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The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, The Royal Society, And The Birth Of The Modern World (2011)

by Edward Dolnick(Favorite Author)

3.89 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

006171951X (ISBN13: 9780061719516)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Harper

review 1: Very readable account of the revolutionary shift in the concepts of the universe that occurred between 1600 and 1700. It's hard to believe how much our understanding of literally everything has changed in a mere 400 years, and how that change was set in motion by Newton and his contemporaries. One has to wonder - in another 400 years, how much of what we believe will seem amusingly quaint, if not downright bizarre?
review 2: A thrilling snapshot of the birth of modern science in Restoration London, and how Isaac Newton invented the calcalus and discovered the laws of gravity, thereby making an irrational world rational, and uncovering, to him, the language of God. Calculus is explained in clear and simple terms, not all of it, but the general idea. More impor... moretantly, it's explained by using some of the models and problems its inventors used to come up with it. The law of gravity is also lucidly explained. This is a slight history of mathematics centered around calculus, and a slight history of astronomy centered around gravity. Leibniz, Galileo, Kepler, Roberts Hooke and Boyle are also talked about, and their discoveries traced through as this was a very fertile period, an amazing one that we as human beings will always owe a great debt too, because without these laws there wouldn't be modern technology and modern civilization. The book covers the period from 1543 when Copernicus published his heliocentric theory of what we in the modern day would call the solar system, to 1727 when Newton dies. In between is a a rich story of how these men (Caroline Herschel comes too much later to be in the book) discovered modern science, or modern physics. There's a little bit about miicroscopic discoveries but mainly it stays on math and physics. And while the Royal Society is talked, because a lot of these men belongsd to it, this book isn't a proper history of it, per se, even if it's mentioned in the subtitle.But what this book actually is is a grand, romantic adventure anyone who is new to scientific history will love. It's such a fertile and big field of history that I kick myself for not discovering it sooner. I don't mean to say this is my first book on it, but it would have been nice if I had read this as a child. In which case I would have developed a love of science early on. So if you have a kid, give them this book. It combines colorful history with exciting science.I would say it's a good introduction. It has a good bibliography of more in depth treatments of each scientist and their fields. The argument it presents is that these men in this world turned away from the statement, "God created everything, and we can't know why or how He did it, and we can't change it, for things just happen according to His will." Instead they collectively said something like this--"God created everything, but he did it in rational ordered ways, with laws we can understand, and uncover in the glory of His name." It's interesting that Newton was fervent Christian, that he didn't consider gravity and calculus to be the main occupations of his life, reserving those for decoding Scripture and trying at alchemy. Newton uncovered the science in order to worship the Creator. In this age of seeming polarization between Christians and atheists, it's a nice and a necessary lesson that once upon a time, science and religion were not hostile to one another but were in amity. less

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