I need not return to the definition of velocity, or acceleration, or other kinematic notions; they may be advantageously connected with that of the derivative.
I shall insist, on the other hand, upon the dynamic notions of force and mass.
I am struck by one thing: how very far the young people who have received a high-school education are from applying to the real world the mechanical laws they have been taught. It is not only that they are incapable of it; they do not even think of it. For them the world of science and the world of reality are separated by an impervious partition wall.
If we try to analyze the state of mind of our scholars, this will astonish us less. What is for them the real definition of force? Not that which they recite, but that which, crouching in a nook of their mind, from there directs it wholly. Here is the definition: forces are arrows with which one makes parallelograms. These arrows are imaginary things which have nothing to do with anything existing in nature. This would not happen if they had been shown forces in reality before representing them by arrows.
How shall we define force?
I think I have elsewhere sufficiently shown there is no good logical definition. There is the anthropomorphic definition, the sensation of muscular effort; this is really too rough and nothing useful can be drawn from it.
Here is how we should go: first, to make known the genus force, we must show one after the other all the species of this genus; they are very numerous and very different; there is the pressure of fluids on the insides of the vases wherein they are contained; the tension of threads; the elasticity of a spring; the gravity working on all the molecules of a body; friction; the normal mutual action and reaction of two solids in contact.
This is only a qualitative definition; it is necessary to learn to measure force. For that begin by showing that one force may be replaced by another without destroying equilibrium; we may find the first example of this substitution in the balance and Borda's double weighing.
Then show that a weight may be replaced, not only by another weight, but by force of a different nature; for instance, Prony's brake permits replacing weight by friction.
From all this arises the notion of the equivalence of two forces.
The direction of a force must be defined. If a force _F_ is equivalent to another force _F'_ applied to the body considered by means of a stretched string, so that _F_ may be replaced by _F'_ without affecting the equilibrium, then the point of attachment of the string will be by definition the point of application of the force _F'_, and that of the equivalent force _F_; the direction of the string will be the direction of the force _F'_ and that of the equivalent force _F_.
From that, pass to the comparison of the magnitude of forces. If a force can replace two others with the same direction, it equals their sum; show for example that a weight of 20 grams may replace two 10-gram weights.
Is this enough? Not yet. We now know how to compare the intensity of two forces which have the same direction and same point of application; we must learn to do it when the directions are different. For that, imagine a string stretched by a weight and passing over a pulley; we shall say that the tensor of the two legs of the string is the same and equal to the tension weight.
This definition of ours enables us to compare the tensions of the two pieces of our string, and, using the preceding definitions, to compare any two forces having the same direction as these two pieces. It should be justified by showing that the tension of the last piece of the string remains the same for the same tensor weight, whatever be the number and the disposition of the reflecting pulleys. It has still to be completed by showing this is only true if the pulleys are frictionless.
Once master of these definitions, it is to be shown that the point of application, the direction and the intensity suffice to determine a force; that two forces for which these three elements are the same are _always_ equivalent and may _always_ be replaced by one another, whether in equilibrium or in movement, and this whatever be the other forces acting.
It must be shown that two concurrent forces may always be replaced by a unique resultant; and that _this resultant remains the same_, whether the body be at rest or in motion and whatever be the other forces applied to it.
Finally it must be shown that forces thus defined satisfy the principle of the equality of action and reaction.
Experiment it is, and experiment alone, which can teach us all that. It will suffice to cite certain common experiments, which the scholars make daily without suspecting it, and to perform before them a few experiments, simple and well chosen.
It is after having passed through all these meanders that one may represent forces by arrows, and I should even wish that in the development of the reasonings return were made from time to time from the symbol to the reality. For instance it would not be difficult to illustrate the parallelogram of forces by aid of an apparatus formed of three strings, passing over pulleys, stretched by weights and in equilibrium while pulling on the same point.
Knowing force, it is easy to define mass; this time the definition should be borrowed from dynamics; there is no way of doing otherwise, since the end to be attained is to give understanding of the distinction between mass and weight. Here again, the definition should be led up to by experiments; there is in fact a machine which seems made expressly to show what mass is, Atwood's machine; recall also the laws of the fall of bodies, that the acceleration of gravity is the same for heavy as for light bodies, and that it varies with the latitude, etc.
Now, if you tell me that all the methods I extol have long been applied in the schools, I shall rejoice over it more than be surprised at it. I know that on the whole our mathematical teaching is good. I do not wish it overturned; that would even distress me. I only desire betterments slowly progressive. This teaching should not be subjected to brusque oscillations under the capricious blast of ephemeral fads. In such tempests its high educative value would soon founder. A good and sound logic should continue to be its basis. The definition by example is always necessary, but it should prepare the way for the logical definition, it should not replace it; it should at least make this wished for, in the cases where the true logical definition can be advantageously given only in advanced teaching.
Understand that what I have here said does not imply giving up what I have written elsewhere. I have often had occasion to criticize certain definitions I extol to-day. These criticisms hold good completely. These definitions can only be provisory. But it is by way of them that we must pass.
