One Hundred Years of Pressure: Hydrostatics from Stevin to Newton

201 Pages·2.244 MB·English

by  Alan F. Chalmers (auth.)

Archimedes 51 New Studies in the History and Philosophy
of Science and Technology
Alan F. Chalmers
One Hundred
Years of
Pressure
Hydrostatics from Stevin to Newton
One Hundred Years of Pressure
Archimedes
NEW STUDIES IN THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY
OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
VOLUME 51
EDITOR
Jed Z. Buchwald, Dreyfuss Professor of History, California Institute
of Technology, Pasadena, USA
ASSOCIATE EDITORS FOR MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES
Jeremy Gray, The Faculty of Mathematics and Computing,
The Open University, UK
Tilman Sauer, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany
ASSOCIATE EDITORS FOR BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Sharon Kingsland, Department of History of Science and Technology,
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA
Manfred Laubichler, Arizona State University, USA
ADVISORY BOARD FOR MATHEMATICS, PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY
Henk Bos, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
Mordechani Feingold, California Institute of Technology, USA
Allan D. Franklin, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA
Kostas Gavroglu, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
Paul Hoyningen-Huene, Leibniz University in Hannover, Germany
Trevor Levere, University of Toronto, Canada
Jesper Lützen, Copenhagen University, Denmark
William Newman, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
Lawrence Principe, The Johns Hopkins University, USA
Jürgen Renn, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Germany
Alex Roland, Duke University, USA
Alan Shapiro, University of Minnesota, USA
Noel Swerdlow, California Institute of Technology, USA
ADVISORY BOARD FOR BIOLOGY
Michael Dietrich, Dartmouth College, USA
Michel Morange, Centre Cavaillès, Ecole Normale Supérieure, France
Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Germany
Nancy Siraisi, Hunter College of the City University of New York, USA
Archimedes has three fundamental goals; to further the integration of the histories of science and
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limited to one or even to a few particular areas. Its subjects include any of the sciences, ranging from
biology through physics, all aspects of technology, broadly construed, as well as historically-engaged
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philosophers, and scientists, as well as to those in business and industry who seek to understand how
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More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5644
Alan F. Chalmers
One Hundred Years
of Pressure
Hydrostatics from Stevin to Newton
Alan F. Chalmers
Unit for History and Philosophy of Science
University of Sydney
Sydney, NSW, Australia
ISSN 1385-0180 ISSN 2215-0064 (electronic)
Archimedes
ISBN 978-3-319-56528-6 ISBN 978-3-319-56529-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-56529-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017936360
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Acknowledgements
I have been fortunate to have had the flourishing Unit for History and Philosophy of
Science at the University of Sydney as a convivial and inspirational home base for
the conduct of my research. Three members of that unit deserve special mention.
John Schuster gave me encouragement and very detailed commentaries on early
versions of my research. It was he that first raised the possibility that my findings
might usefully be made available in the form of a short book. For her part, Debbie
Castle has given me much logistical support and has been ever ready and willing to
compensate for my rudimentary word-processing and IT skills. Jenny Tomlinson
drew on her professional expertise to fine-tune the final version of my manuscript,
suggesting stylistic improvements and indicating ways in which I might avoid
unnecessary repetition. The Unit for HPS gave me an academic base from which to
apply for a research grant from the Australian Research Council. My work in the
years 2012–2015 was supported by Discovery Grant #DP110102471.
I was privileged to be able to conduct some of my research at the Max Planck
Institute for the History of Science in Berlin on three separate occasions from 2014
to 2016 for a total of 8 months. I received crucial encouragement and support from
Jürgen Renn. A number of scholars at the Max Planck were much attuned to the
work I was doing, and what I learnt from them proved to be invaluable. The incum-
bents refer to what they do at that institute as ‘historical epistemology’. Somewhat
like Monsieur Jourdain in Molière’s The Bourgeois Gentleman, who was very self-
satisfied to learn that he had been writing prose for 40 years, it was an eye-opener
for me to realize that I have been practising historical epistemology for a similar
duration. On the occasion of my latest visit, I turned up with a draft of this book. I
had the luxury of being able to discuss the chapters at weekly meetings of a small
but dedicated group of knowledgeable scholars, reworking my chapters as we went
along. Three months later, exhausted and elated, I had a revised version ready to be
sent to the publishers. Of the scholars who gave me help, Christoph Lehner and
Pietro Omodeo supplied extensive commentaries on all of my chapters, and Ursula
Klein and Wolfgang Lefèvre were also generous with their time and helpful with
their comments. Lindy Divarci was on hand to help me with approaches to publish-
ers. I was indeed fortunate to receive this degree of support.
