| 英文摘要: |
The analogy is one of Aristotle’s logic methods. It, however, is still a question that whether this method is strict, and even that whether the analogy is a logic method. Since this is so, William Thomson and James Clerk Maxwell were heckled when they introduced the analogy method to the electromagnetics research in the 19th century. In the middle of the 20th century, some philosopher tried to bring the analogy method into the system of the modern logic, and to explain the achievements of Thomson and Maxwell on the basis of this system. Their explanations, however, is not only inadequate to justify the analogy method, but also helpless to explain the broad applicability of this method in physics. This article will restructure the approach by which Thomson and Maxwell introduced the analogy method, and analyze the reasons that they appealed to this method. It will be demonstrated that the analogy method in physics is a strict scientific method, and is definitely different with the so-called “the analogy” which is familiar in the words of logic or ordinary language; the stringency of this method comes from the unique basis on which a physical analogy is built, that is the similarity between the mathematical forms of the different physical phenomena. On this basis, Maxwell’s idea of “Mathematical Classification” will be discussed. |
