Johannes Kepler
z@z
:: = Gregory Greenman
:: If you want a person whose work represents a paradigm shift - then
:: I'd have to vote for Isaac Newton.
:
: Though in no way disparaging Newton, I'd have to vote for Galileo, for
: the role he played in helping to develop the importance of experiment
: in scientific (particularly physical) inquiry. He really popularized
: the notion of actually going out and making quantitative measurements
: of how things work and then coming up with models to describe them.
The step from Copernicus (1473-1543) or Galilei (1564-1642) to
Kepler is much bigger than the step from Kepler (1571-1630) to
Newton (1643-1727). When Newton presented his Principia, the paradigm
shift had already taken place. If it had not, then (almost) nobody
would have accepted Newton's work. Newton solved (or only declared to
have solved) the mathematical problem of how universal gravitation
can explain Keplers laws. The concrete notions and laws Newton
created or used in order to do that seem rather questionable to me.
Galilei was an excellent writer and his importance lies primarily
in popularizing the Copernican world view and the experimental
method. But if we compare him with Nicolaus Cusanus (1401-1464),
another scientist advocating the experimental method, then Galilei's
world view seems rather archaic. Whereas Cusanus had advocated an
infinite universe where stars are suns, based on the relativity
principle, Galilei still advocated the epicycle gymnastics of the
old greeks and fought the real paradigm shift (introduction of
modern physical laws into astronomy, postulation of universal
gravity) indroduced by Kepler (Kepler's writings precede those of
Galilei).
Kepler also seems to be the first who completely resolved the
puzzle of how the eye works. He even drew the right psychological
conclusions from the fact that the image in the eye is inverted.
He wrote works on optics and mathematics (on infinitesimals and
on logarithms) which, according to Gerald Holton "have direct appeal
for the modern mind".
Newton (and his disciples) tried to give the impression that
Kepler's laws essentially are just lucky guesses made by someone
who did not even know the mathematical tools necessary for dealing
with them.
I assume that also a lot of others had good reasons to spread the
opinion that "Kepler was a nut".
Here a quotation from 'Thematic origins of scientific thought' by
Gerald Holton, Harvard U.Press, 1973, p.76:
"Galilei introduces Kepler's work into his discussion on the
world systems only to scoff at Kepler's notion that the moon
affects the tides, even though Tycho Brahe's data and Kepler's
work based on them had shown that the Copernican scheme which
Galileo was so ardently upholding did not correspond to the
experimental facts of planetary motion. And Newton manages to
remain strangely silent about Kepler throughout Book I and II
of the PRINCIPIA, by introducing the Third Law anonymously as
"the phenomenon of 3/2th power" and the First and Second Laws
as "the Copernican hypothesis". Kepler' three laws have come
to be treated as essentially empirical rules. How far removed
this archievement was from his original ambition!"
This passage also shows that modern science believing in the primacy
of empirical data and experiments is based either on ignorance or on
lies.
Only after the new concepts have been created and assimilated, it is
possible to interpret empirical data as a proof of (a theory based
on) them.
Wolfgang Gottfried G.
http://members.lol.li/twostone/links.html
Marianne Vanhauwaert
telescope
that could show the moons of jupiter? He showed it to the pope and that
really
shocked the world at that moment. The evidence was there with the own eye
that the world wasn't the center of the universe. In this way, you could say
that
Kepler really made some history.
Newton is indeed the grandfather of mathematics and physics. For me he was
even a greater genius then Einstein. But we should not underestimate
Kepler's
work with the knowledge and tools of that century...
Marianne
Dan Drake
<marianne.v...@pandora.be> wrote:
> I couldn't be more complete. But wasn't it Kepler who made the first
> telescope
> that could show the moons of jupiter? He showed it to the pope and that
> really
> shocked the world at that moment....
>
No, it was Galileo. He had a precedence dispute with (I think)
Scheiner, but Galileo wins by a matter of days. The big difference,
of course, was no in having the good-enough telescope (which Kepler
probably didn't at the time -- the one that Galileo later sent him was
the best he had seen) or even in making the observation, but in having
the nerve to conclusions from the new data.
