Last Updated 9 July 2007
In this book, Michael Crowe does for the physics of moving bodies what he had previously done for theories of the universe (in his highly regarded Theories of the World from Antiquity to the Copernican Revolution and Modern Theories of the Universe from Herschel to Hubble). In a remarkably concise compass, Crowe presents, through actual examples, the fascinating story of how philosophers and scientists through the ages have tried to understand how things move. Included are substantial selections from the writings of Aristotle, Oresme, Descartes, Galileo, Huygens, Newton, and Einstein. The selections are furnished with extensive notes aimed at guiding nonspecialist readers through the texts. Introductory sections provide historical information that helps us understand and appreciate each chapter in the story, which Crowe aptly characterizes as "the most remarkable story in all secular history."
At the same time, Mechanics from Aristotle to Einstein is itself an intoduction to the foundations of mechanics. Ideas that were originally expressed in unfamiliar language are restated using modern terminology and simple algebra to make them comprehensible to present-day readers. Examples and problems are provided to give a true "hands on" experience of these ideas and discoveries, which are fundamental to an understanding of both our physical universe and our civilization itself.
It is my conviction that the story of the development of mechanics from Galileo to Einstein’s special theory of relativity is the most remarkable story in all secular history. The famous philosopher Alfred North Whitehead writing in his Science and the Modern World about only the Galileo through Newton portion of the story, suggested one reason why the story seems so noteworthy.
"This subject of the formation of the three laws of motion and of the law of gravitation deserves critical attention. The whole development of thought occupied exactly two generations. It commenced with Galileo and ended with Newton's Principia; and Newton was born in the year that Galileo died. Also the lives of Descartes and Huygens fell within the period occupied by these great terminal figures. The issue of the combined labors of these four men has some right to be considered as the greatest single intellectual success which mankind has achieved."
Strong as Whitehead’s claim is, it is less bold than a quite comparable claim made by the eminent historian Sir Herbert Butterfield, referring to that period, the scientific revolution, in which the developments to be recounted in the first two-thirds of this volume form the core. What Butterfield stated was:
"Since [the scientific revolution] overturned the authority in science not only of the middle ages but of the ancient world—since it ended not only in the collapse of scholastic philosophy but in the destruction of Aristotelian physics—it outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and Reformation to the rank of mere episodes, mere internal displacements, within the system of medieval Christendom. Since it changed the character of man’s habitual mental operations even in the conduct of the non-material sciences while transforming the whole diagram of the physical universe and the very texture of human life itself, it looms so large as the real origin both of the modern world and of the modern mentality that our customary periodisation of European history has become an anachronism and an encumbrance."
Even were one to reject Whitehead’s claim that this is humanity’s “greatest single intellectual success,” it is difficult to deny that this story can boast a cast of main characters that includes some of the most remarkable geniuses who have ever lived: Aristotle, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, and Einstein. Moreover, the materials that follow focus on precisely those achievements that made Galileo, Newton, and Einstein so famous. Although each of these three authors showed genius in many areas, it was what they contributed to mechanics that above all merited their immortality.
Authors of detective or mystery fiction might well envy the historian recounting this tale. Clues are literally spread throughout the universe, from the roll of a child’s ball to the revolution of a giant planet, from the flight of a toy balloon to the fall of a giant tree, from the toss of a tennis ball to the trajectory of a massive cannon shell. Numberless as the clues are, omnipresent as they may be, they proved to be so difficult to decipher, so elusive in their significance, that the keenest minds missed their meaning for centuries.
Moreover, the story has an extraordinary denouement. All the various lines of
development leading up to the final resolution come together in a manner that
is simultaneously exceptionally surprising yet also so remarkably perfect that
it commands assent. It is difficult to think of any volume, fictive or factual,
that culminates in a more delightful or dramatic denouement. Actually this understates
the claim that can be made, for, as we shall see, a double denouement awaits
us. First, we shall see Newton reveal a pattern that seems so perfect and so
all encompassing that one can scarcely believe that hidden just beneath the
surface of the picture painted by Newton lay a still more extraordinary and
more convincing configuration, which was eventually brought forth by a man in
his mid-twenties, Albert Einstein.
Michael J. Crowe is Cavanaugh Professor Emeritus in the Program of Liberal Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Mechanics from Aristotle to Einstein was developed and refined over many years of teaching undergraduates, both within and outside the Program. Crowe's present scholarly interests include an ongoing study of the question of extraterrestrial life. |
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Publication date: July 2007.
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