v
vi Acknowledgements
I was a guest in the Philosophy Department at the University of Durham on a
number of occasions and participated in workshops connected with my research. I
received particularly helpful feedback from Robin Hendry, Peter Vickers and David
Wootton. I have also read papers at the University of Bristol, benefitting from criti-
cal comments and encouragement from Andrew Pyle and James Ladyman. Both
Keith Hutchison and Alan Shapiro gave me detailed comments on complete drafts
of my book, the criticisms in each case being especially helpful and constructive
because of their bluntness. I gratefully acknowledge the help I have received with
translations from Latin from John Schuster, Pietro Omodeo, Christoph Lehner and
Michael Hanaghan, French from Pierrick Bourrat and Dutch from Hans Pols and
Joyce Van Leeuven. I thank Peter Saw for preparing Figs. 1.1, 6.2 and 6.3 and Georg
Pflanz for preparing Figs. 4.1 and 5.2. Others who have given assistance and encour-
agement warranting acknowledgement are Peter Anstey, Jed Buchwald, Stephen
Gaugroger, Antoni Malet, Peter McLaughlin and Matthias Schemmel.
I acknowledge permission to include in this book versions of material published
in two journals. The articles in question are ‘Intermediate causes and explanations:
The key to understanding the Scientific Revolution’, Studies in History and
Philosophy of Science, 43 (2012), 551–562; ‘Qualitative novelty in seventeenth-
century science: Hydrostatics from Stevin to Pascal’, Studies in History and
Philosophy of Science, 51 (2015), 1–10; and ‘Robert Boyle’s mechanical account of
hydrostatics and pneumatics: Fluidity, the spring of the air and their relationship to
the concept of pressure’, Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 69 (2015),
429–454.
Heinz Post still exerts a strong influence on my research, notwithstanding the
fact that he has been dead for some time. He trained me in history and philosophy
of science and supervised my PhD thesis. I feel him looking over my shoulder as I
write, asking ‘what is the point of this study?’, ‘what does that mean?’, ‘is that rel-
evant?’ and the like. A second important person who is far from dead and whose
influence can be measured by the degree of discomfort to which it leads is my part-
ner Sandra Grimes. Her goading of me to continue at difficult junctures in my work
has given me someone to blame for the stress involved.
Sydney, NSW, Australia Alan F. Chalmers
December, 2016
Contents
1 Liquids: A Challenge for Seventeenth-Century Mechanics ................ 1
1.1 Introductory Remarks..................................................................... 1
1.2 Some Puzzles Posed by Liquids in Equilibrium ............................ 3
1.3 Understanding Liquids via a Technical Sense of Pressure ............. 4
1.4 Hydrostatics as an Extension of the Statics
of Simple Machines........................................................................ 7
1.5 Hydrostatics and the Scientific Revolution: Experiment
and Mathematics ............................................................................ 8
1.6 Mechanism and the Mechanical Philosophy .................................. 10
1.7 The Structure of the Book .............................................................. 13
References ................................................................................................. 14
2 The Historical Background to Stevin’s Hydrostatics ........................... 15
2.1 Common Sense and Technological Knowledge
of Liquids as Distinct from Solids ................................................. 15
2.2 The Science of Simple Machines: Statics ...................................... 17
2.3 Archimedes on Floatation .............................................................. 19
References ................................................................................................. 24
3 Beyond Archimedes: Stevin’s Elements of Hydrostatics ....................... 27
3.1 Simon Stevin: Scientist/Engineer and Practical Mathematician .... 27
3.2 Stevin’s The Art of Weighing and the Euclidean Ideal ................... 29
3.3 Hydrostatics, the Euclidean Ideal and Stevin’s Postulates ............. 31
3.4 Stevin’s Derivation of Archimedes’ Principle ................................ 33
3.5 The Force on a Horizontal Plane .................................................... 36
3.6 The Force on a Vertical Plane ........................................................ 38
3.7 The Significance of the Invalidity of Stevin’s Arguments .............. 40
3.8 The Practice of Hydrostatics and Empirical Support ..................... 41
3.9 Euclidean Explanations and Mechanistic Explanations ................. 43
3.10 Stevin’s Terminology and the Concept of Pressure........................ 46
3.11 Where to from Here? ...................................................................... 47
References ................................................................................................. 48
vii
viii Contents
4 Galileo, Floating Bodies and the Balance ............................................. 49
4.1 The Context of Galileo’s Account of Floatation ............................ 49
4.2 Floating Compared with a Balance with Equal Arms .................... 51
4.3 The Inadequacy of the Analogy with an Equal-Armed Balance .... 52
4.4 Floatation Compared to a Balance with Unequal Arms ................. 54
4.5 Some Reflections on Galileo’s Account of Floatation ................... 55
References ................................................................................................. 57
5 Descartes’ Engagement with Hydrostatics ........................................... 59
5.1 Introduction .................................................................................... 59
5.2 Physico-mathematics and the Mechanical Philosophy .................. 60