--
Dan Drake
d...@dandrake.com
http://www.dandrake.com
Dan Drake
>...
>
> The step from Copernicus (1473-1543) or Galilei (1564-1642) to
> Kepler is much bigger than the step from Kepler (1571-1630) to
> Newton (1643-1727). When Newton presented his Principia, the paradigm
> shift had already taken place. If it had not, then (almost) nobody
> would have accepted Newton's work. Newton solved (or only declared to
> have solved)
Would you like to explain that little parenthetical disparagement of
Newton? He sure convinced a lot of people. Naturally Euler and
Laplace and all cleaned up a lot, but that happens to every great
piece of science.
> the mathematical problem of how universal gravitation
> can explain Keplers laws. The concrete notions and laws Newton
> created or used in order to do that seem rather questionable to me.
They seemed questionable to Bishop Berkeley, too: calculating with the
ghosts of departed quantities, as he described the calculus. But
maybe you and the Bishop just haven't caught up with Newton's paradigm
shift? Seriously, the work needed new theoretical foundations shoved
under it, but this is more a matter of his new paradigm being too big
a shift for even Newton to deal with fully -- not a matter of failing
to be new.
>
> Galilei was an excellent writer and his importance lies primarily
> in popularizing the Copernican world view and the experimental
> method.
This is simply wrong. The work in Two New Sciences, for instance, is
what it claims to be: new science. Galileo _did_ experimental work,
rather than just talk about it, and he united it with theory. The
rest of the 17th century is full of similar work; the 16th is barren
by comparison. This is innovation, and it's unimportant only to the
extent that physics is unimportant.
To say that Galileo's importance was in popularization is to ape the
philosophers who criticized him for writing in Italian instead of
sticking to the language of the professors.
> But if we compare him with Nicolaus Cusanus (1401-1464),
> another scientist advocating the experimental method, then Galilei's
> world view seems rather archaic. Whereas Cusanus had advocated an
> infinite universe where stars are suns, based on the relativity
> principle, Galilei still advocated the epicycle gymnastics of the
> old greeks
Citation? Galileo liked to leave the damn epicycles alone and..
> and fought the real paradigm shift (introduction of
> modern physical laws into astronomy, postulation of universal
> gravity) indroduced by Kepler (Kepler's writings precede those of
> Galilei).
..concentrate on the _physics_ of the matter, treating the entire
universe as subject to uniform rules, which was a new paradigm for
investigating the world.. If he wasn't the first person ever to do
so, he was early enough to get in serious trouble about it. Naturally
he concentrated on physics on a terrestrial scale, since it was
possible to investigate the matter directly. Some people don't seem
to understand that the really dumb arguments of the Peripatetics --
all the bad things that would happen right here if we were really
going 1,000 miles an hour as the Earth spins -- were serious
objections, until there was a proper understanding of physics.
Backtracking -- the contrast above, between Cusanus and Galileo is
hard to understand. It _sounds as if you're saying that Galileo
didn't accept the relativity principle (false, of course) and didn't
think of the stars as suns (false again, of course). As to inifinity,
I don't know that Galileo took a position; if he didn't, it may be a
tribute to his good sense. If Cusanus can claim precedence for those
ideas, good for him. But it still matters how he derived them and
what he did with them. You could do us a favor by expanding on this.
>....
>
> Newton (and his disciples) tried to give the impression that
> Kepler's laws essentially are just lucky guesses made by someone
> who did not even know the mathematical tools necessary for dealing
> with them.
What nonsense. Who says they were lucky guesses? They were
absolutely brilliant empirical work. If you can't make the
disctinction, the problem is in your own philosophical pint of view.
>
>...
>
>...[interesting quote from Gerald Holton snipped. Worth looking up
the book, but it may take a long time. Meanwhile -- ]
>
> This passage also shows that modern science believing in the primacy
> of empirical data and experiments is based either on ignorance or on
> lies.
Huh? I read the passage, and it didn't say that, or imply it. What
it says about empirical data is just that Newton and others were
wrong, maybe dishonest, in not ginving Kepler credit for theoretical
work.
