history-of-science

"Korea’s science and technology are worth knowing and thinking about in connection with technology transfer for special reasons. Unlike China, Korea’s styles in thinking systematically and objectively about nature and in developing instruments and techniques of material culture were always defined in the shadow of a large sophisticated nearby civilization. The Korean experience differs from Japan’s in that its influences from China flowed in more freely and directly, across a shared land border or a short stretch of sea. It was from Korea in fact that new sciences and arts were carried into Japan during the early centuries until regular contact between Japan and China became possible. As recent Korean and Japanese scholarship begins to cohere, it is becoming plain that we have not yet adequately recognized what a great part immigrant Koreans played in the formative phases of Japanese civilization as men of learning, craftsmen, and indeed nobles. Korea thus presents for our reflection the case of a country seeking to maintain its identity against pressures too imminent to be shut out."

"(Jeon Sang-woon) is a Korean, and his pride in certain inventions and techniques is perceptibly greater than if he were a foreigner writing about Korean science. He knows that he is addressing a world-wide readership most of whom did not dream before they picked up his book that Korea is entitled to exert any claim upon the universal history of science. He knows that many educated people in Europe and the United States are just recovering from the shock of learning Joseph Needham’s lesson, that the Chinese tradition is as indispensable as that of the early West in determining the potentialities of science. This book opens up still another range of awareness by demonstrating that peripheral societies must be examined with equal seriousness if we are not to overlook real originality. The author also knows that this implication will be equally surprising to most of his fellow Koreans. In Korea today the power to exploit nature is seen as an importation, as foreign in its essence. Few people are aware that, say, Korea in 1400 may very well have had the most advanced astronomicalobservatories in the world. Is it possible that science is not fundamentally Caucasian and Judeo-Christian (and all sorts-of other things Koreans are not) after all?"

"For it is now clear to me that there are no solid spheres in the heavens... But there really are not any spheres in the heavens.... and those which have been devised by the authors to save the appearances exist only in the imagination, for the purpose of permitting the mind to conceive the motion which the heavenly bodies trace in their course and, by the aid of geometry, to determine the motion numerically through the use of arithmetic... Of course, almost the whole of antiquity and also very many recent philosophers consider as certain and unquestionable the view that the heavens are made of a hard and impenetrable substance, that it is divided into various spheres, and that the heavenly bodies, attached to some of these spheres, revolve on account of the motion of these spheres. But this opinion does not correspond to the truth of the matter..."

"He gives the Greek text of the Placita Philosophorum... about Philolaus, Herakleides and Ekphantus, and continues: " Occasioned by this I also began to think of a motion of the earth, and although the idea seemed absurd, still, as others before me had been permitted to assume certain circles in order to explain the motions of the stars, I believed it would readily be permitted me to try whether on the assumption of some motion of the earth better explanations of the revolutions of the heavenly spheres might not be found. And thus I have, assuming the motions which I in the following work attribute to the earth, after long and careful investigation, finally found that when the motions of the other planets are referred to the circulation of the earth and are computed for the revolution of each star, not only do the phenomena necessarily follow therefrom, but the order and magnitude of the stars and all their orbs and the heaven itself are so connected that in no part can anything be transposed without confusion to the rest and to the whole universe." According to this statement, Copernicus first noticed how great was the difference of opinion among learned men as to the planetary motions; next he noticed that some had even attributed some motion to the earth, and finally he considered whether any assumption of that kind would help matters. ...It must then have struck him as a strange coincidence that the revolution of the sun round the and the revolution of the epicycle-centres of Mercury and Venus round the zodiac should take place in the same period, a year, while the period of the three outer planets in their epicycles was the synodic period, i.e. the time between two successive oppositions to the sun. This curious relationship between the sun and the planets must have struck scores of philosophers, but at last the problem was taken up by a man of a thoroughly unprejudiced mind and with a clear mathematical head. Probably it suddenly flashed on him that perhaps each of the deferents of the two inner planets and the epicycles of the three outer ones simply represented an orbit passed over by the earth in a year, and not by the sun! His emotion on finding that this assumption would really "save the phenomena," as the ancients had called it, that it would explain why Mercury and Venus always kept near the sun and why all the planets annually showed such strange irregularities in their motions, his emotion on finding this clear and beautifully simple solution of the ancient mystery must have been as great as that which long after overcame Newton when he discovered the law of universal gravitation. But Copernicus is silent on this point. This may have been the way followed by Copernicus, but we cannot be sure..."

