176 



THE REALITIES OF MODERN SCIENCE 



The series connection allowed the fact to be more easily 

 observed with the apparatus then at the disposal of 



scientists. The galvanometer, of course, had not yet 

 been invented and the forms of electroscopes in use 

 were not particularly sensitive. 



Volta's contribution to science, described in modern 

 terms, was the discovery of a means whereby potential 

 energy of chemical separation could be converted into 

 kinetic energy of electrons. A definite connection 

 between chemistry and physics was thus indicated. 

 Just as there is a unity to physics, which was formerly 

 violated by the attempt to classify phenomena under 

 the five headings mentioned on page 60, so there is a 

 unity to chemistry and physics. Words, of course, 

 change but slowly as time goes on, and too frequently 

 establish artificial barriers to our mental development. 

 In the formal education which we obtain in schools and 

 from books these barriers remain even longer than they 

 do in the education of our other daily experiences. In 

 most school curricula physics and chemistry are con- 

 sidered so separate that they are studied in different 

 years and from texts which carefully refrain from 

 encroaching on each others' fields. Nevertheless, the 

 subjects have an essential unity. An attempt to ap- 



