History of Modern Science – Notes

Aristotle (322 BC):

• “So what happens must be this” in reference to drone bee’s (line 29, ABDB )
• “ credit must be given rather to observation than to theories”

Francis Bacon (1564-1626):

• “The idols and false notions which have already preoccupied human understanding, and are deeply rooted in it will thwart the establishment if the sciences, unless mankind, when forewarned; guard themselves with all possible care against them.”

• Idols of the Tribe:
  • Your perception is not always right

• Idols of the Den
  • Humans cater to their own interests
• When people are presented an idea they tend to except as fact rather than exploring the other possibilities. (L 90 ABDB)
• People believe what they want to believe (L 100 ABDB)
• Human Error is the largest source of impediment
• Personal fancies corrupt the sciences
• People generally notice either similarities or differences, usually not both
• “Aristotle corrupted natural philosophy by logic” (L 152 ABDB)
• Aristotle is wrong by going into experiments expecting a certain result

Rene Descartes (1596-1650):

• Rules for the Direction of the mind
• Inquire not with what people have taught but that you yourself can manifest through intuition or deduce with certainty
• Intuition: not wavering assurance of the sense but formed by unclouded mental attention

Robert Boyle (1627-1691):

• Air pump
  • Thomas Hobbs rejects the idea of there being a vacuum
  • Violent objections

Robert Hooke (1635-1703):

• Son of a church official
• Boyles assistant
• Follow of the royal society
• 1665 – Gretschen College
• Micrographia- put Hooke on the map
• Hooke- solar attraction paper
• Petrified wood analysis
  • Form-Matter-Location
  • Compare and Contrast
    • 13/4 to 1 in weight then water
  • incombustibleness
  • Porous microscopic surface
  • Comes to conclusion L77
  • extraordinary Plastick virtue

Royal Society (1662):

• Motto: “Nullivs in verba” swear on the authority of no one else’s word
• Science in a vacuum

Alchemy:

• Code literature
  • Table of correspondences

Isaac Newton:

• Step son of a church official
• Left the university because of the plague
• Isolation, figured out majority of his theories
• 1668- reflecting telescope
• Known for designing the “Crucial Experiment” – Yes & No, obvious experiments
• Very directive and designed in his experiment
• Extending the Boundaries

Hooke vs. Newton:

• Photon argument is first of many arguments
• Letters between the two, “on the shoulders of giants”
• After talking to Hooke about the “inverse square” and gravitational force Hooke and Newton have discrepancy and then Newton goes into hiding then comes up with laws of motion
• Principia- inverse square law proving elliptical orbit
• 1696- master of the mint
• Publishes book on optics