The Intelligibility of Nature

255 Pages·2008·1.22 MB·English

by  Peter Dear

THE INTELLIGIBILITY
OF NATURE
science.culture
A series edited by Steven Shapin
Other science.culture series titles available:
The Scientific Revolution,by Steven Shapin ()
Putting Science in Its Place,by David N.Livingstone ()
Human-Built World,by Thomas P.Hughes ()
THE INTELLIGIBILITY
OF NATURE
How Science Makes Sense of the World
Peter Dear
    
  
Peter Dear is the President Andrew O.White Professor ofthe History ofScience
atCornellUniversity.He is the author ofRevolutionizing the Sciences:European Knowledge
andIts Ambitions,–and Discipline and Experience:The Mathematical Way in the
ScientificRevolution,the latter published by the University ofChicago Press.
The University ofChicago Press,Chicago 
The University ofChicago Press,Ltd.,London
© by The University ofChicago
All rights reserved.Published 
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
 
:---(cloth)
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dear,Peter Robert.
The intelligibility ofnature :how science makes sense ofthe world / Peter Dear.
p.cm.— (Science.culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
--- (alk.paper)
.Science—Methodology—History..Science—Philosophy—History.
.Reasoning—History..Philosophy ofnature—History.I.Title.II.Series.
.. 
—dc

oThe paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
theAmerican National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence ofPaper
forPrinted Library Materials,.-.
 ,
  

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction:Science as Natural Philosophy,
Science as Instrumentality 
.The Mechanical Universe from Galileo to Newton 
.A Place for Everything:The Classification of the World 
.The Chemical Revolution Thwarted by Atoms 
.Design and Disorder:The Origin of Species 
.Dynamical Explanation:The Aether and Victorian Machines 
.How to Understand Nature? Einstein,Bohr,and the
Quantum Universe 
Conclusion:Making Sense in Science 
Notes 
Bibliographical Essay 
Index 

Illustrations
.. An optical puzzle 
.. Descartes’s mechanical ideas 
.. A magnet according to Descartes 
.. Creation of sparks,from Hooke’s Micrographia 
.. Geoffroy’s table of rapports 
.. From Linnaeus’s Systema vegetabilium 
.. From Cuvier’s Tableau élémentaire de l’histoire des animaux 
.. Lavoisier’s experiment to analyze water 
.. Dalton’s atoms 
.. Darwin’s Galápagos finches 
.. Diagram of descent,from Darwin’s Origin of Species 
.. Man and apes,from Huxley’s Man’s Place in Nature 
.. Magnetism according to Faraday 
.. Diffraction of light according to Fresnel 
.. An experiment to show magneto-optic rotation 
.. Maxwell’s electromagnetic aether 
.. From W.H.Russell’s The Atlantic Telegraph 
.. Bohr’s atomic model for hydrogen 
.. Interference fringes 
.. The first three harmonics of a musical string 
.. Heisenberg’s flawed thought-experiment 
.. Natural philosophers at work 
.. Quantum chemistry 
.. The earth according to Hutton 
.. An isosceles triangle 
.. The four-color map theorem 