5.3 Descartes’ Hydrostatic Manuscript ................................................ 62
5.4 Descartes’ Adaptation of Archimedes ............................................ 66
5.5 Descartes’ Appropriation of Kepler’s Optics ................................. 68
5.6 Descartes’ Mechanical Universe and His Treatment
of Weight and Light........................................................................ 71
5.7 Descartes’ Distinction Between Solids and Liquids
at the Corpuscular Level ................................................................ 74
5.8 Corpuscular Models and Isotropy .................................................. 76
5.9 An Assessment of Descartes’ Dealings with Hydrostatics ............ 79
References ................................................................................................. 81
6 Pascal’s Equilibrium of Liquids .............................................................. 83
6.1 The Context of Pascal’s Hydrostatics............................................. 83
6.2 Pascal’s Style of Reasoning Compared to That of Stevin .............. 84
6.3 Pascal’s Theory of Hydrostatics ..................................................... 88
6.4 Elaborations and Applications of Pascal’s Hydrostatics ................ 92
6.5 Pascal’s Hydrostatics and Experiment ........................................... 93
6.6 Pascal’s Hydrostatics in Perspective .............................................. 96
References ................................................................................................. 97
7 Experimenting with Air .......................................................................... 99
7.1 Torricelli’s Experiment and Responses to It .................................. 99
7.2 Torricelli on the Weight and Rarefaction of Air ............................. 102
7.3 Experiments with Air in the Wake of Torricelli ............................. 104
7.4 Pascal’s Treatise on the Weight of the Mass of the Air ................... 106
7.5 Pecquet and Air’s Elater ................................................................. 108
References ................................................................................................. 109
8 Boyle on Mechanism and Pressure ........................................................ 111
8.1 Introduction .................................................................................... 111
8.2 Mechanical Machines and Mechanistic Explanations ................... 112
8.3 Boyle on Mechanism and Intermediate Causes ............................. 113
8.4 Boyle’s Innovations in Pneumatics ................................................ 116
8.5 The Concept of Pressure in Boyle’s Pneumatics ............................ 119
8.6 Pressure in Boyle’s Hydrostatics .................................................... 122
8.7 The Novelty of Boyle’s Concept of Pressure in Liquids ................ 127
Contents ix
8.8 Further Comparisons of the Hydrostatics of Boyle and Pascal ...... 128
8.9 Pressure and Fluidity as Novel, Intermediate,
Mechanistic Causes ........................................................................ 131
References ................................................................................................. 132
9 Newton’s Hydrostatics: Liquids as Continua ....................................... 135
9.1 Situating Newton’s Hydrostatics .................................................... 135
9.2 The Two Versions of Newton’s Hydrostatics ................................. 137
9.3 De gravitatione: The Background .................................................. 139
9.4 Foundations of Hydrostatics .......................................................... 140
9.5 Theory of Hydrostatics in De gravitatione .................................... 145
9.6 Hydrostatics in the Principia ......................................................... 148
9.7 Extending Hydrostatics to Include Weight ..................................... 151
9.8 Newton’s Hydrostatics in Perspective ............................................ 153
9.9 The Dating of De gravitatione Revisited ....................................... 155
References ................................................................................................. 160
10 Fashioning a Novel Concept of Pressure: One Hundred Years .......... 161
10.1 A chieving Progress by Overcoming Obstacles .............................. 161
10.2 Hydrostatics as an Extension of Statics ......................................... 162
10.3 The Path to a Concept of Pressure Adequate for Hydrostatics ...... 166
References ................................................................................................. 171
11 Hydrostatics and Experiment ................................................................ 173
11.1 Experimental Philosophy Versus the Euclidean Ideal .................... 173
11.2 The Practical Applicability of Euclidean Geometry and Statics .... 174
11.3 Novelty via Experiment ................................................................. 176
11.4 Experiments as Suppliers of Evidence ........................................... 177
11.5 Newton’s Hydrostatics and the Euclidean Ideal ............................. 179
11.6 Additional Roles for Experiment ................................................... 181
11.7 Experimental Philosophy Versus the Mechanical Philosophy ....... 182
References ................................................................................................. 186
12 Hydrostatics and the Scientific Revolution ........................................... 187
References ................................................................................................. 191
Name Index ...................................................................................................... 193
Subject Index ................................................................................................... 195