"The most common and most important result of them is that the nature and size of the effect on corresponding series of different elements are largely an expression of the peculiarity of their atomic structure - or, at least, of the structure of the surface"
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Stark is trying to drag causality down to where you can actually grab it: not in vague “material properties,” but in the stubborn particulars of atomic architecture. The sentence is clunky in that early-20th-century way, but the ambition is crisp. He’s framing a methodological wager: if you see a pattern of effects across “different elements,” that pattern isn’t an accident or an artifact of the apparatus. It’s the fingerprint of structure.
The key move is his insistence that the “most common and most important result” is explanatory, not merely descriptive. Stark is writing in the era when physics is pivoting from bulk, phenomenological laws toward microstructure as the real author of observable behavior. Even the hedging clause - “or, at least, of the structure of the surface” - tells you what’s at stake. He’s signaling the experimental frontier: sometimes the bulk atomic model won’t predict the data because what your instruments actually interrogate is a boundary layer, a surface chemistry, an interface. That concession isn’t weakness; it’s a claim about where nature hides its mechanisms.
Subtextually, it’s a manifesto for a new kind of authority in physics: the right explanation is the one that ties macroscopic effects to microscopic arrangement. It also smuggles in a warning. If you don’t control surfaces, impurities, and preparation, you’ll mistake “peculiarity” for law. Stark’s intent is to make structure the unit of understanding - and to make experimentalists accountable to it.
The key move is his insistence that the “most common and most important result” is explanatory, not merely descriptive. Stark is writing in the era when physics is pivoting from bulk, phenomenological laws toward microstructure as the real author of observable behavior. Even the hedging clause - “or, at least, of the structure of the surface” - tells you what’s at stake. He’s signaling the experimental frontier: sometimes the bulk atomic model won’t predict the data because what your instruments actually interrogate is a boundary layer, a surface chemistry, an interface. That concession isn’t weakness; it’s a claim about where nature hides its mechanisms.
Subtextually, it’s a manifesto for a new kind of authority in physics: the right explanation is the one that ties macroscopic effects to microscopic arrangement. It also smuggles in a warning. If you don’t control surfaces, impurities, and preparation, you’ll mistake “peculiarity” for law. Stark’s intent is to make structure the unit of understanding - and to make experimentalists accountable to it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Science |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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