We're at the end of the pre-scientific, or Galilean age. One could push this back to Copernicus and then Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler.
One major point of all this is that while the Copernican system might have been better for calculation; there were problems that needed explaining for anybody to take seriously. If we're on a sphere going around the sun, then 1) why don't we fall off? 2) why doesn't the atmosphere leave the planet because it's moving past?
These questions took on more ergency when Kepler and Tycho Brahe showed that for instance Mars has an eliptical orbit.
Well, Galileo 1)showed that the reason feathers and metal balls fall at different rates because of friction. He showed that the natural state of objects were to keep going and that the real reason why objects stop is because of some force like friction. This he called inertia. Inertia solved one problem of the Copernican system. Gravity would solve the other. Nobody would solve gravity; i'm tempted to say that even Einstein hasn't quite solved gravity; Even Einstein's theories of relativity do not completely solve the mystery of gravity.
Agriculturalism needed astronomy to make the calendar to give some good idea of when to plant and harvest food.
What's perhaps more remarkable is that the ancients used their pre-scientific understanding of how to do science, mythology, to come up with various sungods. These sungods were to be rolled up into one because they were all analogous(mythology is poetry; poetry is analogy - similie and metaphor). This was done in the roman times because they were in charge of the known world at the time.
Not only did the astronomical reality dominate ancient mythology; but, it was to be the basis for the creation of the only technologies they ever really had. For instance, the clock, or the Nuremberg egg.
The Nuremberg egg also only came about because of all the Greek geometry. So, there's no doubt that mathematics is at the basis of everything from the Barbegal roman waterwheel powered(by means of water being brought in by vast arched aqueducts!) machinery to do a kind of primitive industrialism to the Nuremberg egg.
What about the cannon in episode three and the Galleon ships in the episode 2? The cannon was one major reason people started analysing free fall. And of course, that goes to Galileo's point about free fall in a vacuum where a feather and a cannon ball can hit the ground at the same time.
The ships? The ships weren't going far without navigation by stars and maps(mathematics). The ships also used magnetic needles to point to north(at least approximately).
So, clearly my points about the nature and origin of mathematics are correct. What else to say?
Isaac Newton born after the death of Galileo was to combine Galileo's laws with his own inverse square law to derive the Keplerian planetary motin laws. This was a major evolution to mathematical and hence human thought. Be able to derive old laws by new laws, and well, theoreticians and even experimentalists raise an eyebrow or two!
Newton was to do the same for all the mathematics before him as well with his Calculus. All those vague concepts of trigonometry, logariths, and even algebraic equations were to be absorbed, generalized, and made more precise with the calculus. The Calculus was to embody those things and also be able to calculate those previous mathematics far easier than every before.
Isaac Newton's Calculus and Physics was to calculate the precesion of the equinoxes, the seasons, the shape of the earth. Bottom line, with Newtonian mechanics, Isaac Newton had written the last word on the past agricultural civilization forever. Industrialism was soon to be the next stage of humanity.
More social phenomenon is why Isaac Newton was to be the person all this was to come out of.
Mathematical science came about in a social vacuum after the Sea peoples put the ancient pre-classical Greek world in a dark ages. But, when the Greeks were starting to go down the road to rational free-thinking people, the fear groups(the Persians and Spartans) were having nothing of it. Alexander the Great perhaps in spite of himself saved the day though and kept the flame of learning going for some more centuries; but, the momentum of those who got a kick out of vague mythology was too much even for Hellenistic society.
The world went into another dark ages. Although there was the Arabs. I've already mentioned them, so I move on to the Renaissance Europeans. We all know what happened to Galileo, and so did everyone from Descartes to anybody else who wanted to do mathematical science. So, they pushed up and out further to Scandinavia and England.
It's kind of remarkable how one can see people who want to do mathematical science moves as far as they can, and one can see the irrationalists making life uncomfortable for those who want to speak the truth.
It must not be imagined that England was or even is that rational of a people. Just like the Greeks, they were conditioned a long time ago by irrationalists missionaries and never thought twice about it. That history is familiar; how some king broke away from the Catholic Roman church thousands of miles away. But, what's more, the English took to Newton's Calculus as if it was holy. Liebniz's was superior. The 'continental' mathematicians made much more mathematical progress after Newton and Liebniz died because of this(because the English guys wouldn't touch Liebniz's Calculus). It was only the 1800s, that English mathematicians caught up(and this was more of a Scottish guy than English - Maxwell).
It's amazing one can see the interpaly of rationality, irrationality, and some people who mix the two in all this. My theory explains all in my opinion.
We're at the end of the pre-scientific, or Galilean age. One could push this back to Copernicus and then Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler.