"While knowledge of the dimensions of the universe had... advanced, philosophers found it... difficult to agree with regard to the physical constitution of... heavenly bodies, though all acknowledged that they were of a fiery nature, the Stoics in... supposing them... of... pure fire or ether, which pervaded... upper regions of space. ...[T]he peculiar appearance of the "face of the moon" pointed to its being... different... and... Anaxagoras and Demokritus... recognized... it was a solid mass having mountains and plains, while Plato held it to be chiefly... earthlike matter. ...[In] Plutarch "On the face in the disc of the moon"... opinion of the Stoics [that the moon is a mixture of air and gentle fire] is refuted, since the moon ought not... be invisible at new moon if it did not borrow all its light from the sun; and this... proves... it is not... a substance like glass or crystal, since s would... be impossible. The manner in which the sunlight is reflected... and... absence of a bright, reflected image of the sun and... earth, prove... the substance of the moon is not polished but is like... earth. ...Plutarch ...to combat the idea that the moon cannot be like the earth since it is not in the lowest place ...asserts ...it is not proved ...earth is in the centre of the universe, as space is infinite and therefore has no centre; ...if everything heavy and earthy were crowded together ...we should expect all ...fiery bodies ...likewise brought together."

"Rosen quotes various passages from De Revolutionibus in which Copernicus uses without distinction, the terms: principle, assumption and hypothesis, for fundamental s: "Furthermore astronomy, that divine rather than human science, which inquires into the loftiest things, is not free from difficulties. Especially with regard to its principles (principia) and assumptions (assumptiones), which the Greek call 'hypotheses' (hypotheses)..." These axioms, in order to be recognized as true, must satisfy two conditions: 1) apparentias salvare (save the appearances): "the results deduced from them must agree with the observed phenomena within satisfactory limits of error."..: 2) aequalitatem tueri [to protect equality]: "They must be consistent with certain preconceptions, called 'axioms of physics,' such as that every celestial motion is circular, every celestial motion is uniform, and so forth.""

"Reason may be employed in two ways to establish a point: firstly, for the purpose of furnishing sufficient proof of some principle... Reason is employed in another way, not as furnishing a sufficient proof... but... confirming an already established principle, by showing the congruity of its results, as in astronomy the theory of eccentrics and epicycles is considered as established, because thereby the sensible appearances of the heavenly movements can be explained [saved] (possunt salvari apparentia sensibilia); not, however, as if this proof were sufficient, forasmuch as some other theory might explain them."

"When Copernicus, instead of leaving the earth at rest in the center of the world, gave it not only two rotations on its own center, but... an annual revolution around the sun, astronomers were able to maintain that these hypotheses are not... realities, that it suffices for them to be fictions by which the phenomena are saved in a simpler... more exact manner than... Ptolemy's devices. But physicists did not willingly use this loophole; they not only saw in the system of Copernicus a model enabling them to construct new tables of celestial movements, they also imagined something... that claims to reveal a truth. They imagined that the earth is a planet of the same nature as Venus, Mars, or Jupiter. The problem... can each of the... wandering stars be a world similar to the world in which we are living, having at its center an earth covered by water, surrounded by air?"

"Greek astronomers observed intricate motions of the sun, moon, and planets on the two-dimensional sky. They explained them—saved the appearances—by positing simple regular motions... in three dimensions. The success... [was] brought to a triumphant conclusion by Kepler..."

"The system of Anaxagoras, like that of Empedokles, aimed at reconciling the Eleatic doctrine that corporeal substance is unchangeable with... a world which... presents the appearance of coming into being and passing away. The conclusions of Parmenides are... accepted and restated. Nothing can be added to all things; for there cannot be more than all, and all is always equal... Nor can anything pass away. What men commonly call coming into being and passing away is... mixture and separation... This... reads almost like a prose paraphrase of Empedokles (fr. 9); and it is... probable... Anaxagoras derived his theory... from his younger contemporary, whose poem was most likely published before his own treatise. ...Empedokles sought to save the world of appearance by maintaining that the opposites—hot and cold, moist and dry—were things, each...real in the Parmenidean sense. Anaxagoras regarded this as inadequate. ...[T]hings of which the world is made are not "cut off with a hatchet" ...the true formula must be: There is a portion of everything in everything."

