A “philosophically materialistic” (Cushing) world view relies on relegating matter and its interactions in the universe to be the source of all form and structure. The slow evolution of understanding and predicting the nature of matter was given concrete mathematical definitions by the scientists of the Newtonian and post –Newtonian era. Scientific determinism removed uncertainty from the physical world and offered scientists the avenue to understand the different variables that affect the physical world. Moving past a more theologically governed world view the world entered an era where it was mechanically characterized. Quantifying the immense effect that Newton had on revolutionizing the scientific world with his ideas on force and gravity and shedding light on his Hermeticism and megalomania, is essential in grasping the nature of this change. The paper analyses the growth of the idea of scientific determinism and also Newton’s effects on the scientific community.
The essential motivation in Western science has always been the need to “reduce the phenomena of nature to a few simple laws or principles” (Cushing). An explanation of the physical world using mechanistic forces and determinable outcomes was at the helm of development. The Ionians in the fifth and sixth centuries B.C. attempted to provide an explanation of physically observed events in a form that used the tools of natural science rather than mythology. Prominent Ionians were Thales – the introducer of abstract geometry in Greek thinking, Anaximander- propagator of the infinite universe hypothesis and Leucippus – the initiator of atomism.
The Pythagorean school of thought was dedicated to understanding the whole universe “numerically”. As Pythagoras believed, “all is number” (Cushing), his ideology rejected that the composition of natural objects required matter, and instead “form” was all they needed. Reducing the natural world to groupings of numbers allowed the Pythagoreans to have a monopoly over this system of thought. Irrational numbers due to their lack of precision and imperfect nature weren’t supposed to exist, and their discovery was heavily guarded by the “Pythagorean Brotherhood”. This concept of whole/rational numbers and their ability to explain the natural world in perfect harmony proved to be rather influential. Plato and Aristotle who were students of the Pythagorean school of thought believed in the mathematical finite nature of the world and thus never strayed from the ideas numerical and structural uniformity. However the essential theme here was the need for a simplistic universal view. Thus the emergence of a simplistic system to formatively describe the existence of all matter was what the Pythagoreans were after. This concept of reductionism was ultimately metaphysically concerned. Proof of the Pythagorean love for the rejection of sensory data and acceptance of the invisible “reality” is obvious in the Pythagorean statement that “pure knowledge” and thus “purification of the soul” could only be achieved by “rising above the data of the human senses”. (Boorstin)
A rejection of the Aristotelian world view of “form” and the “independent existence of universals” was propounded by William of Ockham and his conceptually revolutionary, Nominalism. His theory rejected Aristotle’s idea of the existence of absolutes in an abstract realm of the universe which was hidden from human sight. In essence Ockham substantially reduced the “unknown” in the nature of reality. Using tools from Ockham’s theory and insights of his own Francis Bacon in The New Organon stated the need to “resist the need of human nature to impose wishes and expectations on empirical data”. Bacon’s statement relayed the new ideology of the western scientific community; rejection of the Pythagorean construct and acceptance that “sense data had primacy over theoretical constructs”. (Cushing)
Scientists of the Renaissance were greatly influenced by Galileo. Galileo “assumed the existence of a simple, ordered world possessing regularity” (Cushing). The vital adverb there is regularity. Since antiquity scientists had looked for connections and patterns. Repeating sequence of characteristics or form inherently reduced the vastly misunderstood natural world into understandable quantized constructs. Metaphysics and theology slowed down this process of growth. This was due to two man reasons – the church still regulated a majority of the economic wealth and most natural philosophers were also deep rooted theologians. Therefore Copernicus’ forays into cosmology, Tycho Brahe’s gathering of monumental data and Kepler’s analysis of the heliocentric world view was made possible due to generous contributions from the church authorities. As rather dramatically put by one scholar, “Copernicus led his whole working life comfortably in the bosom of the church” (Boorstin). Even with religious restrictions and personally mandated theological motivations the idea of a “mechanistically” understandable world was making great progress. The single most important contribution came from the impoverished son of an English farmer born in 1642.