>
> Only after the new concepts have been created and assimilated, it is
> possible to interpret empirical data as a proof of (a theory based
> on) them.
Wait. You seem to be saying: only when you've got a new theory can
you use emprical evidence to prove the theory. True, but
tautological.
The trouble with talking about "the primacy of empirical data and
experiments" is that it tries to force us into a fool's choice between
the Baconian "observation is primary" and the Platonic "theory is
primary" schools. The paradigm shift that Galielo took part in -- and
this time I'm serious in saying that the world hasn't yet caught up
with it -- is the understanding of how to put them together.
srp
> This passage also shows that modern science believing in the primacy
> of empirical data and experiments is based either on ignorance or on
> lies.
Really!
> Only after the new concepts have been created and assimilated, it is
> possible to interpret empirical data as a proof of (a theory based
> on) them.
In Kepler's case, it seems to me that experimental proof that the
orbits were eliptical invalidated previous theories supporting the
idea that they were circular, even if a theory allowing this new
interpretation had not yet come up. Reality is a tough cookie to
ignore, supporting theory or not, isn't it?
André Michaud
Service de Recherche Pédagogique http://www.microtec.net/srp/
Tom Potter
z@z <z...@z.lol.li> wrote in message
news:851r12$5fp$1...@pollux.ip-plus.net...
> : = Nathan Urban
> :: = Gregory Greenman
>
> :: If you want a person whose work represents a paradigm shift -
then
> :: I'd have to vote for Isaac Newton.
> :
> : Though in no way disparaging Newton, I'd have to vote for Galileo,
for
> : the role he played in helping to develop the importance of
experiment
> : in scientific (particularly physical) inquiry. He really
popularized
> : the notion of actually going out and making quantitative
measurements
> : of how things work and then coming up with models to describe
them.
>
> Kepler is much bigger than the step from Kepler (1571-1630) to
> Newton (1643-1727). When Newton presented his Principia, the
paradigm
> shift had already taken place.
I suggest that there was an enormous "paradigm shift"
in western Europe about 1400, and what drove this shift
was the invention of the cannon, and what accelerated it
was the invention of the musket.
The cannon was first used by England in 1339 at the siege of Cambrai,
and sometime 1550 the "Snaphaunce" ( The first personal firearm. )
was invented.
Before the use of gunpowder in warfare,
the paradigms all over the globe were pretty much
the same, and that is, people, believed that they
were pawns of the Gods, and God's appointed
leaders on Earth ( Kings and such ), and that they had little
control over their lives. Rather than try to discover
and use the forces of nature, man was content to
observe ( And record ) events, and to try to "augur" the
correlations between events, and in effect
navigate through life trying to follow the course
of least resistance. The Greeks had their oracles,
the Romans had their college of augury and their
Celistine Records which they consulted when faced
with crisis', and of course, the Egyptians, Persians,
Chinese, and other civilizations had their augurs
and fortune tellers.
Ambitious men used the cannon to breakdown the
feudal system, and to create large states. The leaders
who didn't apply this new technology were overpowered by it.
The successful leaders began looking for ways
to use the forces of nature to conquer.
Note that Westerner's used a few firearms to
take over America, and later to march into
Beijing two times.
( As a side note, I must mention, that the invention of the
personal firearm was what made individual freedom and
democracy possible. Until the firearm came along,
the leaders thought they owned the people, and of course,
the common man had to go along with this program. )
The so-called scientists like Copernicus, Galilei, Kepler and
Newton were still, in effect, augurs paid by the state, and
they were basically finding "auguring algorithms" to
correlate causes and effects. Note that they were
looking to correlate events, rather than use the forces
of nature to control nature. It took men like James Watt,
Michael Faraday and Volta to get the idea that they could
make nature do their bidding, and although these two men
were no heavy on the "auguring algorithms" ( Math )
as Newton, Maxwell, etc. they, and the entrepreneurs
and national leaders, who tried to use the forces of
nature, were the ones to change the paradigm
from one of "pawn of the Gods" to "man over nature".
