Yilliax Gilbert's Sciehtfic Ache5vekeht Ah Assessxeht
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YILLIAX GILBERT'S SCIEHTFIC ACHE5VEKEHT AH ASSESSXEHT OF HIS KAGMETIC, ELECTRICAL AID COSMOLOGICAL RESEARCHES Ingo Dietrich Evers Thesis submitted for the Degree of Ph.D. University of London, London School of Economics and Political Science Department of Philosophy and Scientific Method, January, 1991 - 1 - UMI Number: U052593 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U052593 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 T Hx:S£E S F 69/| Abstract The thesis aims at a more detailed and comprehensive evaluation of Gilbert's magnetic, electrical and cosmological work than has been carried out so far and at correction of important errors in its earlier historical and methodological assessments. The latter concern the general approach to Gilbert, who has, for example, been seen as a 'natural magician', but also specific mistakes such as the widely held view that his conception of magnetic action amounted to an effluvia! theory or that he held magnetic forces to be paramount in the universe. Some historians have claimed that Gilbert's most important observations are theory-laden to the detriment of his results. The thesis considers these matters and the theoretical- observational distinction at some length. Gilbert's exploration and wide experimentation concerning magnetic and electric effects, his tests of the work of his predecessors, notably Peregrinus, Harman and Porta, and his experimental investigations of some important phenomena are closely examined as examples of the process of very early science. These matters concern Gilbert's first work, the De Kagnete. His cosmological views, although touched on in that book, are set out in mare detail in his De Mundo. The wide neglect of this work has led to some of the errors in the appreciation of his cosmology. The thesis examines Gilbert's support of Copernicanism and his views on gravitation and cosmological forces. The overall assessment considers the originality of his experimentation and his theoretical results in comparison to those of his predecessors and problems like the influence of his animism and some claims as to the orgin of his method. The conclusion is that Gilbert took the decisive step in the history of science from occasional experimental investigations of isolated problems by his predecessors to a comprehensive examination of a whole area of physics, magnetism, and the creation of a qualitative theory employing genuine theoretical concepts. His electrical researches offer, similarly, one of the earliest examples of properly scientific work. His discovery of the earth's magnetic field provided a suggestion for the existence of cosmologicl forces and connected terrestrial with extra-terrestrial physics. - 2 - Contents Introduction 5 Chapter One. Magnetic poles. A. Gilbert's method 11 B. Peregrinus and Gilbert 15 C. Terrellae and other magnets 27 Chapter Two. Magnets, iron and the character of magnetism. A. Magnetisation of iron by the earth 36 B. Magnetisation of iron, magnetic keepers 39 C. The telluric element 41 D. The character of magnetic action 43 E. The armed stone; magnetic conduction 51 Chapter Three. Coition and Repulsion. A. Hesse on Gilbert 58 B. Gilbert on repulsion and attraction 62 Chapter Four. Observation Terms. A. Observational and theoretical statements 68 B. The distinction in historical research 69 C. Interpretation of experiments in observation reports 76 Chapter Five. Direction. A. Coition, direction and repulsion 82 B. Direction: Forman and Gilbert 86 C. The notion of a couple 89 Chapter Six. The Magnetic Field. A. Directionality and the field 95 B. Magnetic forces and surrounding media 97 C. The geometry of the field 99 D. The field's character 102 E. Gilbert's field as a theoretical entity 108 Chapter Seven. The Earth as a Magnet. A. Earlier ideas on terrestrial magnetism 111 B. The role of the terrella 112 C. Experimental evidence for terrestrial magnetism 118 D. The problem of variation 120 Chapter Eight. Gilbert's Electrical Researches. A. Earlier electrical work 128 B. The versorium 131 C. Electrics and their properties 134 D. The mechanism of electric attraction 135 E. Methodological comments on Gilbert's researches 141 F. The importance of Gilbert's electrical work 148 - 3 - Chapter line. Gilbert's cosmology. The De Kundo. A. Early Copernicanism in England 152 B. The earth's diurnal motion 155 C. The problem of the annual motion 162 D. Magnetic forces in cosmology 169 E. The forces between the globes 175 Chapter Ten. Gravity. A. Forces and effluvia 178 B. Historians on Gilbert's views 184 Chapter Eleven. The Origins of Gilbert's Work. A. Gilbert and lorman 188 