Isaac Newton, born to a farmer and raised by his maternal grandmother till he was 11, was modern science’s first “hero”. A colossus like Newton had an impact on a plethora of different scientific factions and ideological constructs. However the point on focus here is his contributions to the creation of a deterministic world view. It has been said that “after Newton the material universe came to seen as completely deterministic in principle” (Cushing). Newton’s first interaction with this “mechanical” philosophy happened at Cambridge where Rene Descartes was changing the traditional Aristotelian world view. The ideology that the “physical world consisted of invisible particles of matter in motion in ether” was being propagated by Descartes. Thus everything as postulated by the new world view could be “explained by mechanical interaction of these particles”. (Boorstin) Newton felt the need to follow this new avenue of scientific understanding due to two prominent reasons. Newton was a staunch Christian and the principle of Absolute Determinism was in essence a mathematical route for explaining “divine foreknowledge” which was central in his faith system. (Cushing) The second and lesser understood reason which was universally present in the scientific community since antiquity was one associated with the social power dynamic. “Priority Became the Prize”(Boorstin), therefore scientists found it more important to claim an “idea” as their own rather than investing time in careful explanation of causation and its social and scientific applications. Newton being a megalomaniac in the scientific climate and a brilliant evaluator of social change, wanted to achieve a lasting recognition by adopting what he realized would soon become the accepted world view replacing the ancient Greeks.
Newton’s Principle of Conservation of the Centre of Mass and Principle of conservation of the Moment of Momentum or Principle of Areas (Forbes, Dijksterhuis) and probably his most effective and popular equation – F = ma (Force is equal to mass of the object and acceleration of the object), helped reduce the chaotic universe of seemingly disconnected events and objects into an understandable and determinable system. To understand the “mechanistic” tradition which became the model in the post-Newtonian era it is important to dissect his force equation.
F (force) = m (mass) a (acceleration),
Theoretically this meant that “given the exact initial positions and velocities of all particles, the law F = ma determines the trajectories forever in the future as long as the forces F are known” (Cushing). Therefore if the initial conditions r0 and v0 are available then the “trajectory of r(t) of an object is completely determined for the future. This result can then be applied to a set of N particles.
Mathematically, rj (t), j = 1, 2..., N, when rj(t0) , vj(t0), Fj = mjaj
In the fig 1, as time t increases beyond zero we have less and less idea about the exact location of the particle, however according to Newtonian Mechanics we can predict its presence to be within a certain area of space. In the figure that space is represented by the virtual cone constructed by the movement of the particle. Thus the “uncertainty” represented in the logistical experiment below is due to the limited means of data collection rather than one rooted in concept. A rather subtle but fundamental concept of the Newtonian world view which ascribed to the presence of an absolute determination and divine causation behind all motion , and any vagueness about the position or movement of a particle was due to the fallible nature of human sensory data collection.
Isaac Newton “ was held to be not only the greatest mind ever to enter the kingdom of science but also appropriately a man of noble type : pillar of morality, defender of Christian faith, a very model of behavior and Christian thought” (Cohen). Understanding this statement rests on formulating an idea of the broad spectrum of influence Newton had on not just the scientific but the religious, cultural and ideological milieu. Newton’s rise to clergy and nobility supported glory is rather insipid. In 1665 as he came out of Trinity College, he sought to differ from the popular world view then being accepted by the literate academia. The Cartesian structure of non-demonstrable instruments of philosophy which relied heavily on hypothesis did not appeal to Newton. Fundamentally using mathematics Newton constructed his “experimental philosophy”. Using his advanced experimental methods and keen intuitive sense he described the nature of white light and “reduced the qualitative differences of color to quantitative differences” (Boorstin). As his critics implemented his own arguments against his work on light, he proceeded to advocate that he had simply explained the properties of light and not how those properties came to be or what regulated them. Newton’s rejection of the hypothesis method of doing science when trying to establish truth (reality or the true nature of the physical world) seems contradictory to his concept of absolute space. The dichotomy of logic here is evident from his conclusion about the existence of a certain form of space based on just non-demonstrable data and mostly thought experiments, thus employing the same hypothesis method that he vehemently protested against. However Newton seemed to believe that “absolute space was a logical and ontological necessity” (Cushing); the justification for his beliefs can be ascribed to : the writings of Christian philosopher John More and the Descartian view of space. John More wrote extensively on the similarities between “infinite space and god”, thus for him “space was immaterial and hence a spirit” (Cushing). This need to include God in the cosmological construct of the universe was embedded in the science of reformation. Newton used this ideology when formulating his ideas of space. Rene Descartes postulated that all space was essentially extensions of matter. In his Principles of Philosophy, Descartes talked about the geometric identity of matter as the only valid one. Therefore Newton’s concepts on space which were built on more advanced mechanical principles and “dynamics” rather than “kinematics” tended to stray away from the Descartian view. With the rise of logical empiricism in the early 1890s Newton’s concepts of absolute space suffered a slow demise. The “positivists” or the “logical empiricists” believed that “a theory should contain no entities that are in principle unobservable or for which a procedure of measurement cannot be specified” (Cushing). With the ushering of this new school of thought, the Aristotelian ideals of inventing ad-hoc quantities and the belief in physically undetectable scientific ideas were rejected. Now, for the first time in Western scientific ideology a consciously organized movement arose to separate natural science from metaphysics and theology.
