Experimental physics was particularly interested in the processes taki — Mechanics

"[T]he mere fact that a quantitative majority of causations are of vitalistic type, does not in the least mean that science can neglect the huge, co-existing volume of mechanistic-type causations. Both aspects of causal description are required in all sciences. In physics, for example, which seeks to describe the most ultimate, or elementary reaction tendencies of matter, the attempt is now being made to resolve all complex masses into ultra-simple proton and electron systems. The influence of each proton-electron microcosm, then must be traced in its most far-reaching effects upon the physical behavior of the macrocosmic mass of which it forms a single unit. The causal influences of the total mass, on the other hand, upon its constituent proton-electron systems, and upon other free-lance proton-electron systems, must be described."

"All this, the positive and physical essence of mechanics, which makes its chief and highest interest for a student of nature, is in existing treatises completely buried and concealed beneath a mass of technical considerations."

"People get a lot of confusion, because they keep trying to think of quantum mechanics as classical mechanics."

"No force however great can stretch a cord however fine into an horizontal line which is accurately straight."

"The ancients considered mechanics in a twofold respect; as rational, which proceeds accurately by demonstration, and practical. To practical mechanics all the manual arts belong, from which mechanics took its name. But as artificers do not work with perfect accuracy, it comes to pass that mechanics is so distinguished from geometry, that what is perfectly accurate is called geometrical; what is less so is called mechanical. But the errors are not in the art, but in the artificers. He that works with less accuracy is an imperfect mechanic: and if any could work with perfect accuracy, he would be the most perfect mechanic of all; for the description of right lines and circles, upon which geometry is founded, belongs to mechanics. Geometry does not teach us to draw these lines, but requires them to be drawn; for it requires that the learner should first be taught to describe these accurately, before he enters upon geometry; then it shows how by these operations problems may be solved."

"Rational mechanics must be the science of the motions which result from any forces, and of the forces which are required for any motions, accurately propounded and demonstrated. For many things induce me to suspect, that all natural phenomena may depend upon some forces by which the particles of bodies are either drawn towards each other, and cohere, or repel and recede from each other: and these forces being hitherto unknown, philosophers have pursued their researches in vain. And I hope that the principles expounded in this work will afford some light, either to this mode of philosophizing, or to some mode which is more true."