A professor of English or of history does not usually cherish the illusion that his students are all potential novelists and poets or authorities on feudalism or eighteenth century liberalism. Literature ' history, philosophy are taught as cultural subjects. In science it is otherwise. Most teachers of chemistry, physics and biology lecture as if the young men and women before them were to become professional laboratory or field workers. The procedure is sound enough for engineering schools, but hardly for liberal arts colleges. It is the importance of science in modern society, the way that scientists think, the relations of the scientists to his environment that need to be taught."
Professor Freeman goes on to state how this book approaches the problem: "The book makes no effort to 'cover' physics. (In one connotation the word implies a sort of suffocation or interment process!) Rather, the aim is to be selective instead of encyclopedic, to be penetrating but not needlessly detailed, to be meaningful without being technical.
"Specifically, the text tries to give more attention than is usual at this level to the historical and philosophical aspects of the science; for the author feels that these are features which can most readily make the subject come alive for the nonscience student and help him to see that physics can be a humanistic study with value and meaning for everybody."
The first chapter entitled "The Method of Science" discusses "The Scientific Method"and sets up the principles thatare exemplified in the physics discussed in the remainder of the book.