| Meanest Foundations and Nobler Superstructures: Hooke, Newton and the Compounding of the Celestiall Motions of the Planetts 2002 Edition Contributor(s): Gal, Ofer (Author) |
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ISBN: 1402007329 ISBN-13: 9781402007323 Publisher: Springer OUR PRICE: $104.49 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: July 2002 Annotation: This book is a historical-epistemological study of one the most consequential idea of early modern celestial mechanics: Robert Hooke's proposal to "compoun[d] the celestial motions of the planets of a direct motion by the tangent & an attractive motion towards a central body," a proposal which Isaac Newton adopted and realized in his Principia. Hooke's Programme was revolutionary both cosmologically and mathematically. It presented "the celestial motions," the proverbial symbol of stability and immutability, as a process of continuous change, and prescribed only parameters of rectilinear motions and rectilinear attractions for calculating their closed curved orbits. Yet the traces of Hooke's construction of his Programme for the heavens lead through his investigations in such earthly disciplines as microscopy, practical optics and horology, and the mathematical tools developed by Newton to accomplish it appear no less local and goal-oriented than Hooke's lenses and springs. This transgression of the boundaries between the theoretical, experimental and technological realms is reminiscent of Hooke's own free excursions in and out of the circles occupied by gentlemen-philosophers, university mathematicians, instrument makers, technicians and servants. It presents an opportunity to examine the social and epistemological distinctions, relations and hierarchies between those realms and their inhabitants, and compels a critical assessment of the philosophical categories they embody. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Science | Astronomy - Science | History - Science | Philosophy & Social Aspects |
| Dewey: 521 |
| LCCN: 2002031659 |
| Series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science (Hardcover) |
| Physical Information: 0.67" H x 6.24" W x 9.86" (1.41 lbs) 252 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: This book is a historical-epistemological study of one of the most consequential breakthroughs in the history of celestial mechanics: Robert Hooke's (1635-1703) proposal to "compoun d] the celestial motions of the planets of a direct motion by the tangent & an attractive motion towards a centrat body" (Newton, The Correspondence li, 297. Henceforth: Correspondence). This is the challenge Hooke presented to Isaac Newton (1642-1727) in a short but intense correspondence in the winter of 1679-80, which set Newton on course for his 1687 Principia, transforming the very concept of "the planetary heavens" in the process (Herivel, 301: De Motu, Version III). 1 It is difficult to overstate the novelty of Hooke 's Programme - The celestial motions, it suggested, those proverbial symbols of stability and immutability, werein fact a process of continuous change: a deflection of the planets from original rectilinear paths by "a centraU attractive power" (Correspondence, li, 313). There was nothing necessary or essential in the shape of planetary orbits. Already known to be "not circular nor concentricall" (ibid. ), Hooke claimed that these apparently closed "curve Line s ]" should be understood and calculated as mere effects of rectilinear motions and rectilinear attraction. And as Newton was quick to realize, this also implied that "the planets neither move exactly in ellipse nor revolve twice in the same orbit, so that there are as many orbits to a planet as it has revolutions" (Herivel, 301: De Motu, Version III). |