The bases of modern science / by J.W.N. Sullivan.

  • Sullivan, J. W. N. (John William Navin), 1886-1937.
Date:
[1939]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The bases of modern science / by J.W.N. Sullivan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to such considerations. He did, indeed, make eighteen successive attempts to fit circles to the planetary orbits before he definitely adopted ellipses. His faithfulness to observation overcame his aesthetic preferences. It is possible, also, that, being a real mathematician, he found the aesthetic properties of ellipses sufficiently charming. In saying that the planetary orbits were elliptical Kepler was, incident¬ ally, opposing the same general attitude that was encountered by Galileo when he stated that there were mountains on the moon. It was objected to Galileo’s teaching that, the moon being a heavenly body and therefore a perfect sphere, it could not be disfigured by mountains. The aesthetic criterion was, therefore, one of those that had to be abandoned in order that the scientific outlook could be formu¬ lated. As a matter of fact, the aesthetic criterion still plays a part in science, but it is now called “ simplicity.” Galileo approached the modern scientific outlook more nearly than did Kepler. Like Kepler, he believed that Nature lent itself to mathematical description, but he does not seem to have regarded the fulfilment of mathematical relations as the cause of phenomena. He regarded mathematics rather as the one and only true key that would introduce order and coherence into our sense impressions. For ages men had tried in vain to make an orderly universe out of the universe of sense, and their efforts were vain because they had never learned the true alphabet of that universe. The true alphabet is the principles of mathematics.