The Clockwork Universe by Edward Dolling is a fascinating book that brings the stories of scientists to life during one of the most fascinating but tumultuous times for science in history.
The Royal Society was something that only extraordinary people knew about. One of the big differences in life today compared to that era in science is that although common people on the street do not know the ins and outs of science, almost everybody shares a mutual respect for the depth and unsightliness of what scientists are saying. However, back in the sass, that was not the case. Most of the people believed that religion and God created everything.The Clockwork Universe tells the fascinating stories of many of the most famous scientists during the 16th century to the beginning of the 18th century. These scientists include Hooked, Leibniz, Newton, Keeper, Pythagoras and many more.
Going through this book is like going through the history of science where I could learn not only about these famous scientists who revolutionized the world, but I could also learn and go deeper into their characters to understand how they became such amazing persons with brilliant minds. I discovered a lot about these pioneers of science and learned a lot from reading about their breakthroughs and trials.The book describes the lives of some of the very important figures in the history of science. Here is a small summary about what I learned from what they did through this book.
GALILEO GALILEE - the 'The Father of Science', in this book, we find him trying to battle against what everybody thought about at that time. He believed in Science while everybody else was too much into his or her religious beliefs. He was constantly trying to fight for what he believed and made groundbreaking discoveries in both understanding the solar system and also in PhysicsRobert Hooked - Another amazing scientist who we Just started to learn a little about when we skimmed the Hooker's law in Physics. Hooker's biggest competition was also another famous scientist named Isaac Newton. They had a big rivalry.
He was "hunched and fidgety', "always low and pale". He was not the nicest person and had a pretty sharp mouth. Albert Einstein - the man who was the creator of the general theories of relativity. These mind bending ideas defied the old ways of thinking and took science to a whole new level.
Copernicus - The scientist who "expanded the heliocentric view of the cosmos" wrought his own observations and discoveries.He then organized it into a conclusion and people still remember him now for his contribution to our solar system. Thomas Diggers - Proposed the idea that the universe is infinite Not only these people, but The Clockwork Universe also talks about Culicid's ideas of the parallel lines and perpendicular lines proving his geniuses in the study of Geometry; about Edmund Halley and his graphs of the Comet's path; Leibniz with his controversial discovery of calculus, and many other stories of trailblazing scientists. Although many people may only remember Newton, there was also a fierce impetigo of Newton called Leibniz.One of the biggest conflicts come from these two remarkable individuals who both deserve the honor of being the person who everybody remembers as inventing Calculus.
We now consider both of them the inventor but there was a time when their could be only one inventor. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was working on creating Calculus during the years 1673 and 1676. By 1676, Leibniz was in awe of how big this kind of Math could be so he dived deeper and deeper into calculus. Finally he made his first publication of his two findings differential calculus and the integral calculus.
However, Newton was working on Calculus too. The renowned author of Principia, Newton, who discovered and wrote about his findings in Calculus much earlier actually dived even deeper into calculus and learned about Calculus through a totally different path compared to Leibniz. However, Newton based his research and calculations more on limits and concrete calculations. But Leibniz believed in theoretical ideas, and liked to keep his work more private. That's how this whole conflict began, because Newton publicized his work much later.Leibniz who published his work much earlier got full credit for he creation of Calculus for a couple of years until people started accusing him of popularizing Newton's work.
There has been a record of mail between Newton and Leibniz, which describes their discoveries in Math, giving Leibniz even a higher probability of taking some of Newton's work and using it as his own. Of course on the other hand, there is still the possibility that Newton Just wrote that part after Leibniz published the work. A year before Leibniz died, the Royal Society credited Newton as the founder of Calculus and also accused Leibniz of popularizing works from IsaacNewton. This was not only a conflict between the two people, but also a conflict between the two countries they represented. These two figures together however advanced the level of math in our life to a whole new level, leaving algebra and geometry behind.
Calculus for us is a 1 lath grade course and listening to the high school students' reactions, seems very tough. While in math class, we can often encounter lots of proofs and complicated equations that we have never seen in our lives. To think that these two people didn't Just be able to learn the skills, but also reading a whole new world of mathematics is astonishing.That time period was very different. Or in some ways, a little bit similar. We now recognize that Begging's pollution is extremely hazardous and every breath of air we take in is like smoking a cigarette.
However during that time, the circumstances were even worse. The streets were filled with garbage and rats, which spread diseases. You didn't know if you would be healthy or sick when you woke up the second day from your bed. However in these conditions, there were a few pioneers in the field of science who did not look down on the street but looked up into the stars and found a much more interesting and mind blowing world.The books writing style is also very interesting.
Dolling never uses chapters that are longer than 5 to 10 pages long. This is a very difficult task trying to explain the ideas and formulas of all of those mathematicians and scientists. It was also really awesome to see how every thing at that time period fit in. First there were of course the Greeks and their ideas for science. Then Copernicus first takes his stage around the middle of the 1 5 hundreds and starts this new look into astrology.Right after, all of the major players like Galileo and Keeper are born and starts taking their stage.
By 1619 Keeper has finished all three of his laws (including the one we discussed about in class) and Galileo has already created his first telescope. Galileo then goes in trail while new faces like Newton and Leibniz are born. This continues throughout the book and you see more and more new but familiar names pop up into the lines. This book was very engaging and these new characters kept people interested in the new ideas and developments of this book.As a conclusion, this book has taught me a great deal in both the famous scientist and also their theories and ideas that are still in use today.
These were the pioneers in the world of science and mathematics. The group of man who lived in streets that were filled with garbage refused to look down and kept their head held high discovering theories and laws that changed our view of the world. These men have inspired me to be more ambitious and tough. These men are tremendous and I will try to take every bit of knowledge I can learn from this article to use it in order to achieve my future dreams.
