Category:Second Scientific Revolution
From Eurêka
Contents |
Transforming Change
“Transforming change has been the adoption of the scientific method: the commitment to experiment, to test every hypothesis. But it is broader than science. It is the open mind, the willingness in all aspects of life to consider possibilities other than the received truth. It is openness to reason” Anthony Lewis, New York Times, 31 December 1999
Scientific revolution Theory of revolution of scientific thought advanced by Thomas S. Kuhn (1922-1996) in his Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), that became a profoundly influential landmark of 20th-cent. intellectual history. According to Kuhn, a scientific revolution involves not only a radical change of specific theories and technologies but also a change in the kinds of questions that theories are expected to answer and the criteria for judging the answers. More basically it may entail a basic transformation in the scientific worldview of those people who look to science for intellectual guidance. Thus a scientific revolution involves a change from one paradigm to another.
Kuhnian model Model of paradigm shift advanced by Thomas S. Kuhn (1922-1996) that has been widely used to examine the evolution of human thought a wide variety of disciplines.
- Scientific worldview Overview of how science and scientific understanding is achieved.
- Normal science Science is a steady cumulative acquisition of knowledge based on well established scientific and social rules. Generally conservative, scientists tend to solve problems in ways that extend the scope of the paradigm. Scientific change is a strictly rational process.
- Kuhnian worldview Science is a series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions. Scientific change in not a strictly rational process.
- Paradigm Stable pattern of scientific activity that holds within a discipline during a period of normal science. It is a “supermodel” which provides intuitive and inductive rules about the kinds of phenomena scientists in that discipline should investigate and the best methods of investigation. A paradigm therefore represents the universally recognized scientific achievements within a discipline which, at the time, provide model problems and solutions for the community of scholars, so regulating research in that discipline.
- Paradigm shift According to Kuhn, the growth of knowledge depends on a paradigm shift. Normal science proceeds unquestioned as long as new problems are solved; research improves the basic constructs, extends the situations to which they are applicable and improves methods of testing theories. Periodically a discipline fails to make progress - new questions throw up anomalies, predictions of existing theories prove false and accepted methodologies fail to solve new problems.
4. Paradigm crisis There is an accumulation of unsolved problems and a situation of crisis prevails. Minority groups in the discipline propose alternative approaches and there follows vigorous and protracted debate on the new concepts and ideas between the advocates of the new and the defenders of long-held beliefs.
- Extraordinary science During this period of extraordinary science the new approach wins converts, primarily new entrants to the discipline where it demonstrates its real chance of advancing the discipline and answering previously insoluble problems. As the number of supporters dwindle with time, the ideas become generally accepted, the scientific revolution is over and a new paradigm is established in that discipline.
Paradigm Crises and Extraordinary Science
(chronological order)
Copernicus’s heliocentric cosmology Overthrew Ptolemy’s geocentric model that the Sun revolves around the Earth, 1514, see Part 1.
Galileo’s gravity experiments Galileo’s supposed experiments with wood and lead balls dropped from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, banished the Aristotelian theory that bodies fell at a speed proportional to their weight. see Part 1
Cartesian geometry Descartes (1596-1650) created a massive change in mathematical thought, constituting the greatest single step ever made in the progress of exact sciences, see Part 1.
Newtonian physics Sir Isaac Newton swept away Aristotelian notions of physics, transforming science as the inventor of calculus, with his work on light and optics, and particularly with his fundamental laws of motion and gravitation. He rethought the notion of force from the earlier ideas of Galileo, Descartes and others, see Part 1.
Lovoisier’s discovery of oxygen Swept away earlier ideas about phlogiston, see Part 1.
Darwin’s theory of natural selection Overthrew theories of a world governed by design, see Part 1.
Einstein’s theory of relativity Challenged Newtonian concept of physics, see Part 1.
Plate tectonics Overthrew geological established theories, see Part 1.
Notables of the Scientific Revolution
(alphabetical listing)
Joseph Black (1728-1799) Scottish physicist and chemist who entered the University of Glasgow# He also studied at the University of Edinburgh. He was a member of the Poker Club and associated with David Hume, Adam Smith and the litterati of the Scottish Enlightenment.
- Fixed air (Carbon dioxide) Black studied properties of carbon dioxide in 1754. In 1756 he described how carbonates become more alkaline when they lose carbon dioxide, whereas the taking-up of carbon dioxide reconverts them. He was the first person to isolate carbon dioxide in a perfectly pure state.