"The statement of Diogenes, that Herakleides attended the Pythagorean schools is of... importance... as it is... likely... their influence (which is also perceptible in his ideas about atoms, which he calls masses...), tended to convince him of the truth of the... simple explanation of the daily motion of the stars proposed by Hiketas and Ekphantus. ... He first alludes to Herakleides when discussing the chapter in which Aristotle considers the motion of the starry vault. Aristotle... remarks that, taking for granted that the earth is at rest, the starry sphere... and the planets might either both be at rest, or both be in motion, or one be at rest and the other in motion. And these cases he considers (says Simplicius) "on account of there being some, among whom were Herakleides of Pontus and Aristarchus, who believed they could save the phenomena (account for the observed facts) by making the heavens and the stars be immovable, but making the earth move round the poles of the equator... from the west, each day one revolution as near as possible; but 'as near as possible' is added on account of the [daily] motion of the sun of one part (degree); so that, if then the earth does not move, which presently he (Aristotle) is going to show, the hypothesis of both being at rest cannot possibly save the phenomena.""

"[T]he principal reason why the heliocentric idea fell perfectly flat, was the rapid rise of practical astronomy, which had commenced from the time when the Alexandrian Museum became a centre of learning in the Hellenistic world. Aristarchus had no other phenomena to "save" except the stationary points and retrograde motions of the planets as well as their change of brilliancy; he may even have neglected the inequality of the sun's apparent motion originally discovered by Euktemon and recognized by Kalippus. But when similar and much more marked inequalities began to be perceived in the motions of the other planets, the hopelessness of trying to account for them by the beautifully simple idea of Aristarchus must have given the deathblow to his system, which thereby even among mathematicians lost its only claim to acceptance, that of being able to "save the phenomena." Most likely, as we have already said, these new inequalities had already more or less dimly commenced to make themselves felt in the days of Apollonius... and in that case we can understand why he did not feel disposed to simplify the system of movable excentrics by gathering the reins of all the unruly planetary steeds into one mighty hand, that of ."

"[T]he heliocentric idea of Aristarchus might just as well have sprung out of the epicyclic theory as from that of movable excentrics... But with regard to the curious dependence of each planet on the sun in the Ptolemaic system.., the zodiacal inequality of the planets showed that in any case a simple circular motion would not "save the phenomena"; while the discovery of a strongly marked inequality of the moon, depending on its position with regard to the sun, confirmed the notion that the sun was mixed up in the theories of all the celestial bodies alike. ...For more than fourteen hundred years it remained the Alpha and Omega of theoretical astronomy, and whatever views were held as to the constitution of the world, Ptolemy's system was almost universally accepted as the foundation of astronomical science."

"Let us define the job of the astronomer in the classical phrase as "saving the appearances" of the celestial movements. ...[A]n astronomical theory must "save" in the sense of "preserve"– ...[i.e.,] it must not deny any of the apparent celestial movements as appearances, and in this bare sense, it might merely comprise a record of observed positions... [I]n order to take into account all the apparent movements, it must... predict apparent movements in the future from those observed in the past. ...[T]o be able to look backwards and forwards beyond recorded positions of the planets, it must arrange the celestial movements in a pattern of orderly recurrence. ...[B]y setting up this pattern of order, it saves... in a second sense... [I]t gives them salvation... by making them intelligible and... explicating them in terms of a permanent order."

"Here Pharnaces... broke in... you are not going to draw me on... to answer your charges against the Stoics, unless we first get an account of your conduct in turning the universe upside." Lucius smiled : "Yes, my friend," he said, "only do not threaten us with... heresy, such as used to think that the Greeks should have had served upon Aristarchus of Samos, for shifting the hearth of the Universe, because that great man attempted 'to save phenomena' with his hypothesis that the heavens are stationary, while our earth moves round in an oblique orbit, at the same time whirling about her own axis. ...[W]hy are those who assume that the moon is an earth turning things upside down, any more than you who fix the earth where she is, suspended in mid air, a body considerably larger than the moon? At least mathematicians tell us so, calculating the magnitude of the obscuring body from... eclipses, and from the passages of the moon through the shadow. For the shadow of the earth is less as it extends, because the illuminating body is greater, and its upper extremity is fine and narrow, as even Homer... did not fail to notice. He called night 'pointed' because of the sharpness of the shadow. Such... is the body by which the moon is caught in her eclipses, and yet she barely gets clear by a passage equal to three of her own diameters. Just consider how many moons go to make an earth, if the earth cast a shadow as broad at its shortest as three moons. Yet you have fears for the moon lest she should tumble, while as for our earth, Aeschylus has perhaps satisfied you that Atlas'Stands, and the pillar which parts Heaven and Earth His shoulders prop, no load for arms t' embrace!'Then you think that under the moon there runs light air, quite inadequate to support a solid mass, while the earth, in Pindar's words, 'is compassed by pillars set on adamant.' And this is why Pharnaces has no fear... of the earth's falling, but pities those who lie under the orbit of the moon... Yet the moon has that which helps her against falling, in her very speed and the swing of her passage round, as objects placed in slings are hindered from falling by the whirl of the rotation. For everything is borne on in its own natural direction unless this is changed by some other force. Therefore the moon is not drawn down by her weight, since that tendency is counteracted by her circular movement. ...[B]ut the earth, being destitute of any other movement, might naturally be moved by its own weight; being heavier than the moon not merely in proportion to its greater bulk, but because the moon has been rendered lighter by heat and conflagration. It would actually seem that the moon, if she is a fire, needs earth all the more, a solid substance whereon she moves and to which she clings, so feeding and keeping up the force of her flame. For it is impossible to conceive fire as maintained without fuel. But you Stoics say that our earth stands firm without foundation or root." "Of course," said Pharnaces, "it keeps its proper and natural place, as being the essential middle point, that place around which all weights press and bear, converging towards it from all sides. But all the upper region, even if it receive any earth-like body thrown up with force, immediately thrusts it out hitherward, or rather lets it go, to be borne down by its own momentum.""