A lot of Newton’s life and work is a study of extremes. While his mathematical genius “finally offered one common scheme for terrestrial and celestial dynamics” (Boorstin), his need to maintain a draconian hold over the Royal Society of London exposed his penchant for megalomania. His concepts on cosmology were rather similar to Copernicus. Newton’s mathematical explanations according to him did little more than provide a mathematical formula of the physical world. Just as Copernicus had never believed that natural science would ever lead to a revelation about the laws of the universe, Newton’s life was marred with his “Hermeticism” (a belief in the bible and prophecy) and an undermining of the value of the scientific method. Due to his deep rooted theological and mystical foundations, the motivation for his science rested in coming up with physical laws that would further justify his religious convictions. Like most of the scientists of his age, he was schooled in theology and also made deep forays into alchemy. A lot of Newton’s mystic treatises were forcibly kept from publication by the royal society in order to ensure that his modern scientific image did not get tarnished. However recent publications of Newton’s ideas on Christianity and Alchemy help shed light on the very non-scientific aspects that were fundamental to Newton’s ideology.
Understanding the Newtonian influence on science requires the knowledge of the instruments that were used to ensure this dominance by Newton’s ideals. In 1703 Isaac Newton was appointed president of the Royal Society, a post he would occupy for a quarter century. His election to such an important position was in some ways detrimental for 18th century science. Newton with time had grown exceedingly “Christian” and his works on alchemy (650,000 words) and those on the Bible (1,300,000 words) simply in volume far exceeded his scientific endeavors. Along with each accomplishment came prestige and power – this changed Newton’s attitude towards the overall scientific progress of society. Newton exercised an almost militant monopoly over the ruling of the Royal society. Thus the lack of a power structure to keep him in check allowed him to expedite only the ideas that were important to him and kept up with his value system and theological world view. Newton slowly assembled this rather intricate system which would allow him to remain in power and crush any rival ideologist that wished to threaten his position. (Boorstin)
Among the many ideological “uprisings” that Newton put down, none affected his reputation or personal life more than his scientific and conceptual clashes with Robert Hooke and Gottfried Leibniz. The publication of Newton’s Principia brought to light the fact that he had not given credit to Hooke for certain conceptual ideas that he had generously borrowed. After Hooke’s protests Newton decided to delete the sections of his work that bore resemblance to Hooke’s ideas rather than publicize them and acknowledging Hooke. This train of dyspepsic behavior would continue for the rest of Newton’s tenure at the Royal Society. However the rather vindictive fashion in which Newton sought to treat Leibniz brought out the true nature of Newton, the scientific dictator. Due to Newton’s constant attacks on Leibniz’s reputation and the lack of support from the German Scientific Institution Leibniz died a broken man.
Leibniz was a prodigy. Before he turned 26 he had devised a plan for legal reform for the Roman Empire, designed a calculating machine and advocated the construction of the Suez Canal. His differences with Newton were augmented from the dispute they had while trying to explain “the distinction between physical space and mathematical space” (Cushing). Newton’s idea’s of Euclidean space was in direct dissension with Leibniz’s ideas of non-Euclidean space (Leibniz believed that physical space could not exist without matter). The argument started over a basic ideological disagreement, escalated into the biggest rivalry of 18th century science with the publication of Newton’s “fluxions”. How much of the “calculus” which revolutionized the world of math came from Newton is a debatable topic; later research into Leibniz’s work showed that he had very little if any idea of Newton’s formulations on the topic. Newton did everything within his power to defame, discredit and destroy both Leibniz’s proposals on Calculus and his reputation and working as a scientist. Being in control of the organization that awarded credibility and recognition to the works of science, he ensured that his personally selected “board” found Leibniz guilty of plagiarism and granted Newton the title of “inventor of Calculus”.
