees and the Eight Stūpas. Having studied the Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna, I vowed to repay the four kindnesses. From afar, I have long admired China, often wishing to present offerings to the court but lacking the means. Recently, through my cousin Luó Hǎoxīn 羅好心, a tenth-rank officer of the Right Divine Strategy Army and Prince of Xīnpíng, who serves in the Imperial Guard, I was able to submit my petition and have it heard by Your Majesty. This is indeed my great fortune. (T 2157: 55.893a7-11)

The imperial response to Bānrě was positive:

On Zhēnyuán 貞元 6.7.25 [i.e. 25 August 790 CE], an imperial edict granted the honorary title Tripiṭaka and a purple kāṣāya robe. An edict was also issued for the Kingdom of Kapiśa to present a Sanskrit copy of the Liù Pāramì Jīng «六波羅蜜經» *Ṣaṭpāramitā Sūtra. The śramaṇa Bānrě 般若 should be granted the title “Tripiṭaka Bānrě” and also given a purple robe. (T 2157: 55.893c6-9)

The Liù Pāramì Jīng «六波羅蜜經» is no longer extant. Regarding the Heart Sutra, Siu (2019: 33) notes

般若、利言重譯廣本《心經》的原因，主要是因為時人認為玄奘舊譯內容有不足之處。般若來華所攜梵本中，有內容更為完備、前所未見的《心經》版本。

"As for the reason behind Bānruò and Lìyán's retranslation of the expanded Heart Sūtra, it was primarily due to the perception among contemporaries that Xuanzang’s earlier translation was lacking in some respects. Bānruò had brought with him a Sanskrit version containing a more complete and previously unseen rendition of the Heart Sūtra."

Traditionally, in China, a sutra is held to be composed of three “sections” (sānfēn kē jīng 三分科經): (1) an introduction (xùfēn 序分 “introductory section”; Skt. nidāna), (2) the main body of the text (zhèngzōng fēn 正宗分 “primary teaching section”) and, (3) a conclusion (liútōng fēn 流通分 literally “dissemination section”). 

The early commentaries by Kuījī 窺基 (T 1710), Woncheuk 圓測 (T 1711), Jìngmài 靖邁 (X 522), Fǎzàng 法藏 (T 1712), and Huìjìng 慧浄 (X 521) all mention the absence of the intro and conclusion in the Heart Sutra (the implications of this are discussed in my forthcoming book).

There follows a lengthy biographical narrative, interspersed with letters to and from the Emperor. As with other Buddhist hagiographers, Yuánzhào was eager to represent Buddhists as favoured by the Emperor of the day.

Siu (2019: 34) also notes:

譯本有傳入韓國地區，現時最早的般若、利言本漢文抄經便是見於《高麗大藏經》。 

"The translation also reached Korea, where the earliest surviving copy of the Chinese Bānrě and Lìyán version [i.e. T 253] appears in the Goryeo Tripitaka." 

The Goryeo Tripitaka is known in Chinese as Gāolí Dàzàngjīng 高麗大藏經; Korean: Goryeo Daejanggyeong 고려대장경. It literally means: Korean Great Treasury [of] Scripture. Although the character zàng 藏 here means "store", it also means "hide, conceal". Gāolí 高麗 is literally "lofty and beautiful"; so not a bad ethnonym. 

The Goryeo Tripitaka was printed from carved woodblocks. The first version was created in the 11th century but was later destroyed by the Mongols. A complete set of the carved woodblocks of the second version commissioned ca. 1236–1251 survives and is stored at Haeinsa Temple in South Korea (a UNESCO World Heritage Site).

Note that the Goryeo Tripitaka has also been referred to as the Tripitaka Koreana. In 2013, Robert Buswell noted: "The reality is that Goryeo Daejanggyeong is much bigger and broader in scale than the nomenclature used for the Tripitaka Koreana". In my book, I follow Buswell's suggestion and refer to the Korean Buddhist Canon.