"[I]n Plutarch's book On the face in the disc of the Moon...[o]ne of the persons in the dialogue, being called to account for turning the world upside down, says that he is quite content so long as he is not accused of impiety, "like as Kleanthes held that Aristarchus of Samos ought to be accused of impiety for moving the hearth of the world.., as the man in order to save the phenomena supposed... that the heavens stand still and the earth moves in an oblique circle at the same time as it turns round its axis.""

"The language... as to the Moon's movements and the Epicyclic Theory... settled later on by Ptolemy... deserve careful examination... Astronomy had... become... technical and mathematical, sharply distinguished from general physical enquiry. Even Hipparchus... "though he loved truth above everything," yet was not versed in "natural science," and was content to explain the motions of the heavenly bodies by an hypothesis mathematically consistent, without care for its physical truth... Take the case of the Moon. Ptolemy was content to "save the phenomena"... by a system which admirably accounted for her very complex movements, but which involved the consequence that her distance from us at the nearest must he half that at the farthest, and her angular diameter therefore double!"

"The first book contains the general description of the universe and the foundations by which he undertakes to save the appearances and the observations of all ages. He adds as much of the doctrine of sines and plane and spherical triangles as he deemed necessary to the work."

"In his commentary to the Physics of Aristotle, Simplicius gives us an interesting quotation from a commentary to the Meteorology of Posidonius, written by ... Dealing with the difference between physics and astronomy, Geminus says... to the former... belongs the examination of the nature, power, quality, birth, and decay of the heavens and the stars, but astronomy does not attempt... this, it makes known the arrangement of the heavenly bodies, it investigates the figure and size and distance of earth and sun and moon, the eclipses and conjunctions of stars and the quality and quantity of their motions... with help from arithmetic and geometry. But although the astronomer and the physicist often prosecute the same research... they do not proceed in the same manner, the latter seeking for causes and moving forces, while the astronomer finds certain methods, adopting which the observed phenomena can be accounted for. "For why do sun, moon, and planets appear to move unequally? Because, when we assume their circles to be excentric or the stars to move on an epicycle, the appearing anomaly can be accounted for.., and it is necessary to investigate in how many ways the phenomena can be represented, so that the theory of the wandering stars may be made to agree with the ... Therefore also... Herakleides of Pontus... said that also when the earth moved... and the sun stood still.., could the irregularity observed relatively to the sun be accounted for. ...[I]t is not the astronomer's business to see what by its nature is immovable and of what kind the moved things are, but framing hypotheses as to some things being in motion and others being fixed, he considers which hypotheses are in conformity with the phenomena in the heavens. He must accept as his principles from the physicist, that the motions of the stars are simple uniform, and regular, of which he shows that the revolutions are circular, some along parallels, some along oblique circles." This... distinguishes clearly between the physically true causes of observed phenomena and a mere mathematical hypothesis which (whether true or not) is able to "save the phenomena." This expression is ... a favourite... with Simplicius, who doubtless had it from the authors long anterior to himself, from whose works he derived his knowledge. It means that a certain hypothesis is able to account for the apparently irregular phenomena revealed by observation, which at first sight are puzzling and seem to defy all attempts to make them agree with the assumed regularity of all motions, both as to velocity and direction. In this passage Geminus points out that an astronomer's chief duty is to frame a theory which can represent the observed motions and make them subject to calculation, while it is for this purpose quite immaterial whether the theory is physically true or not."