In retrospect it is important to understand the impacts Leibniz and Newton had on the social, cultural and scientific community of the era. Leibniz encouraged a free flow of ideas and focused on creating implementable policies both in the fields of natural and social science. His demeanor was one of collective growth. Thus with the invention of his number machine and his ideas on legal reform, Leibniz made his ideas available to the common masses. He worked to ensure that the intellectual forum was not limited to those that were in select circles. Infused with a desire to help in the evolution of the scientific climate as opposed to pure personal prestige, he embodied the spirit of a “humanist” much more than Newton ever did. The extent of Newton’s mental gifts were never a point of conjecture , however the methods he employed to use them with age became more a struggle to ensure that his idea of “truth” rather than a questioning, evolving idea of “truth” was the prevailing view in society. Newton actualized a monumental number of scientific ideas; however their spread and certain revision were restricted by the Royal Society and what has now been understood as Newtonian mandate. An almost Pythagorean methodology of “hiding” the facts or ideals and then ensuring that people overlooked the constructive fallacies became staple for Newton. The damage Newton did by restricting the acceptance and growth of certain ideas due to personal strife and power dynamics is arguable. In the light of his activities as the head of the Royal Society and his interactions with the stalwarts of his age that did not conform to his belief spectrum, it seems possible that along with advancing the field of math and science with his ideas on “fluxions”, gravity and light, he retarded the growth of a social scientific community which would collaborate on understanding the physical universe. (Boorstin, Cushing)
Newton’s treatise on gravity had presented the notion of “force at a distance”. Therefore the next logical step was in understanding how this force was propagated. This brought scientists to the age old problem about understanding the nature of the medium of propagation. The Cartesian ideal of space permeating everywhere and being an extension of matter seemed to postulate (just like Galileo) that a void was impossibility. Going against the prevailing Newtonian concepts of “force” the Cartesians believed that “instantaneous action at a distance was senseless” (Cushing). Along with space, light was fast becoming an object of interest and debate among prominent scientists.
The two different ideologies that prevailed were the corpuscular nature and the wave nature of light. Hooke was the propagator of the Wave theory which was later supported by Huygens and finally confirmed by Young. The medium of propagation it was defined as the “aether”. This aether permeated all space and was used for the propagation of light. A theoretically constructed ideology about the nature of electricity and magnetism, the nature of the medium and finally the nature of light was lacking. This changed with the hypothesis made by the son of a poor blacksmith from the outskirts of London.
Michael Faraday is the unrecognized and unparalleled colossus of theoretical physics. He conceptually took on the staggeringly dominant Newtonian world and almost intuitively laid the groundwork on which electromagnetism was conceived. Ideologically the “Fields revolution” fostered-in by Faraday’s groundbreaking ideas about lines of force was “just as radical as the Newtonian Revolution and even more difficult for the lay mind to grasp” (Boorstin). His scientific career which began as an apprentice and helper to Humphry Davy was nothing spectacular till he found a way to liquefy chlorine and was nominated to the Royal Society. However his moment of enlightenment came while experimenting with a beaker of mercury and two cylindrical bar magnets, using his observations from his demonstrations and intuitive ideas he “elegantly demonstrated electromagnetic rotation” (Boorstin). From his forays in gravity, static electricity, electric currents and magnetism came his hypothesis that electricity and magnetism were somehow convertible. In a rush of intellectual creativity Faraday went ahead and formulated definitions and vocabulary terms such as “cathode”, “electrode” and “electrolysis”. After Thomson found some success in giving mathematical form to Faradays theories, he found enough emphasis experimentally to formulate the defining nature of his theory. From postulating “lines of force” to “diamagnetics” to finally the revolutionary concept that the “energy of the magnet was not in the magnet itself but in the magnetic field” (Boorstin), Faraday changed forever the Newtonian concept of centers of force. The fundamentally interesting aspect of Faraday’s work was his almost total ignorance of mathematics. Where he lacked in structural representation of ideas in mathematical form he made up for lucid definitions of his concepts in simple intuitive terms. It has often been said that Faraday would not have been able to achieve all he did, had he been a sophisticated mathematician. This rather counter-intuitive concept is explained by the prevalence of Newtonian math in the 18th and 19th centuries and the linear and conventional conclusions it led to. Thus due to Faraday’s rudimentary understanding of Newtonian centers of force he was not limited by their scope or misled by the ideology of force being a point source rather than a field. Therefore “once again a revolution in science would depend on the defiance of common sense” (Boorstin).
Understanding the rather strange aspect of Faraday’s methods of achieving results need to be discussed. In the past it was the lack of adequate math which retarded the proper representation of ideas in the natural sciences. Galileo struggled for years with the primitive Grecian geometry to give form to his concepts of force and motion; the same can be said for Ptolemy, Copernicus and even Kepler. However, Faraday actually gained from being outside the prevailing mathematical climate and formulating his ideas using just intuitive principles and experimental data (whenever possible). This proves that even though it was the lack of advanced math which proved to slow down the growth of western scientific ideology, at times being out of a system of conventional mathematical wisdom allowed a person to construct theoretically a more “improbable” view of the physical world than the rigorous mathematical system would warrant. Faradays ideas proved to be the demise of the Newtonian ideas of force at a distance. However just as Newton had given mathematical definition to the Galilean ideas of force and motion, a mathematician was needed that would recreate Faraday’s “Field Force” ideas. This need was fulfilled by the “father of electromagnetism”.
