The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution

684 Pages·2016·32.466 MB·English

by  David Wootton

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Title page of Francis Bacon, Nowon organuni (1610), which shows a ship sailing
in through the Pillars of Hercules (identified with the strait between Gibraltar and
North Africa - the opening from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic) after explor­
ing an unknown world.
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INVENTION
of SCIENCE
A New History of the
Scientific Revolution
DAVID WOOTTON
i
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HARPER Q) PERENNIAL
NEW YORK • LONDON • TORONTO • SYDNEY • NEW DELHI • AUCKLAND
BM0720120
HARPER QPERENNIAL
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2015 by HarperCollins
Publishers.
THE INVENTION OF SCIENCE. Copyright © Railshead Ltd, 2015. All rights
reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may
be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York,
NY 10007.
HarperCollins books may be purchased for educational, business, or
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Department at [email protected].
Originally published in the United Kingdom in 2015 by Penguin Random
House UK.
FIRST HARPER PERENNIAL EDITION PUBLISHED 2016.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBN 978-0-06-175953-6 (pbk.)
16 17 18 19 20 off/rrd 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ii
F
For Alison
Hanc ego de caelo ducentem sidera vidi
(I have seen her draw down the stars from the sky)
- Tibullus, Elegies, I.ii
‘Eureka!’
-Archimedes (287-2.12. bce)
Archimedes in his bath, a woodcut by Peter Flotner (1490-1546) from the first
German translation of Vitruvius (Vitruvius Teutsch), published by Johannes
Petreius in Nuremberg in 1548. Micro’s crown is on the right in the foreground.
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Contents
i
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List of Illustrations xi
INTRODUCTION
1. Modern Minds 3
2. The Idea of the Scientific Revolution
15
PART ONE
The Heavens and the Earth
3. Inventing Discovery 57
4. Planet Earth no
PART TWO
Seeing is Believing
5. The Mathematization of the World 163
6. Gulliver’s Worlds 211
PART THREE
Making Knowledge
7. Facts 251
8. Experiments
310
9. Laws 361
IO. Hypotheses/Theories 380
II. Evidence and Judgement 400
PART FOUR
Birth of the Modern
12. Machines 431
13. The Disenchantment of the World 449
14. Knowledge is Power 476
viii CONTENTS
CONCLUSION
The Invention of Science
15. In Defiance of Nature 5ii
16. These Postmodern Days 544
17. ‘What Do I Know?’ 556
Some Longer Notes 573
A Note on Greek and Medieval 'Science' 573
A Note on Religion 575
Wittgenstein: No Relativist 577
Notes on Relativism and Relativists 580
A Note on Dates and Quotations 59*-
A Note on the Internet 592-
Acknowledgements 595
Endnotes 599
Bibliography 655
Index 723
List of Illustrations
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
p. ii: Title page of Francis Bacon’s Novum organum (1620). (© The
Trustees of the British Museum, London)
p. vi: Archimedes in his bath, a woodcut by Peter Flotner (1490-1546).
(National Museum, Madrid; photo © Tarker /Bridgeman Images)
p. 14: Star map of Cassiopeia, from Tycho Brahe’s The NewStar (1573).
(Universal Images/ Getty Images)
p. 56: Title page of Johannes Stradanus’s New Discoveries (c.1591).
(Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
p. 87: Johannes Hevelius, from Selenographia, (1647). (© The Royal
Society, London)
p. 97: ‘Mr P’s Snail’, from Roberval’s Mathematical Works (1731).
(Leeds University, Special Collections, Brotherton Library)
p. 112: The spheres of the universe, from Jodocus Trutfetter’s A Text­
book of Natural Philosophy (1514). (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,
Munchen)
p. 115: The spheres of earth, water, air and fire, from Sacrobosco’s
Sphera volgare (1537). ( Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munchen)
p. 116: The centres of the spheres of water and earth (above), and the
relative and absolute volumes of earth and water (below), from Sac­
robosco’s Sphera volgare (1537). (Wellcome Library, London)
pp. 122-3: Map of the world, from Ptolemy’s Geography (Rome, 1490).
(James Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota, USA)
p. 124: Earth and water, from Clavius’s commentary on Sacrobosco
(revised edition, 1581). (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munchen)
p. 126: Earth and water as a single sphere, from Sacro Bosco’s Opuscu-
lum de sphaera (1518). (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munchen)
p. 127: The relationship between earth, water, air and fire, from Clavi­
us’s commentary on Sacrobosco (revised edition, 1581). (Wellcome