As Siu notes, there is a gap of some centuries between the ostensible production of T253 (ca 788) and the earliest witness to the content of the text in the Korean Buddhist Canon (ca. 1236–1251). And we have no idea what happened to the text in the meantime. There are no commentaries on T253.

The biographical sketch in the Zhēnyuán lù «貞元錄» (T 2157) discusses Bānrě 般若 and the Heart Sutra attributed to him and records a memorial sent to the Emperor by a Buddhist monk called Zhìróu 智柔.

Zhìróu 智柔, the senior monk from Qiānfú Temple 千福寺, was known for his lectures and discourses. His observance of the precepts was rigorous, and he took delight in the Mahāyāna. He transmitted the Huāyán jīng «華嚴經» “Avataṃsaka Sūtra” and the Dàfódǐng «大佛頂» “Mahābuddhatopa Sūtra”. He also regularly chanted and contemplated the Bānrě xīnjīng 般若心經. This sūtra was translated by Luóshí 羅什 [Kumārajīva] and is titled Dàmíng zhòujīng «大明呪經».

When the Dharma Master Xuánzàng 玄奘 was about to depart westward, a divine being (shénrén 神人) bestowed [the Heart Sutra] upon him. While travelling through the treacherous sands and dangers, he sincerely chanted and upheld it, causing calamities and obstacles to recede. This is a great incantation (dàshén zhòu 大神呪), and these words are not in vain (bù xū 不虛).

Note that the Dàmíng zhòujīng «大明呪經» (T 250) enters the historical record in 730 CE in the Kaiyuan Catalog, i.e. Kāiyuán shìjiào lù «開元釋教錄» (T 2154). The attribution to Kumārajīva is clearly false (see Watanabe 1990).

Later, a Sanskrit text (fàn jiā 梵夾) was obtained. It was translated with no differences, except the absence of the introduction section (xùfēn 序分) and the later distribution (liútōng 流通) section.

Then, near the end of the Kāiyuán 開元 era (713 to 741 CE), the Tripiṭaka monk Fǎyuè 法月 retranslated this sūtra (T252). Both texts are extant. Now, we have obtained a copy from the Tripiṭaka monk Bānruò 般若, which includes these [missing] sections, making it the same original text as Fǎyuè's translation, but a different version.

With sincere intention, I earnestly request the reissue of the authentic text. Before I could consult in detail, the Tripiṭaka monk departed on a mission.

On the eleventh day of the eighth month, the work of verifying meanings, polishing the text, and transcribing was completed. A memorial was prepared and submitted, with the intent to circulate it widely.

Śramaṇa Zhìróu states:

"I humbly submit that the profound wisdom of the sages is vast and, through dissemination, spreads even further. The true source, supremely wondrous, is conveyed through words and symbols to be transmitted. This is the origin of the teachings of the many sages and the mother of all sūtras. Previously, the śramaṇa Xuánzàng translated it for circulation, and while the meaning was fully conveyed without omission, the text was missing the beginning. Yesterday, I encountered Bānrě, a monk from the Kingdom of Kapiśa, and personally saw the Sanskrit text. I earnestly requested him to transmit this understanding and again added praise and assistance. Only then did I realize that the Vulture Peak monastery truly revealed these noble words.

Those who recite it dispel doubts, and the true teachings spread even further. I humbly submit that Your Majesty personally upholds the Buddha's instructions, doing all that is good without exception. The Way reaches all beings, transforming everyone. Zhìróu 智柔, without considering his own limited abilities, rashly offers his sincere but humble dedication.

I hope to support the imperial virtues and contribute to the longevity of the sage. I humbly beg that Your Majesty, with heavenly insight, will review these noble words. If they are suitable, I respectfully request that they be promulgated within and beyond the court. In this way, all deluded beings, even through countless ages, may find great happiness. Unable to fully express my utmost sincerity, I respectfully submit this memorial for Your Majesty's attention." —(T 2157: 55.893c9-894a1)

Note that Yuánzhào 圓照 considers T 252 and T 253 to be the same text. In the sense that both texts incorporate T251 verbatim, they are the same. However, the introduction and conclusions of T 252 and T 253 could hardly be more different. Which suggests he didn't actually compare them. 