"In the 1590s... Kepler adopted the ideas of Copernicus. In the heliocentric model... the simultaneous motion of the earth around the sun and about its own axis explained the observed motion of the planets and stars. Kepler set out to prove that this... hypothesis... an attempt to "save the appearances", did... correspond with reality. In doing so, however, he noticed that the circular orbits... proposed by Copernicus were not in keeping with his... observations. ...Kepler wanted... to glorify God, who... was responsible for the harmonious arrangement of the universe... This aim is... in the... first lines of the preface to The Secret of the Cosmos: "It is my intention... to show... that the most great and good Creator, in the creation of this moving universe and the arrangement of the heavens, looked to these five regular solids... so celebrated from the time of Pythagoras and Plato... and that he fitted to the nature of those solids the number of the heavens, their proportions and the law of their motions.""

"[I]t does not follow that because heaven moves in a circle that the earth or something else rests at its center... because circular movement... does not require... any body at rest at the center... [I]t is possible to imagine that the earth moves with heaven in its daily movement... [A]ssuming that the earth moves with or contrariwise to heaven, it does not follow... that celestial movement would stop; so... this circular movement of heaven does not require that the earth should remain motionless at the center of the world. ...[I]t is not impossible that the whole earth moves, with a different movement or in another way... For otherwise the parts near the center would never reach the place where they are destroyed and would be perpetual... Against this objection and against the principal argument is the manifest evidence of heaven itself, for to save appearances and from our observations of celestial movements... there are spherical bodies called epicycles in heaven, and that each epicycle has its own proper circular movement about its center... different from the... heavenly sphere... [I]t is impossible... that any body should be at rest in the center of this epicycle."

"Now, so far as appearances go, it... the same thing whether the heavens, that is, all space with its contents, revolve round a spectator at rest in the earth's centre, or whether that spectator... turn round in the opposite direction in his place, and view them in succession. The aspect of the heavens, at every instant, as referred to his horizon (which must be supposed to turn with him), will be the same in both suppositions. And since... appearances are also, so far as the stars are concerned, the same to a spectator on the surface as to one at the centre, it follows that, whether we suppose the heavens to revolve without the earth, or the earth within the heavens, in the opposite direction, the diurnal phenomena, to all its inhabitants, will be no way different. The Copernican astronomy adopts the latter as the true explanation of these phenomena, avoiding... the necessity of otherwise resorting to the cumbrous mechanism of a solid but invisible sphere, to which the stars must be supposed attached, in order that they may be carried round the earth without derangement of their relative situations inter se [among themselves]. Such a contrivance would..., suffice to explain the diurnal revolution of the stars, so as to "save appearances;" but the movements of the sun and moon, as well as those of the planets, are incompatible with such a supposition... On the other hand, that a spherical mass of moderate dimensions (or, rather, when compared with the surrounding and visible universe, of evanescent magnitude), held by no tie, and free to move and to revolve, should do so, in conformity with those general laws which, so far as we know, regulate the motions of all material bodies, is so far from being a postulate difficult to be conceded, that the wonder would rather be should the fact prove otherwise. As a postulate, therefore, we shall henceforth regard it... The earth's rotation on its axis so admitted, explaining, as it evidently does, the apparent motion of the stars in a completely satisfactory manner, prepares us for... its motion, bodily, in space... to explain... the apparently complex and enigmatical motions of the sun, moon, and planets. The Copernican astronomy adopts this idea in its full extent, ascribing to the earth, in addition to its motion of rotation about an axis, also one of translation or transference through space, in such a course or orbit, and so regulated in direction and celerity, as, taken in conjunction with the motions of the other bodies of the universe, shall render a rational account of the appearances they successively present... [i.e.,] an account of which the several parts, postulates, propositions, deductions, intelligibly cohere, without contradicting... experience. In this view of the Copernican doctrine it is rather a geometrical conception than a physical theory, inasmuch it simply assumes the requisite motions, without attempting to explain their mechanical origin, or assign them any dependence on physical causes. The Newtonian theory of gravitation supplies this deficiency, and, by showing that all the motions required by the Copernican conception must, and that no others can, result from a single, intelligible, and very simple dynamical law, has given a degree of certainty to this conception, as a matter of fact, which attaches to no other creation of the human mind."

"When Newton wrote his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and System of the World, he distinguished the phenomena to be saved from the reality he postulated. He distinguished the "absolute magnitudes" that appear in his axioms from their "sensible measures" which are determined experimentally. He discussed carefully the ways in which, "the true motions of particular bodies [may be determined] from the apparent," via the assertion that "the apparent motions... are the differences of true motions.""

"The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth. … As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications."

"For evolutionary biologists there is something very special about the classification of living organisms, something that is not true of any other kind of taxonomy. It follows from the idea of evolution that there is one uniquely correct branching family tree of all living things, and we can base our taxonomy upon it."

