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Cb20 2016Key14 to Post.Key Lecture 14: Isaac Newton (1642-1726/27) and English mechanical philosophy Descartes emphasized a rule-bound nature, following God’s eternal laws, and explaining everything only through matter in motion =mechanical philosophy ! Descartes made the existence and goodness of God central to the certainty that we have of existing and of understanding the world, but God does not intervene in nature (cf. his views on prayer) ! Cartesianism considered risky for views that the young might draw from it Walter Charleton, 1652: “England has of late produced and does at this unhappy day foster more swarms of atheistical monsters than any age, than any nation has been infested with.” ! =English fear of atheism too, perhaps aggravated by Cartesianism ! response of English mechanical philosophers: to show that the mechanical philosophy leads not to deism, but to theism and greater praise of God. Robert Boyle on Descartes (hdt for lecture 13) ! “I have often wished that the learned gentleman (Descartes) had ascribed to the divine authors of nature a more particular and immediate efficiency and guidance, in contriving the parts of the universal matter into that great engine we call the world; and I am still of the opinion that he might have ascribed more than he has to the Supreme Cause in the first and original production of things corporeal without the least injury to truth and without much, if any, prejudice to his own philosophy.” Robert Boyle (1627-91): Anglo-Irish aristocrat ! ! Royal Society founded 1660 —a royal charter but no funding; they perform experiments; publish the Phil Trans; do not discuss religion or politics ! ! Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle and the air pump at the Royal Society, London Kaspar Schott, Mechanica hydraulico- pneumatica (1657) on the airpump and its effects ! ! ! in 1654 the Magdeburg experiment: thirty horses, in two teams of fifteen, could not separate the hemispheres until the valve was opened to equalize the air pressure. Boyle: ! so science is a form of Christian worship ! themes in Robert Boyle: ! mechanical philosophy as evidence of God’s sovereignty ! so the investigation of nature is an aid to Christianity ! find laws of nature, but also recognize limits of reason Robert Boyle funded the first Irish translation of the Bible Robert Boyle endowed lectures at his death to refute atheism ! 1692 - Richard Bentley A Confutation of Atheism 1693-4 - Richard Kidder, A Demonstration of the Messias, in which the Truth of the Christian Religion is proved, especially against the Jews 1695-6 - John Williams, The Possibility, Expediency, Necessity and Perfection of Divine Revelation 1697 - Francis Gastrell, The Certainty of the Christian Revelation and the Necessity of believing it 1698 - John Harris, The Atheistical Objections against the Being of God and His Attributes fairly considered and fully refuted 1699 - Samuel Bradford The Credibility of the Christian Revelation, from its intrinsick Evidence 1700 - The Sufficiency of a Standing Revelation 1701 - George Stanhope Truth and Exellency of the Christian Religion 1704 - Samuel Clarke A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God 1705 - Samuel Clarke The Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion … 1711-12 William Derham William Derham Physico-theology, 1713 Astro-theology, 1714 Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle and the air pump at the Royal Society, London the flea Robert Hooke, Micrographia (1665) reports on findings through the microscope Robert Hooke: “Take this creature altogether and for beauty and curious contrivances it may be compared with the largest animal upon the earth. Nor does the all-wise Creator seem to have shown less care and providence in the fabric of it than in those which seem most considerable.” the eye of the fly John Ray, Wisdom of God manifested in the works of creation (1691), opens with Psalm 104: “How manifold are thy works, O Lord! in wisdom hast Thou made them all” ! “The vast multitude of creatures are effects and proofs of His mighty power, the admirable contrivance of all and each of them, the adapting all parts of animals to their several uses, the provision that is made for their sustenance and lastly their mutual subserviency to each other and unanimous conspiring to promote and carry on the public good are evident demonstrations of His sovereign wisdom.” Isaac Newton, 1643-1727 from family of yeomen farmers first in family to be educated, mother pulled him from school for farming ! Grantham grammar school sizar at Trinity College Cambridge then fellow there Lucasian Prof of Math, 1669-96 Warden then Master of the Mint 1696-1727 + President of Royal Society from 1703 Newton as rebuttal to Descartes Newton’s laws of motion: 1. every body continues in its state until compelled to change by an impressed force 2. change of motion is proportional to the motive force impressed on it 3. to every action is opposed an equal and opposite reaction 4. universal gravitation: every particle with mass attracts every other such particle with a force proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. ! Kepler’s laws of planetary motion:! 