Note : His work aided in the discrediting of the belief in the actions of the fiery principle called phlogiston. In 1757 he was appointed Regius Professor of the Practice of Medicine at the University of Glasgow
- Caloric theory Black made an apparently innocuous experiment the late 1750's. He heated at the same time in an oven the same quantity of water and mercury and measured its respective temperatures. Surprisingly, mercury was hotter than water. He concluded that heat was a weightless fluid, invisible and indestructible and, according to his experiment, different materials had different capacities of absorbing and keeping heat. This theory was called the caloric theory and made possible to explain many observed phenomena. The interpretation of this experiment had disastrous consequences on the use of thermometers because its measurement may not be reproducible if the materials used in different thermometers were different. In other words, the measurement of the thermometers made with different materials (different glass, mercury with different purity...) coincide in the melting point of ice and in the boiling point of water. However, the values not necessarily coincide in the intermediate points as the materials behave differently when they are heated or cooled. This conclusion eventually led to the introduction of the absolute temperature that did not depend on the properties of any material.
Latent heat In 1761 he discovered that ice absorbs heat without changing temperature when melting. From this he concluded that the heat must have combined with the ice particles and become latent. Between 1759 and 1763 he evolved that theory of “latent heat” on which his scientific fame chiefly rests, and also showed that different substances have different specific heats. James Watt was his pupil and assistant. In 1755 he discovered that magnesium was a chemical element.
- See also Matthew Boulton
John Desaguliers John Theophilus Desaguliers (1683-1744) was a natural philosopher born in France. Desaguliers was an immigrant to England from France. He was born into a Huguenot (Protestant) family and fled to England at the age of 11 (1694) to escape the consequences of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He was a member of the Royal Society of London beginning 29 July 1714. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and succeeded Dr. Keil in reading lectures on experimental philosophy at Hart Hall. He was the first who introduced the reading of lectures in London, where he had for his auditors not only the learned and the great, but also George I and George II and the royal family. In 1714, he was chosen a member of the Royal Society, to whose Transactions he communicated some valuable papers. In 1718, he completed his degrees at Oxford as bachelor and doctor of laws. Desaguliers at one time assisted Sir Isaac Newton in his experiments and through his speaking and writing was among Newton's staunch advocates. An inventor as well as a scientist, Desaguliers improved upon the steam engine design of Thomas Savery through the addition of a safety valve. He also designed methods for heating liquid boilers with steam rather than fire, presumably increasing their safety significantly. Additionally, Desaguliers was a Freemason, elected as the third Grand Master in 1719, Deputy Grand Master in 1723 and 1725 to the newly formed Grand Lodge of England.
- “A course of Experimental Philosophy” two volume work, the publication of the first volume coincided with the year he first received the Copley Medal (1734) and again in 1736 and 1741, the latter award being for his “discovery of the properties of Electricity,” while the second volume's publication came 10 years later in 1744, the year of his death. The first volume concerns theoretical and practical mechanics with an explanation of the basics of Newtonian physics. The second volume contains material oriented toward practical application of scientific findings.
- See also Newton
- See also James Watt
Second Scientific Revolution
Second scientific revolution Successful quantification of the Baconian sciences that took place primarily in 19th cent. Other periods of revolutionary proportions include: physics 1895-1925; biology after 1859; psychology 1895-1920; nuclear physics post-1945.
- See also Thermodynamics
Radical years Period around which great technological innovation takes place during the downswing of a Kondratieff cycle. The new industry leads to a new upswing.
Science as a process (Invisible colleges) Concept of how scientific theories and concepts become accepted. The competition and cooperation among scientists result in the selective retention of new scientific ideas. Put another way scientists want acceptance and credit for their contributions so they strive to get other scientists to use their work, preferably with an explicit citation. In turn, they must reciprocate by accepting and citing the work of others.
Internalism v. externalism Debate among historians of science in which the internalists focus exclusively within science, on theoretical, conceptual and methodological developments, together with the discovery of new facts or better measurements of phenomena already known. They assume that new problems is science are posed by previously unanswered scientific questions, that tracing the genealogy of a scientific concept, theory, or system means tracing its antecedents within science. Externalists focus on science in its social context. At least they are interested in sources of funding for science and the extent to which patrons might have influenced problem choices and directions of scientific research, and in the most extreme cases they attempt to show how a particular economic, social, or cultural milieu dictates either the content of the style of a particular period in science.
- Internalists Scientists who, by and large, accept, reject or ignore new ideas because of the weight of evidence and cogency of arguments.
- Externalists Scientists who believe that a wide variety of factors, diverse as benthic social forces and idiosyncratic personal motives, operate in the acceptance, rejection or ignoring of new ideas.
