"Towards the close of the eighteenth century a remarkable change... apparently an abrupt departure from the current trend... but... the logical outcome of the development... After an attempt... to found mechanics on Euler’s principle of least action, Lagrange, in a subsequent treatment... declared his intention of... disregarding theological and metaphysical speculations, as... precarious and foreign to science. He erected a new mechanical system on... different foundations, and no one... will dispute its excellencies. All subsequent scientists of eminence accepted Lagrange’s view, and the present attitude of physics to theology was thus substantially determined."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Science_of_Mechanics
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
The Science of Mechanics
The Science of Mechanics: A Critical and Historical Exposition of its Principles is an 1893 translation of the second German edition of Ernst Mach's original 1883 Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwickelung (Mechanics and Its Evolution). It is not a treatise upon the application of the principles of mechanics. Its aim was to clear up ideas, expose the real significance of the matter, and get rid of metaphysical obscurities. The little mathematics it contains is merely secondary to that purpose. Mechanics
44 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by The Science of Mechanics →
Related Quotes
"The gist and kernel of mechanical ideas has in almost every case grown up in the investigation of very simple and spe…"
"I have not in every case been able to avoid the use of the abbreviated and precise terminology of mathematics. To do …"
"The elucidations which I here offer are, in part, substantially contained in my treatise, Die Geschichte und die Wurz…"
"Regard for the true endeavor of philosophy, that of guiding into one common stream the many rills of knowledge, will …"
"The questions here dealt with have occupied me since my earliest youth, when my interest for them was powerfully stim…"
"The new apparatus for the illustration of the subject, here figured and described, were designed entirely by me and c…"
"That branch of physics which is at once the oldest and the simplest and which is therefore as introductory to other d…"
"The history of the development of mechanics, is... indispensable to a full comprehension of the science in its presen…"
"An instinctive, irreflective knowledge of the processes of nature will doubtless always precede the scientific, consc…"
"My attention was drawn to Ernst Mach's Science of Mechanics by my friend Besso while a student, around the year 1897.…"