"It became clear that our Galaxy is only one system among many, and that the universe is far vaster than the particular stellar system to which the Sun and planets belong. Since then developments have been more rapid than at any time since the days of Copernicus, Digges and Bruno when the geocentric hypothesis of the cosmos received its death-blow."

"Let us... examine the point on which Newton, apparently with sound reasons, rests his distinction of absolute and relative motion. If the earth is affected with an absolute rotation about its axis, centrifugal forces are set up in the earth: it assumes an oblate form, the acceleration of gravity is diminished at the equator, the plane of Foucault's pendulum rotates, and so on. All these phenomena disappear if the earth is at rest and the other heavenly bodies are affected with absolute motion round it, such that the same relative rotation is produced. This is, indeed, the case, if we start ab initio from the idea of absolute space. But if we take our stand on the basis of facts, we shall find we have knowledge only of relative spaces and motions. Relatively, not considering the unknown and neglected medium of space, the motions of the universe are the same whether we adopt the Ptolemaic or the Copernican mode of view. Both views are, indeed, equally correct; only the latter is more simple and more practical. The universe is not twice given, with an earth at rest and an earth in motion; but only once, with its relative motions, alone determinable. It is, accordingly, not permitted us to say how things would be if the earth did not rotate. We may interpret the one case that is given us, in different ways. If, however, we so interpret it that we come into conflict with experience, our interpretation is simply wrong. The principles of mechanics can, indeed, be so conceived, that even for relative rotations centrifugal forces arise."

"Joseph Ratzinger has stood still because as a Bavarian Catholic in the Hellenistic tradition, interpreted in Roman terms, he wanted to stand still. To this degree he represented and represents a different basic model of theology and church, as different from mine as in astronomy Ptolemy's geocentric picture of the world is different from Copernicus' heliocentric picture."

"Talk of the sublime, the exalted, the eternal, the passionate, of glory, challenge, or majesty fills some of us with bewilderment, discomfort, and embarrassment; others with sour resentment or scornful disbelief. To reinstate such values seems to us like trying to reinstate Ptolemaic astronomy—equally misguided, incomprehensible, and inimical to our perceived interests."

"It may be true that and (not science and evolution) are among the causes of atheism and materialism. It is at least equally true that biblical literalism, from its earlier flat-earth and geocentric forms to its recent young-earth and flood-geology forms, is one of the major causes of atheism and materialism. Many scientists and intellectuals have simply taken the literalists at their word and rejected biblical materials as being superseded or contradicted by modern science. Without having in hand a clear and persuasive alternative, they have concluded that it is nobler to be damned by the literalists than to dismiss the best testimony of research and reason. Intellectual honesty and integrity demand it."

"The present revolution of scientific thought follows in natural sequence on the great revolutions at earlier epochs in the history of science. Einstein's special theory of relativity, which explains the indeterminateness of the frame of space and time, crowns the work of Copernicus who first led us to give up our insistence on a geocentric outlook on nature; Einstein's general theory of relativity, which reveals the curvature or non-Euclidean geometry of space and time, carries forward the rudimentary thought of those earlier astronomers who first contemplated the possibility that their existence lay on something which was not flat. These earlier revolutions are still a source of perplexity in childhood, which we soon outgrow; and a time will come when Einstein's amazing revelations have likewise sunk into the commonplaces of educated thought."

"The odd thing about this story is that the heliocentric view was known in Europe long before Copernicus but, for various reasons, was totally ignored by the "established" dogma... All this time all kinds of absurdities were written about the heavens, the celestial spheres, the Empyrean and so on, which constituted the “established” view. And all the time the real knowledge was there and all those schoolmen, could, with some practical observation and sensible application of Mathematics, have found out that the Ptolemaic system was not true. But they did not: they preferred to argue about such weighty matters as how many angles could sit on the point of a pin. And when the proofs were presented to them in black and white, hard and irrefutable mathematical demonstrations, they still rejected them preferring the comforts of the ‘‘established” dogma. Theology (and Church interests) decided what was acceptable, not Mathematics."