Note also that Yuánzhào conflates Bānrě xīnjīng 般若心經 (T 251) and Dàmíng zhòujīng «大明呪經» (T 250). Again, while these two texts are broadly similar, there are some significant differences. These four texts—T 250, 251, 252, and 253—are four of the five major versions of the text. The fifth is the Sanskrit translation, i.e. Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya. T 252 is unique and was likely composed in Chinese. We know very little about the provenance of it. T 254 is a lightly edited version of T 253. T 255 was a Dunhuang text and has not yet been properly studied in its context. T 257 is a later translation from Sanskrit. 

Zhìróu 智柔 is relatively unknown. He is mentioned only once, in passing, in the Gāosēng Zhuàn «高僧傳» (T 2061: 50.721b27) and that in connection with Prajñā:

即貞元十一年也。至十二年六月，詔於崇福寺翻譯，罽賓沙門般若宣梵文，洛京天宮寺廣濟譯語，西明寺圓照筆受，智柔、智通綴文，成都府正覺寺道恒、鑒虛潤文，千福寺大通證義，澄觀、靈邃詳定，神策軍護軍中尉霍仙鳴、左街功德使竇文場寫進，十四年二月解座。(T 2061: 50.721b25-c2)

This was in the 11th year of the Zhēnyuán era. By the 6th month of the 12th year, an imperial edict was issued for the translation at Chóngfú Monastery 崇福寺. The śramaṇa Bānrě 般若 from Kapiśa recited the Sanskrit text, while the text was rendered into Chinese at Tiāngōng Monastery 天宮寺 in Luòyáng by Guǎngjì 廣濟. Yuánzhào 圓照 from Xīmíng Monastery 西明寺 recorded it in writing, with Zhìróu 智柔 and Zhìtōng 智通 editing the text. Dàohéng 道恒 and Jiànxū 鑒虛 from Zhèngjué Monastery 正覺寺 in Chéngdū polished the wording, while Dàtōng 大通 from Qiānfú Monastery 千福寺 verified the meaning. Chéngguān 澄觀 and Língsuì 靈邃 reviewed and finalized it. The Military Protector of the Divine Strategy Army, Lieutenant Huò Xiānmíng 霍仙鳴, and Dòu Wénchǎng 竇文場, Director of Merit on the Left Street, transcribed and submitted the work, completing the project by the 2nd month of the 14th year.

From this, we imply that Prajñā's only role in the translation was reciting the Sanskrit text. This seems to be quite typical. Indian or Central Asian monks who rocked up in Chang'an did not speak Chinese and most likely never gained the kind of mastery of the language required for discussion highly specialised Buddhist doctrines. If this was in Europe, we'd credit Guǎngjì 廣濟 with the translation. But Chinese traditions demands that it is credited to Prajñā. 

Of note, is the connection between Prajñā and the Japanese monk Kūkai, who was in Chang'an ca 802-804 and wrote the first esoteric interpretation of the Xīn jīng. This is mentioned several times in Hakeda (1972). According to Kūkai, in the Shōrai mokuroku, Prajñā expressed a desire to travel to Japan and regretted that circumstances did not allow it. He gifted Kūkai with copies of new translations of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra (T 293) and the Ṣatpāramitā Sūtra (T 261), and a number of Sanskrit manuscripts.

What Did Prajñā Translate?

Siu's account of Prajñā and the Heart Sutra overlooks the fact that T 253 cannot be a straightforward translation from Sanskrit. Significantly, T 253 incorporates all of T 251, verbatim. This means that at best Prajñā and co. only translated the introduction and the conclusion of the Heart Sutra, while retaining all of the translation attributed to Xuanzang. And this seems to be a pattern with works attributed to Prajñā.