B. Gilbert and Porta 194 C. The origin of Gilbert's scientific method according to Zilsel 198 Chapter Twelve. General Features of Gilbert's Views and Methods. A. The magnetic form 208 B. The quantitative aspect of Gilbert's work 213 C. Gilbert's animism 217 D. Summary of Gilbert's importance 223 Bibliography 226 Appendix: figures 230 - 4 - Introduction The need for an assessment of Gilbert's work Although nearly four hundred years have passed since William Gilbert's pioneering scientific work in magnetism, electricity and cosmology, there still exists no detailed evaluation of it and no agreement on some of its most important aspects. This is regrettable. Gilbert's main work, the de Magnete (Gilbert 1958), records the work of the first scientist who experimentally investigated a whole field of physics in detail and systematically, and who produced a qualitative scientific theory. Ihe opportunity it offers to follow sound and comprehensive researches in very early science is of great methodological interest. His immediate predecessors and contemporaries produced haphazard collections of observations mixed with erroneous reports and old-wives' tales as well as a very few good experimental tests of isolated hypotheses in magnetism. A comparison of this with Gilbert's creation of a magnetic theory which covered the whole field as far as the experimental possibilities of the time allowed, and which was not to be improved upon for many years, is also of historical value. When reading in the history of magnetism and electricity, I found that many modern comments misrepresent important individual facts and come to erroneous overall evaluations of Gilbert's work. This convinced me of the necessity of its new appraisal. Historians such as E.A. Burtt, H. Butterfield, A.C. Crombie, A. Koyre and J. Agassi have given short summaries of aspects of, or comments on, Gilbert's results, which contain serious mistakes. Somewhat longer descriptions in book chapters or papers by P. Benjamin, X. Boas, J.L. Heilbron, E. Zilsel and X. Hesse also - 5 - display important errors in the understanding of details, of wider aspects, or of the totality of Gilbert's work. These comments often contradict one another and appear at times to be also self-contradictory, which only rarely seems to be due to real difficulties in Gilbert's text; for the occasional problems with the translation or interpretation of passages of Gilbert's books are usually resolved by comparing other formulations. This is made possible by Gilbert's habit of repeating his views, often several times, but in differing terms. Obvious difficulties of textual interpretation are consequently not mentioned by commentators. The mistakes I will be dealing with are at times simple but very important ones, such as the claim that Gilbert postulated a magnetic effluvium. Others originate from a more general misreading which has led, for example, to the widespread claim that magnetism was to him the prime force in the whole universe. Some of the errors are caused by the fact that most commentators have ignored Gilbert's other book, the de Mundo (Gilbert, 1651), altogether, thus robbing themselves of the opportunity of clarifying important aspects of Gilbert's views. More serious consequences arise, not surprisingly, from ill-conceived methodological approaches and the attempt to use Gilbert's work to prove their applicability to a historical instance. This has been done occasionally in such a way that justice is done neither to Gilbert's theoretical nor to his experimental work. If such treatment is allowed to go unchallenged, the impression arises that the plausibility of the methodology has been enhanced by its apparently successful application to Gilbert's case. The longer works on Gilbert by D.H.D. Roller and C.E. Benham do not offer a sufficiently detailed or complete evaluation. These books give summaries of the contents of the de Magnete with some assessments and comments aimed at clarifying aspects of Gilbert's position in the history - 6 - of magnetism, electricity and cosmology. Benham's book is quite short and is of the nature of an introduction to the subject. Although it contains some perceptive statements, it also badly misjudges some of its important aspects. Roller, though concerned in very useful detail with some areas of Gilbert's work, summarizes others only briefly and does not treat of many important matters at all. His book, like the lengthy paper by M. Hesse, suffers from the methodological shortcoming of taking a pervasive theory-ladenness of observations for granted. S. Kelly's book on the de Mundo is a very useful and accurate summary of this work only. It is, however, too short to cover in any detail the points I will be concentrating on.