ABSTRACT
There is a long tradition in economics of explaining economic phenomena through the importation of concepts, structures, methodologies, and philosophies from the physical sciences. Mirowski [10, p. 146] traces the practice as far back as Aristotle who, for example, applied the metaphor of physical motion to understand trade. Subsequent early economic discourse and debate were additionally concerned [10, pp. 9, 186] with the search for a unique substance which could be seen to have properties analogous to corresponding characteristics in physical science. Those analogical properties associated with Euclidean distance were among the most important since, once a substance with such properties was found, it could be measured and taken to represent value. This search culminated in the labor theory of value that emerged early in the nineteenth century during the classical period. Still later, neoclassical economists introduced ideas and relations that were obtained, respectively, by relabeling notions taken from, and changing the names of variables in certain equations of, nineteenth-century physics. Thus, for example, Fisher [4, p. 85] associates, in part, particleswith individuals, and energywith utility.And, in the hands of Jevons [6, pp. 95-106], the physics equation of the lever where, at equilibrium, the weights of objects at each end are inversely proportional to their respective distances to the fulcrum, became the economic equation of exchange in which (at equilibrium) themarginal utilities of twogoods are inversely proportional to their respective quantities traded (or, equivalently, directly proportional to their trading prices).