ReplyDeleteOne major point of all this is that while the Copernican system might have been better for calculation; there were problems that needed explaining for anybody to take seriously. If we're on a sphere going around the sun, then 1) why don't we fall off? 2) why doesn't the atmosphere leave the planet because it's moving past?
These questions took on more ergency when Kepler and Tycho Brahe showed that for instance Mars has an eliptical orbit.
Well, Galileo 1)showed that the reason feathers and metal balls fall at different rates because of friction. He showed that the natural state of objects were to keep going and that the real reason why objects stop is because of some force like friction. This he called inertia. Inertia solved one problem of the Copernican system. Gravity would solve the other. Nobody would solve gravity; i'm tempted to say that even Einstein hasn't quite solved gravity; Even Einstein's theories of relativity do not completely solve the mystery of gravity.
ReplyDeleteAll this stuff about Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo prove my points about the nature of mathematics.
ReplyDeleteBut, there's more to say.
ReplyDeleteAgriculturalism needed astronomy to make the calendar to give some good idea of when to plant and harvest food.
What's perhaps more remarkable is that the ancients used their pre-scientific understanding of how to do science, mythology, to come up with various sungods. These sungods were to be rolled up into one because they were all analogous(mythology is poetry; poetry is analogy - similie and metaphor). This was done in the roman times because they were in charge of the known world at the time.
Not only did the astronomical reality dominate ancient mythology; but, it was to be the basis for the creation of the only technologies they ever really had. For instance, the clock, or the Nuremberg egg.
ReplyDeleteThe Nuremberg egg also only came about because of all the Greek geometry. So, there's no doubt that mathematics is at the basis of everything from the Barbegal roman waterwheel powered(by means of water being brought in by vast arched aqueducts!) machinery to do a kind of primitive industrialism to the Nuremberg egg.
What about the cannon in episode three and the Galleon ships in the episode 2? The cannon was one major reason people started analysing free fall. And of course, that goes to Galileo's point about free fall in a vacuum where a feather and a cannon ball can hit the ground at the same time.
The ships? The ships weren't going far without navigation by stars and maps(mathematics). The ships also used magnetic needles to point to north(at least approximately).
So, clearly my points about the nature and origin of mathematics are correct. What else to say?
ReplyDeleteIsaac Newton born after the death of Galileo was to combine Galileo's laws with his own inverse square law to derive the Keplerian planetary motin laws. This was a major evolution to mathematical and hence human thought. Be able to derive old laws by new laws, and well, theoreticians and even experimentalists raise an eyebrow or two!
Newton was to do the same for all the mathematics before him as well with his Calculus. All those vague concepts of trigonometry, logariths, and even algebraic equations were to be absorbed, generalized, and made more precise with the calculus. The Calculus was to embody those things and also be able to calculate those previous mathematics far easier than every before.
Isaac Newton's Calculus and Physics was to calculate the precesion of the equinoxes, the seasons, the shape of the earth. Bottom line, with Newtonian mechanics, Isaac Newton had written the last word on the past agricultural civilization forever. Industrialism was soon to be the next stage of humanity.
More social phenomenon is why Isaac Newton was to be the person all this was to come out of.
ReplyDeleteMathematical science came about in a social vacuum after the Sea peoples put the ancient pre-classical Greek world in a dark ages. But, when the Greeks were starting to go down the road to rational free-thinking people, the fear groups(the Persians and Spartans) were having nothing of it. Alexander the Great perhaps in spite of himself saved the day though and kept the flame of learning going for some more centuries; but, the momentum of those who got a kick out of vague mythology was too much even for Hellenistic society.
The world went into another dark ages. Although there was the Arabs. I've already mentioned them, so I move on to the Renaissance Europeans. We all know what happened to Galileo, and so did everyone from Descartes to anybody else who wanted to do mathematical science. So, they pushed up and out further to Scandinavia and England.
It's kind of remarkable how one can see people who want to do mathematical science moves as far as they can, and one can see the irrationalists making life uncomfortable for those who want to speak the truth.
ReplyDeleteIt must not be imagined that England was or even is that rational of a people. Just like the Greeks, they were conditioned a long time ago by irrationalists missionaries and never thought twice about it. That history is familiar; how some king broke away from the Catholic Roman church thousands of miles away. But, what's more, the English took to Newton's Calculus as if it was holy. Liebniz's was superior. The 'continental' mathematicians made much more mathematical progress after Newton and Liebniz died because of this(because the English guys wouldn't touch Liebniz's Calculus). It was only the 1800s, that English mathematicians caught up(and this was more of a Scottish guy than English - Maxwell).
It's amazing one can see the interpaly of rationality, irrationality, and some people who mix the two in all this. My theory explains all in my opinion.