History Commons^™

4. Kepler, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold A. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section VIII: The Development of Modern Science

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), a Dane, spent nearly his entire life making careful measurements of the positions of the stars and planets. Most of his work was done at Copenhagen under the patronage of the Danish king. He developed and refined astronomical instruments to an accuracy that was far superior to anything previously done. In his late years at Prague, he started on the reduction to order of the systematic observations that he had made over a period of decades. In 1600 a young German mathematician and astronomer, Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), visited Tycho and then stayed to help in the mammoth …

2. Copernicus, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold A. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section VIII: The Development of Modern Science

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), of German and possibly Polish extraction, spent three years at the University of Cracow and then ten years at Italian universities. In Italy he was introduced to the Pythagorean ideas, which left a permanent mark on his mind, and became interested in astronomical theories. He returned home to the position of canon of Frauenburg cathedral where he stayed until his death. [excerpt]

3. Galileo, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold A. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section VIII: The Development of Modern Science

Of all the early proponents of the Copernican theory, Galileo was perhaps the most renowned and certainly one of the most effective.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was educated in the classical, Aristotelian manner. He showed good promise, and began the study of medicine. The medical sciences failed to hold his interest, and he became intrigued with the study of physics and mathematics. He progressed so well in these fields that when twenty-five he was teaching at the University of Pisa. Even as he studied and taught the current physics and astronomy, he became convinced of the inadequacies of many Aristotelian principles. …

1. Greek And Medieval Science, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold A. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section VIII: The Development of Modern Science

What kind of questions did the Greeks ask themselves about the physical universe? We can paraphrase Plato: the stars move about the earth in circles, the perfect paths, and they move with uniform motion as befits divine and eternal beings. But five of these stars are planets (Greek for wanderers) which appear to have irregular motion, first moving forward, then actually stopping, and then moving backward for awhile. Since the heavens are incorruptible, the planets too must really be moving in uniform motion in circular paths. How then can we account for the apparently irregular motions? What uniform motions must …

5. Newton, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold A. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section VIII: The Development of Modern Science

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was born and educated in England. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge, and there found the inspiration for his prodigious work that was to synthesize and extend the labors of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and others beyond the wildest dreams of any of them. Newton was the intellectual giant who set the direction of the physical sciences on the paths they were to follow undeviatingly into the twentieth century. [excerpt]

4. Roger Bacon And Medieval Science, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold A. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section IV: The Medieval Ferment

Throughout the Middle Ages there was little interest in theoretical science as such. Not since the Greeks had nature been considered a sufficient object in and of itself for most of the study that we would call scientific. The Middle Ages ' concern with nature was not its primary concern. The medievalist was interested in nature either as a mirror of the supernatural or as something which could be used in reaching the supernatural. The reappearance of Aristotle's thought and the development of those practical and technical interests which grew up around the problems of trade and industry demanded a …

Xx. Meaning In The Physical Sciences, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XX: Meaning in the Physical Sciences

The twentieth century has seen two major revolutions in our theories of physics concerning nature, and these have made us change many of our concepts about the terms in which nature can be described. The new theories born in these revolutions are the theory of relativity and of quantum mechanics. The biological sciences had their revolutions in the nineteenth century, and while remarkable progress has been made since, nothing comparable to that upheaval has occurred in this century. Of the two massive changes in the concepts of the physical sciences, we can discuss but one here. [excerpt]

1. The Problem, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XX: Meaning in the Physical Sciences

Newton's laws of motion and their associated definitions encountered their first difficulty near the middle of the nineteenth century.

Newton had designed his theory to describe the behavior of matter in space and time by inventing a relationship between the force on a body and the resulting change in motion of the body. Such a description of nature came to be called mechanical, and a large part of physicists' efforts were directed toward reducing all aspects of physics to mechanics. These efforts were rewarded magnificently in the fields of heat, electricity, and sound, in addition to astronomy and other more …

2. The Theory Of Special Relativity, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XX: Meaning in the Physical Sciences

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) published his first work on relativity in 1905, the same year in which he published remarkable papers on Brownian motion and the photoelectric effect. At the time he did this work, he was a patent examiner in the Swiss Patent Office. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1921 "for his services to the theory of physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect." He became a professor of physics at several German universities, and in 1916, he took a position at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin.

As the …

5. Social Darwinism Reconsidered, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XV: Biology and the Rise of the Social Sciences

Although the contemporary reaction to the implications of evolution was generally one of long-term optimism, an antithetical reaction did exist. Seen in stark terms, evolutionary theories were depressing to those who, on religious or humanitarian grounds, found the reduction of life to an irrational and brutal struggle for existence disturbing and provocative. There was, however, an important body of thought which accepted Darwin's findings without embracing the social or ethical implications of Social Darwinism. Many who studied Darwin came to the conclusion that it was possible to concede that man is an animal, but an animal capable of moral and …

Xv. Biology And The Rise Of The Social Sciences, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XV: Biology and the Rise of the Social Sciences

Modern science, it has been said, has undergone three revolutions: the Copernican, the Newtonian, and the Darwinian. This oversimplification is valid if our standard of judgment is social impact. The Newtonian synthesis, which absorbed the Copernican, had convinced men that the physical universe behaved in accordance with inviolable natural laws and that these laws could be expressed mathematically. With the confidence inspired by this world picture, science sought to find those natural laws under which the animate and inanimate aspects of the world operated. Equally influential was the tradition which cherished the ideal of the conquest of nature through the …

1. Charles Darwin And Organic Evolution, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XV: Biology and the Rise of the Social Sciences

Evolution was not a new idea. The Greeks speculated on it. In the century before Darwin many different evolutionary theories were proposed, among them notable efforts by Buffon, Lamarck, and Goethe. Their common thread was the concept that the succession of biological changes in geological time represented a fact, if not a natural law. The stumbling block was for all of them, as it had been for Cuvier, the concept of fixed species, which clashed with the vision of a distant past populated with races of plants and animals now extinct. It became evident that the idea of fixed species …

4. Social Darwinism, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XV: Biology and the Rise of the Social Sciences

The singular impact of Darwin in fields other than biology can be attributed largely to one man, Herbert Spencer (1820- 1903). It was Spencer, not Darwin, who coined the expression "survival of the fittest." Although neglected today except by historians of the nineteenth century thought, Spencer's influence on his own time was so great that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was able to wonder if "any writer of English except Darwin has done so much to affect our whole way of thinking about the universe." Herbert Spencer was born into a traditionally nonconformist English family of modest means. He refused a …

4. The Spread Of The Industrial Revolution, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XIV: The Industrial Revolution, Classical Economics, and Economic Liberalism

During much of the nineteenth century Great Britain strove with notable success to maintain her position as the world's leading industrial, commercial, and financial power. Her factories continued turning out textiles, machinery, and many other goods which were exported to all parts of the world. Her merchant marine continued to be the largest of any country. London was the financial capital of the world. Britain had adopted the gold standard in 1821; most western European nations and many others eventually followed her lead. The English pound was everywhere acceptable as international exchange. By 1850, when half of all Englishmen were …

3. The Second Industrial Revolution, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XIV: The Industrial Revolution, Classical Economics, and Economic Liberalism

There is abundant evidence for the opinion that after about 1850 the Industrial Revolution entered upon a new phase in its development. Inventions occurred at a more rapid pace than ever before in history. (Between 1850 and 1914 there were more than fifty times as many patents issued in the Unites States as during the preceding sixty years.) Increasingly these inventions were the work of scientists and engineers working in the research laboratory rather than of self-taught craftsmen, as had often been the case in the eighteenth century. [excerpt]