Library, London)
X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
p. 129: Peter Apian’s illustration of a round earth, from Sacrobosco,
Spbaera ... per Petrum Apianum (15x6). (Bayerische Staatsbiblio-
thek, Miinchen)
p. 131: Illustration from Schott’s Anatomia physico-hydrostatica fontium
ac fluminum (1663). (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Miinchen)
p. 134: The relationship between earth and water, an illustration from
Jean Bodin’s Universae naturae theatrum (1596). (Special Collec­
tions, University' of Glasgow)
p. 135: Schott’s version of Bodin’s new theory, from Anatomia physico-
hydrostatica (1663). (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Miinchen)
p. 141: A first edition of Copernicus with contemporary annotation.
(Special Collections, Lehigh University Libraries, Pennsylvania,
USA)
p. 153: Copernicus’s diagram of the heliocentric cosmos, from the origi­
nal manuscript of On the Revolutions (1543). (Jagiellonian
University Library, Krakow (Ms.10000, f. s>v))
p. 156: Digges’s image of the Copernican cosmos. (Linda Hall Library
Images, Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering & Technology,
USA)
p. 174: An illustration from Niceron’s Curious Perspective (1652).
(Wellcome Library, London)
p. 178: Measuring the universe, from Vitruvius’s De architectura (1521).
(RIBA Library, Photographic Collections, London)
p. 181: Brahe’s design for an equatorial armillary sphere, from Astrono-
miae instauratae mechanica (1598 edition). (Special Collections,
Lehigh University Libraries, Pennsylvania, USA)
p. 182: The imperial observatory in Peking, from Ferdinand Verbiest’s
Xinzhi Yixiangtu. (Museum of the History of Science, Oxford)
p. 185: The muscles of the body, from Vesalius’s On the Fabric of the
Human Body (1543). (Special Collections. University of Glasgow,
Glasgow)
p. 189: Title page of Petrus Apianus’s Introductio geographica (1533).
(Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Miinchen)
p. 196: Brahe’s observatory, from Astronomiae instauratae mechanica
(1598 eidition). (Hulton Archive/Getty Images, London)
p. 202: Peter Apian’s diagram of longitude and latitude, from Cosmo-
graphicus liber (1524). (Boston Public Library, Rare Books
Department, Boston, USA)
p. 203: Fortifications of Coeverden, the Netherlands, early seventeenth
century. (Newberry Library, Chicago, USA)
r
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi
p. 204: Frontispiece to Niccolo Tartaglia’s New Science (1537). (Middle
Temple Library/Science Photo Library, London)
p. 207: Diirer’s World Map of 1515. (Science Photo Library, London) i
p. 213: Kepler’s representation of the five Platonic solids, from Myst- S
erium cosmographicum (1596). (Print Collector/Getty Images,
London)
p. 219: One of Galileo’s illustrations of the moon, from The Starry
Messenger (1610). (Linda Hall Library Images, Linda Hall Library
of Science, Engineering & Technology, USA)
p. 220: Harriot’s first drawing of the moon as seen through his tele­
scope. (Max Alexander/Lord Egremont/Science Photo Library,
London)
p. 221: Harriot’s drawing of the moon after he had read Galileo’s Starry
Messenger. (Max Alexander/Lord Egremont/Science Photo Library,
London)
p. 227: Frontispiece to Giovanni Battista Riccioli’s New Almagest
(1651). (Universal Images Group /Getty Images)
p. 232: Frontispiece to Francis Godwin’s The Man in the Moone (1638).
(Bibliotheque des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, France/Bridgeman Art
Library)
p. 233: Frontispiece to John Wilkins, A Discourse Concerning a New
World (1640; reprinted 1648). (Universal Images Group/Getty Images)
pp. 240-1: Hooke’s representation of a flea, from Micrographia (1665).
(© The Royal Society, London)
p. 261: Graunt’s table of mortality, from Natural and Political Observ­
ations (1662). (©The British Library Board, London)
p. 264: Title page of Kepler’s New Star (1606). (Linda Hall Library Images,
Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering & Technology, USA)
p. 267: Frontispiece to Galileo’s Dialogue (1632). (Biblioteca Nazionale/
Getty Images)
p. 307: Frontispiece to Kepler’s Rudolphine tables (1627). (Jay M. Pasa-
choff/Getty Images, London)
p. 325: Illustration accompanying Theodoric of Freiberg’s study of the
rainbow when it appeared in print in Trutfetter’s textbook (1514).
(Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Miinchen)
p. 334: Schott’s representation of Berti’s vacuum experiment. (Wellcome
Trust Library, London)
p. 338: a) Adrien Auzout’s void-in-the-void experiment, from Jean Pec­
quet, Experinienta nova anatomica (1651); b) Gilles de Roberval’s
carp-bladder experiment. (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Miinchen)