"Both ancient and medieval observers had noted that in many respects nature appeared to be governed by the principle of simplicity, and they had recorded the substance of their observations to this effect in the form of proverbial s which had become currently accepted bits of man's conception of the world. That falling bodies moved perpendicularly towards the earth, that light travelled in straight lines, that projectiles did not vary from the direction in which they were impelled, and countless other familiar facts of experience, had given rise to such common proverbs as: 'Natura semper agit per vias brevissimas'; 'natura nihil facit frustra'; 'natura neque redundat in superfluis neque deficit in necessariis' [Nature always acts by the shortest path; nature does nothing in vain; nature never overflows into the unnecessary, nor is she deficient in what is necessary]. This notion, that nature performs her duties in the most commodious fashion, without extra labour, would have tended to decrease somewhat the repulsion which most minds must have felt at Copernicus; the cumbrous epicycles had been decreased in number, various irregularities in the Ptolemaic scheme were eliminated... That such a tremendous shift in the point of reference could be legitimate was a suggestion quite beyond the grasp of people trained for centuries to think in terms of a homocentric philosophy and a geocentric physics. ...Copernicus could take the step because... he had definitely placed himself in... [the] dissenting Platonic movement. ...It was no accident that he became familiar with the remains of the early Pythagoreans, who almost alone among the ancients had ventured to suggest a non-geocentric astronomy."

"Ptolemy... against the champions of this or that cosmology of the heavens... had dared to claim that it is legitimate to interpret the facts of astronomy by the simplest geometrical scheme which will 'save the phenomena,' no matter whose metaphysics might be upset. His conception of the physical structure of the earth, however, prevented him from carrying through in earnest this principle of relativity, as his objections to the hypothesis that the earth moves amply show."

"The Greek philosopher, Plato, in the fourth century B.C. asked his students if they could devise a theory or explanation to explain this erratic planetary motion using some form of circular motion. Being keen observers, the Greeks came up with the most logical and obvious conclusions; namely, that the earth was the center about which the sun, the moon, planets, and the stars rotated. This model of the universe is called a geocentric or earth-centered model. It satisfactorily explained the daily motion of the stars and sun by assuming that they were attached to invisible crystalline spheres that rotated about the earth. The axis of the sphere of the sun was tilted with respect to that of the stars to account for the variation of the sun's height at with the various seasons. Since the sun appears to move through the stars and was brighter, it was assumed to be nearer to the earth than the stars. The spheres of the Moon, Mercury, and Venus were placed within the sphere of the sun while those of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn were placed outside the sphere of the sun but within the sphere of the stars."

"The fundamental core of contemporary Darwinism, the theory of DNA-based reproduction and evolution, is now beyond dispute among scientists. It demonstrates its power every day, contributing crucially to the explanation of planet-sized facts of geology and meteorology, through middle-sized facts of ecology and agronomy, down to the latest microscopic facts of genetic engineering. It unifies all of biology and the history of our planet into a single grand story. Like Gulliver tied down in Lilliput, it is unbudgable, not because of some one or two huge chains of argument that might — hope against hope — have weak links in them, but because it is securely tied by thousands of threads of evidence anchoring it to virtually every other area of human knowledge. New discoveries may conceivably lead to dramatic, even "revolutionary" shifts in the Darwinian theory, but the hope that it will be "refuted" by some shattering breakthrough is about as reasonable as the hope that we will return to a geocentric vision and discard Copernicus."

"Fundamental changes in science have always been accompanied by deeper digging toward the philosophical foundations. Changes like the transition from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican system, from Euclidean to non-Euclidean geometry, from Newtonian to relativistic mechanics... have brought about a radical change in our common-sense explanation of the world. From all these considerations everyone who is to get a satisfactory understanding of twentieth century science will have to absorb a good deal of philosophical thought. But he will soon feel the same thing holds for a thorough understanding of the science which originated in any period of history."

"Persisting in their original resolve to destroy me and everything mine by any means they can think of, these men are aware of my views in astronomy and philosophy. They know that as to the arrangement of the parts of the universe, I hold the sun to be situated motionless in the center of the revolution of the celestial orbs while the earth revolves about the sun. They know also that I support this position not only by refuting the arguments of Ptolemy and Aristotle, but by producing many counter-arguments; in particular, some which relate to physical effects whose causes can perhaps be assigned in no other way. In addition there are astronomical arguments derived from many things in my new celestial discoveries that plainly confute the Ptolemaic system while admirably agreeing with and confirming the contrary hypothesis."

"I shall try to sum up the main obstacles which arrested the progress of science for such an immeasurable time. The first was the splitting of the world into two spheres, and the mental split which resulted from it. The second was the geocentric dogma, the blind eye turned on the promising line of thought which had started with the Pythagoreans and stopped abruptly with Aristarchus of Samos. The third was the dogma of uniform motion in perfect circles. The fourth was the divorcement of science from mathematics. The fifth was the inability to realize that a body at rest tended to stay at rest, a body in motion tended to stay in motion. The main achievement of the first part of the scientific revolution was the removal of these five cardinal obstacles. This was done chiefly by three men: Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo. After that, the road was open to the Newtonian synthesis; from there on the journey led with rapidly gaining speed to the atomic age."