In the Chinese Buddhist Canonical Attributions database, created by Michael Radich and Jamie Norrish (who died recently), Bānrě is credited with a number of translations:

• Dàchéng Běnshēng Xīndì Guān Jīng «大乘本生心地觀經» (T 159)
• Bānrě Bōluómìduō Xīnjīng «般若波羅蜜多心經» (T 253)
• Dàchéng lǐqù liù bōluómìduō jīng «大乘理趣六波羅蜜多經» (T 261)
• Dàfāngguǎng fó huáyán jīng «大方廣佛華嚴經» (T 293)
• Dà huáyán zhǎngzhě wèn fó nàluóyán lì jīng «大花嚴長者問佛那羅延力經» (T 547)
• Zhūfó jìngjiè shè zhēnshí jīng « 諸佛境界攝真實經» (T 868)
• Shǒuhù guójiè zhǔ tuóluóní jīng «守護國界主陀羅尼經» (T 997)
• Fó shuō zào tǎ yánmìng gōngdé jīng «佛說造塔延命功德經» (T 1026)

Several of the entries repeat a note attributed to Atsushi Iseki, in which he summarises a Japanese article from 1954:

According to Tsukinowa [1954], it is recorded that Trepiṭaka Prajña/Prajñā 般若三藏 translated nine titles in seventy-five juan scriptures [sic], and also composed a Banre sanzang gu jin fanyi tu ji 般若三藏古今翻譯圖紀 in two juan. However, Tsukinowa states, probably the Gu jin fanyi tu ji 古今翻譯圖紀 was written by somebody else, and Prajña’s true translation work most likely only comprises the version of the “Heart” Sūtra 般若心經 in one juan T253, co-translated with Liyan 利言 and others. Tsukinowa believes that almost all other titles ascribed to Prajñā were his own compositions, because 1) no original texts of his works have been found; 2) no alternate translation have been found in Chinese nor in Tibetan; 3) none of those works are cited in Indian texts; and 4) the contents and style of those works of his are too peculiar to be proper translation.

Tsukinowa (1954) is in Japanese so I cannot check it, though the bibliographic details are included below. There also individual notes on all of these texts.

• T 159 "Translation attributed to Prajña, ed. 般若: 6th year of Zhenyuan (貞元), Tang dynasty (唐), 1 but it was more likely done by someone else at a later date."
• T261 is more complex. "It would be a little far-fetched to classify the entire text of T261 as apocryphal, since there probably did exist an original underlying Indic text. However, Yoritomi asserts, substantial additions were made in China."
• T 293 "T293 feigns the impression of a new translation by adding material to the text, but is based more on T279 than on the original Sanskrit."
• T 547 "Tsukinowa does not seem to believe that this text is a proper translation, but he does not state it explicitly"
• T 868 "Tsukinowa concludes that T868 is based on the Vajraśekhara, and was produced to serve as an introduction to it. He agrees with Ōmura Seigai 大村西崖, who states in his Mikkyō hattatsu shi 密教發達志 that T868 is a conspectus of various scriptures, refining, epitomising and synthesising their contents 綜合折衷し打て洗錬したるもの."
• T 997 "Tsukinowa argues that none of the ten juan of T997 is a true translation" The text is a compilation of passages from other texts.
• T 1026 "Tsukinowa states that T1026 is another example of a pattern by which Prajña uses bits of different texts in producing a scripture, while adding something new of his own composition."

See also the comments under the entry for Prajñā.

The overall impression is that Bānrě was more interested in transmitting ideas and practices than in upholding orthodoxy or faithfully transmitting texts. He used texts in a very flexible way. One of his signature moves was precisely adding new material to an existing translation and presenting it as a new translation. Which is exactly what happened to T 253.