This paradigm shift of man over nature
is still going on in most parts of Asia, as the masses
did not ( And do not ) have the benefit of firearms.
( Before men can take on Gods and nature,
they have to be able to kill God's appointed
leaders ( Kings, presidents, etc. ) here on Earth. )
The unknown man that invented the cannon
created the "Western" paradigm, and the
men who developed low cost firearms
made democracy possible. Newton articulated
the "Western Paradigm" and Thomas Jefferson
articulated the "Democratic Paradigm".
--
Tom Potter http://jump.to/tp
Charles Francis
> "Galilei introduces Kepler's work into his discussion on the
> world systems only to scoff at Kepler's notion that the moon
> affects the tides, even though Tycho Brahe's data and Kepler's
> work based on them had shown that the Copernican scheme which
> Galileo was so ardently upholding did not correspond to the
> experimental facts of planetary motion. And Newton manages to
> remain strangely silent about Kepler throughout Book I and II
> of the PRINCIPIA, by introducing the Third Law anonymously as
> "the phenomenon of 3/2th power" and the First and Second Laws
> as "the Copernican hypothesis". Kepler' three laws have come
> to be treated as essentially empirical rules. How far removed
> this archievement was from his original ambition!"
>
>of empirical data and experiments is based either on ignorance or on
>lies.
Let that be the epitath of 20th century philosophy of science, and let
us get on with something a little more intelligent in the 21st.
--
Regards
Charles Francis
cha...@clef.demon.co.uk
Robert J. Kolker
Marianne Vanhauwaert wrote:
> I couldn't be more complete. But wasn't it Kepler who made the first
> telescope
> that could show the moons of jupiter? He showed it to the pope and that
> really
> shocked the world at that moment. The evidence was there with the own eye
> that the world wasn't the center of the universe. In this way, you could say
> that
> Kepler really made some history.
You have confused Kepler and Galileo. Galileo is generally thought to be the
first person to use a telescope to observe the heavens.
Kepler used the naked eye data of Tycho de Brahe to determine the ephemiri of
the planets.
Bob Kolker
Steven B. Harris
writes:
>You have confused Kepler and Galileo. Galileo is generally thought to
be the
>first person to use a telescope to observe the heavens.
>
>Kepler used the naked eye data of Tycho de Brahe to determine the
ephemiri of
>the planets.
>
>Bob Kolker
Yep. Tycho had an eye for the planets and a nose for trouble.
Robert J. Kolker
"Steven B. Harris" wrote:
> Yep. Tycho had an eye for the planets and a nose for trouble.
No nose is good nose.
Bob Kolker
Marianne Vanhauwaert
(I'm not so sure if no nose is good nose... but in some areas it
can come in handy!) ;-)
Marianne
Dan Drake
wrote:
>
>
> "Steven B. Harris" wrote:
>
> > Yep. Tycho had an eye for the planets and a nose for trouble.
>
> No nose is good nose.
He had a perfectly good tin nose.
--
Dan "nobody nose the planets I've seen" Drake
d...@dandrake.com
http://www.dandrake.com
Steven B. Harris
d...@dandrake.com (Dan Drake) writes:
>
>On Sun, 9 Jan 3900 09:56:59, "Robert J. Kolker" <bobk...@usa.net>
>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> "Steven B. Harris" wrote:
>>
>> > Yep. Tycho had an eye for the planets and a nose for trouble.
>>
>> No nose is good nose.
>
>He had a perfectly good tin nose.
Probably copper, or at least bronze. Stained his skull green.
Poisso3
>>> "Steven B. Harris" wrote:
>>>
>>> > Yep. Tycho had an eye for the planets and a nose for trouble.
>>>
>>> No nose is good nose.
>>
>>He had a perfectly good tin nose.
>
>
> Probably copper, or at least bronze. Stained his skull green.
Didn't he have several noses? Like for different occasions? I remember
reading that he had a silver replacement nose. Funny how he lost his nose,
dulling over a math equation.
James Poisso
Louisiana Tech University
Steven B. Harris
Probably he did have several, and they buried him with the copper or
brass one, being no fools.