"Galileo had the experience of beholding the heavens as they actually are for perhaps the first time, and wherever he looked he found evidence to support the Copernican system against the Ptolemaic, or at least weaken the authority of the ancients. This shattering experience—of observing the depths of the universe, of being the first mortal to know what the heavens are actually like—made so deep an impression... that it is only by considering the events of 1609... that one can understand the subsequent direction of his life."

"These seven bodies were the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, all of which were documented by the Babylonians over three thousand years ago. Until the sixteenth century, the most commonly held view was that the Earth was at the centre of the Universe and that the seven bodies revolved around the Earth."

"... As early as 1982, 's superbly researched first volume on women scientists in America startled its readers with its meticulously drawn picture of the double bind women scientists fell into from the late nineteenth into the early twentieth century. Caught between 'two almost mutually exclusive stereotypes' they were 'atypical' as both women and scientists. Thus, even as higher education opened up to them, they found it easier to be educated in science than to be successfully employed in it: an impasse which proved to be long-lasting."

"I think most importantly, men tend to get the top jobs, with which they get a bully pulpit for publication and speaking or exerting authority. I think women can be much more appreciated in science than they are."

"The administration and faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) performed the first and most famous in-depth study on the status of women faculty within a particular institution. A group of senior women on the faculty had gathered preliminary evidence that they had less laboratory space, less access to research funding, and lower salaries than their male counterparts. In addition, they were infrequently represented on committees that made decisions about hiring and research funding. MIT's administration responded by researching the charges, finding that they were accurate, and taking steps to correct the inequities. The abstract to their report is an excellent description of the issues that still confront women scientists and analysis of why they went unrecognized by administration as well as by the women themselves."

"... although close to nothing was known, until recently, of the history of women in American science, women have been an integral part of the scientific community for well over a century. I can still recall my astonishment when I discovered in 1972 some women's entries in the old directories, and when I read biographies of several scientists in the then-new '. Here were people who had been present at many of the familiar places and events, but who were totally unknown even to those of us well versed in the history of American science. I felt like a modern Alice who had fallen down a rabbit hole into a wonderland of the history of science that was familiar in some respects but distorted and alien in many others. Learning more about these women and bringing their stories into closer connection with the rest of the history of this period became a compelling and absorbing intellectual task."

"As earth is an element... it deserves an accurate investigation to discover which is the most simple and elementary of all the substances to which the name earth has been applied. ...considering, first, what are the essential properties by which earthy substances differ from other elements, and then by determining that earth to be the most pure and simple, which possesses these properties most eminently and decisively; for ...the more eminently any substance possesses these characteristic properties... the nearer it approaches to this element..."

"Mr. Pott, examining the principal natural earths, divides them into four kinds, the vitrifiable, the , the argillaceous, and the gypseous earths. This able chemist shew the essential properties of these four kinds of earths, without affirming that they are all equally simple, and without even determining which of them he considered as most simple."

"[A]ll the substances which may reasonably be considered as earthy... possess much greater weight, hardness, fixity, and infusibility, than any other element; for these qualities are insensible, or do dot exist, in the element of fire; they are in an exceedingly small degree in the air, and are more sensible and considerable in water; but are infinitely less than in any thing which can be considered as earth. Hence... the qualities above-mentioned are the distinguishing and characteristic essential properties of the earthy element. But these qualities are not so eminently united in any of those [earthy] substances... as in... vitrifiable earth. ...[T]hen ...this earth is the heaviest, hardest, most fixed, and most infusible, and even the most apyrous of all earths, when it is very pure; and also... the most homogeneous, the most simple, and elementary earth, as we shall prove by a more particular examination of its properties, and by a companion of these with the properties of the other earthy substances."

"The most general and most probable opinion is, that as only one kind of fire, of air, and of water, so only one kind of simple elementary earth, exists. Alchemists chiefly have endeavoured to discover this primary earth, not with an intention to ascertain its properties, but because they imagined that as gold is the purest of metals, the earth of which it is partly composed must be also the most pure; they have, therefore, searched every where for this earth, which they call pure earth and virgin earth. They have endeavoured to obtain it from dew, rain, the air, ashes of vegetables, animals, and several minerals: but it was impossible to find it in compound bodies; for we shall see that when once this element makes part of a compound body, it cannot be disengaged from the substances with which it has united."

"But we cannot say the same of earth; for a considerable number of substances are called earths, because they possess the principal properties of the terrestrial element: but these substances, when examined more particularly, are always found to differ from each other so much in other respects, and to be so difficultly purifiable from heterogeneous matter, that we have not ascertained whether only one simple and elementary earth, or several ones essentially different, although equally simple, exist."