James Clerk Maxwell was an exceptionally gifted mathematician with a keen sense of accepting what made “sense” rather that the existing world view. His contributions to the arena of science range from Kinetic theory to the laws of Electromagnetism, to accurately predicting the constitution of Saturn’s rings. Maxwell was “guided by elegance and brevity and aimed to encapsulate in precise mathematics an idea or theory whose form he could already perceive” (Lindley). The point in focus here is arguably his greatest achievement. Prior to Maxwell’s stellar synthesis of the fundamental laws of the separate fields of electricity and magnetism there existed “Coulomb’s law for the electric field and Biot-Sarvat law for the magnetic field” (Cushing). After Maxwell’s conjugation of these separate laws a treatise was formulated which implied that “in empty space electric and magnetic fields satisfy a wave equation” (Cushing). Another great achievement of this theory was the accurate prediction that the speed of propagation of the electromagnetic waves is numerically equal to the square root of the ratio of the proportionality constant of Coulomb’s law and the Biot-Sarvat law. In addition Maxwell finally provided the dream of someday understanding an “absolute reference frame” since the speed of light (c) had to constitute the speed in relation to a certain reference frame.
Even though Maxwell’s ideas of “wave” propagation of light and the electromagnetic synthesis were influential and showed an ideological progression, he still remained a firm believer of the “aether”. Even though it might seem that his concept of the electromagnetic aether would have led him onto a retardation of methodological evolution, it is this very idea of an “electromagnetic aether being a genuine physical substance” (Cushing) that allowed Maxwell to formulate his equations. This brings up an important detail about the evolution of scientific thought. Due to the nature of the progression of ideas sometimes believing in a concept, that later was found to be realistically improbable, actually helped in the generation of the next step of thought. Kepler’s faith in Newtonian Mechanics and the application of that while coming up with his laws of planetary motion is a great example. As later discovered the perturbative effects due to the other bodies in the solar system on the orbit of Mercury actually led to the creation of a path that was not exactly an ellipse. Had Kepler known about this ideological fallacy in the Newtonian construct than it can be argued that he would have found it excruciatingly difficult to come up with his laws and might even have not persevered in providing enough justification for the Copernican model of the solar system. Thus the lack of a proper understanding of a system led to the process which finally resulted in the correct understanding.
Newton’s constructs of mathematics and science dominated the scientific atmosphere of the renaissance and the enlightenment. His dictatorship over the Royal Society ensured his lasting influence on the fundamental logic scientists applied to derive solutions. Even though his mathematics was revolutionary, his ideas of theology, alchemy and sociology displayed his rather conservative Christian faith and low expectations from the field of science. The nature of science which was tied in with recognition and achievement was cemented during this era. A mentality which had been present in a dormant form was finally actualized as scientists cared more about the accolades and less about understanding the process. Economics was a major factor in the formation of this structure, thus credibility was obtained by gaining recognition from the clergy and the nobility. Therefore instead of spending time devising new thought processes for the progression and understanding of the universe, eminent scientists spent years working on whims of the nobility. An example of this tragic reality was Gottfried Leibniz. In hopes of being recognized and subsequently funded he spent the last two years of his “gout-ridden life” (Boorstin) trying to finish the genealogical history of King George the first’s family.
With the progression in mathematics ushered in by Newton and Leibniz older ideas about understanding the variables that governed the universe were in demise. The universe was a lot more scientifically definite. Newton’s laws of force and understanding of gravity laid the foundation for scientific determinism. Thus Aristotle’s ideas of pre-concieved motions in control of the “Unmoved Mover” were replaced with divine determination. Moving into a mechanistic world view from the more organic Aristotelian world view was in some ways the premature beginnings to a separation of science and theology. Interestingly Newton favored his ideas of force only because they made sense in the biblical understanding of destiny. After Newton with scientists like Faraday and Maxwell the form of the physical world was separated forever in the scientific community from the influences of religion. In propagating the field theory, Faraday and Maxwell, gave physical identity to forces present in the universe that can’t be seen, but are always felt.
The western scientific structure moved away from the clergy and the nobility and universities became the epicenter of the avant garde. In accepting and propagating this change the scientific community took a monumental step towards removing religious and political bias from the very nature of doing science. Moving past the restrictions and the limitations imposed by theology and royal tribute scientists were finally free and “building up a library which had no other limits that the world itself – Erasmus” (Boorstin). With the implementation of conceptual constraints that could control different variables scientific determinism became the fundamental view of the physical universe.
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