1. The orbit of every planet is an ellipse with the sun at one focus.! 2. A line joining a planet and the sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time! 3. The orbital period of a planet squared is directly proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit (the semi-major axis is the longest line crossing the area covered by the ellipse, and including the two foci. i.e. Period squared is proportional to a1. How to explain gravitation/ universal attraction? ! an occult force? “Hypotheses non fingo” --I do not frame hypotheses i.e. I do not explain, I just make mathematical models inscrutability of nature. (General Scholium) ! In his Opticks, Newton offers an explanation: force transmitted through an ether--very fine particles Newton Opticks, Query 31: These Principles I consider, not as occult Qualities, supposed to result from the specifick Forms of Things, but as general Laws of Nature, by which the Things themselves are form'd; their Truth appearing to us by Phaenomena, though their Causes be not yet discover'd. For these are manifest Qualities, and their Causes only are occult. ! Now by the help of these Principles, all material Things seem to have been composed of the hard and solid Particles above-mention'd, variously associated in the first Creation by the Counsel of an intelligent Agent. For it became him who created them to set them in order. And if he did so, it's unphilosophical to seek for any other Origin of the World, or to pretend that it might arise out of a Chaos by the mere Laws of Nature; though being once form'd, it may continue by those Laws for many Ages. For while Comets move in very excentrick Orbs in all manner of Positions, blind Fate could never make all the Planets move one and the same way in Orbs concentrick, some inconsiderable Irregularities excepted, which may have risen from the mutual Actions of Comets and Planets upon one another, and which will be apt to increase, till this System wants a Reformation. From Newton’s alchemy manuscripts sold at auction in 1936, later given to King’s Coll Camb a page from Newton’s theological manuscripts (most of which are now at Hebrew University in Jerusalem) Arianism orthodox (declared a heresy Trinitarianism vs in 4th ct ) = Socinianism (from Sozzini, 16th ct) = Unitarianism (denomination formed in late 18th) = anti-Trinitarianism Glorification of Newton e.g. Alexander Pope: “Nature and nature’s laws lay hid by night; God said: ‘Let Newton be!’ and all was light.” (1727) The shape of the earth as a test of Newtonian vs Cartesian physics Pierre-Louis Maupertuis (1698-1759) ! voyage to Lapland to measure curvature of the earth near the pole, 1736 Charles Marie de La Condamine (1701-74) expedition to the equator to measure curvature of the earth 1736; returned only in 1745 after making first sci expedition to the Amazon popularizing Newton François Marie Arouet, or Voltaire (1694-1778) ! anti-clerical; uses Newton to promote deism, not theism Frontspiece features Mme du Chatelet as Voltaire’s muse Emilie du Chatelet (1706-49), noble woman, patron and lover to Voltaire, probably responsible for much of Voltaire’s French presentation of Newton Chateau de Cirey, 50 miles East of Paris which Voltaire paid to renovate when he lived there with Emilie du Chatelet (and her husband) Emilie du Chatelet’s translation of Newton’s Principia into French (1759) a copy heavily annotated by a French reader objecting to Newton from a Cartesian perspective Newton: comets serve as “periodic acts of reformation” =“rewinding the clock” (letters to Bentley) the three-body problem, studied in 18th ct Pierre-Simon marquis de Laplace (1745-1827) on celestial mechanics Napoleon: You have written this huge book on the system of the world without once mentioning the author of the universe. Laplace: Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis. .
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