"In spite of the fact that, today, we know positively that classical mechanics

fails as a foundation dominating all physics, it still occupies the center of

all of our thinking in physics. The reason for this lies in the fact that,

regardless of important progress reached since the time of Newton, we have not

yet arrived at a new foundation of physics concerning which we may be certain

that the whole complexity of investigated phenomena, and of partial

theoretical systems of a successful kind, could be deduced logically from it.

(Albert Einstein, 1936, 'Physics and reality' Translation by Jean Piccard)"

Despite all efforts made to address the problem of the unity of physics, or

more precisely, its lack of consilience, little progress has been made in

almost 100 years.

William Whewell coined the word consilience. He coined as well the terms

"scientist" and "physicist" to differentiate natural-philosophers (or

experimental philosophers like Faraday and Whewell himself), from those

researchers that were seeking specialized advances but destroying consilience

(which for Whewell is very close to Truth).

The idea that after adopting an axiomatic-deductive standpoint the unity of

science can be recovered would have resulted laughable to Whewell.

On the other hand, the technological success of ideas based upon

electromagnetism and quantum mechanics is a warranty that there is a lot of

truth in them. This criteria of usefulness corresponds to utilitarianism in

general.

If we want to see a philosophical synthesis of both viewpoints we have to turn

to Charles Peirce's pragmaticism which is the last development following Goethe,

Kant, (Hegel minus his major mistake according to Peirce) and Whewell. Peirce

anticipated Popper in most accounts as well except that Peirce placed reason

above logic and confronted those that thought otherwise.

If we want to reach unity of thought we have to consider the possibility that

the theories that we teach are useful but not absolutely correct. I write "we

teach" because what we teach are abridged versions of the original ideas, quite

often substantially changed. For example, we might teach a Newtonian mechanics

that rests on "absolute space" when "absolute space" is important for Newton's

optik but not for his mechanics, which is based in the concept of "true motion"

that we do not teach (know).

In the same form we teach electromagnetism using Einstein's special relativity

as the keystone, without truly understanding the necessity of the Principle of

Relativity and having disposed without considerations of Gauss-Lorenz-Riemann's

electromagnetism which was abandoned because it had no æther, in the time the

"Taliban of the æther" advanced over the Göttingen school (and the Prussian

army over Lancaster). We do not even listen to Maxwell who called to

investigate why his theory and Lorenz' theory shared the same formulas but were

at the same time so different. We do not listen to Dirac and Feynman who

independently called back their Quantum Electrodynamics in view of its

incompatibility with true mathematics. We decided to trash Planck's indication

that we can only warrant that the exchange of energy between electromagnetic

fields and matter was quantized.

Are elementary particles representable by mathematical points? Only Schrödinger

challenged this idea, yet he was ignored, not refuted. Ignore them, is the

social treatment that challenges to the dogma receive, no matter how

prestigious is the challenger and how sound their arguments. It happen to

Dingle, Essen and Phipps. The death of Hertz at a young age prevented him to

defend his idea of the æther and allowed Lorentz to declare himself the winner

("Attempt of a Theory of Electrical and Optical Phenomena in Moving Bodies") by

indulging the faults of his æther and declaring Hertz theory defeated by

Fizeau's experiments, actually with resource to the straw-man fallacy).

Do not be surprised that when we cancel all these social forces and produce the

corresponding theories that in general were left unfinished, the result is the

consilience in physics that the old masters wanted to preserve as the most clear

indication of correction.

The task is now finished, Newton's mechanics reconstructed under the true-force

and the relational space he did not negate. Gauss-Lorenz electromagnetism

that recovers all of Maxwell's equations unified in the formulation with

Lorentz' force (i.e., with higher degree of consilience) and now quantum

mechanics derived from electromagnetism gives as a gift the unification of all

the fundamental physics. A Hamilton principle that as an oracle answers

according to our questions (presented in the form of variations) which without

limits and/or replacements (let's be sincere here, physicists usually call

"approximations" what really are mere replacements of one thing by another)

produces Newton's second law, the Lorentz force, electromagnetism, the atomic

levels of the Hydrogen atom (without adjusting parameters or ad-hoc

argumentation).

You are invited to read the preprints:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/385811588_The_construction_of_quantum_mechanics_from_electromagnetism_Part_I_the_unitary_entity?_tp=eyJjb250ZXh0Ijp7ImZpcnN0UGFnZSI6ImxvZ2luIiwicGFnZSI6InByb2ZpbGUiLCJwb3NpdGlvbiI6InBhZ2VDb250ZW50In19

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/385811458_The_construction_of_quantum_mechanics_from_electromagnetism_Part_II_the_Hydrogen_atom?_tp=eyJjb250ZXh0Ijp7ImZpcnN0UGFnZSI6ImxvZ2luIiwicGFnZSI6InByb2ZpbGUiLCJwb3NpdGlvbiI6InBhZ2VDb250ZW50In19

and references therein.