Tsukinowa's comments are problematic for the historically dominant narrative. Given that (a) Bānrě didn't know Chinese and was reliant on Chinese Monks (notably Liyan) to translate; and (b) the "translations" attributed to him all seem to have copied material from a range of existing Chinese translations, we have to wonder what Bānrě's involvement in T 253 really was.

Conclusion

Bānrě 般若 or Prajñā, is a minor figure in the history of the Heart Sutra. He is credited with translating T 253, but this version of the text was never important in China: i.e. it was not used in liturgies or as magical protection in the way that the Xīn jīng (T 251) was. The oldest extant version of T253 is in the Korean Buddhist Canon from the 13th century.

Siu (2024) confirms that Chinese translation was generally a collective affair. We have to put aside the modern, European idea of a lone scholar toiling away in isolation. Moreover, it seems likely that visiting monks who brought Sanskrit texts were generally dependent on translators. Prajñā certainly was. 

Tsukinowa (1954) has made the case that all of his "translations" were not really translations. Prajñā mostly seems to have curated passages copied from existing texts, sometimes adding them to other existing translations. But this editing seems to have happened in Chinese and evidence suggests that Prajñā could not speak Chinese. So this is a mystery. 

Tsukinowa was of the opinion that only T 253 was a genuine translation. But T 253 perfectly fits that pattern of other works attributed to Prajñā. For example, the main body of T 253 simply reproduces the text of T 251, but it adds the missing introduction and conclusion. 

Thus, if Prajñā had any input at all, it was only in the introduction and conclusion that were added to give the impression that the Heart Sutra was an authentic sutra.

The role of Liyan in the creation of T 252 and T 253 seems to deserve more attention, especially in the light of his role as Prajñā's day-to-day translator. Liyan seems to have been from Kucha and thus would have approached China via Dunhuang, which is home to numerous Heart Sutra manuscripts and some unique versions of the text that have yet to be formally studied. Tibetans invaded and controlled Dunhuang ca. 786-848. (On the Tibetan occupation of Dunhuang see The Chinese under Tibetan rule). 

It seems possible that Liyan was responsible for adding the missing introduction and conclusion to the Xīn jīng, creating both T 252 and T 253. In the case of T 253, he did this under the guidance of Prajñā who clearly had no qualms about such things. 

It's likely that Prajñā taught Kūkai Sanskrit (ca 802-804), which is a notable contribution. And relevant to my work since Kūkai later (ca 834) composed the first esoteric Buddhist commentary of the Heart Sutra, though curiously Kūkai commented on the Xīn jīng rather than Prajñā's version. 

~~oOo~~

Bibliography

Lopez, Donald S. (1996) Elaborations on Emptiness: Uses of the Heart Sutra. Princeton University Press.

Siu, Sai-yau 蕭世友 (2019). 唐代般若、利言《般若波羅蜜多心經》的漢譯研究 . 香港中文大學. [On the Chinese Translation of Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya by Prajña and Satyacandra in the Tang Dynasty. PhD Dissertation. Chinese University of Hong Kong].

———. 2024. The Evolution of Team-Based Buddhist Scripture Translation in Tang China. Springer. [Open access online publication] https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-97-2293-8 [accessed 7 Nov 2024]

Tsukinowa, Kenryū 月輪 賢隆. (1954). “般若三蔵の翻經に対する批議.” [Criticism of Prajna Tripitaka's Translation of Sutras]. Indogaku Bukkyōgaku Kenkyū 4(2): 434-443.

Watanabe, Shōgo. (1990). “Móhē bānrě bōluómì shénzhòu jīng and Móhē bānrě bōluómì dàmíngzhòu jīng, As Seen in the Sutra Catalogues.” Indogaku Bukkyōgaku Kenkyū 39-1: 54–58. [= 渡辺章悟. 1990. 「経録からみた『摩訶般若波羅蜜神呪経』と『摩訶般若波羅蜜大明呪経』」印度学仏教学研究 39-1: 54–58.]. My English translation is online: https://tinyurl.com/33n3d8h4