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12661 results in History of science

Page 514 of 634

  • ON THE CONNEXION OF THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES

  • Mary Somerville
  • Book:
    On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences
    Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009, pp 1-414
    First published in:
    1834

  • Summary

    All the knowledge we possess of external objects is founded upon experience, which furnishes facts; and the comparison of these facts establishes relations, from which induction, the intuitive belief that like causes will produce like effects, leads to general laws. Thus, experience teaches that bodies fall at the surface of the earth with an accelerated velocity, and with a force proportional to their masses. By comparison, Newton proved that the force which occasions the fall of bodies at the earth's surface, is identical with that which retains the moon in her orbit; -and induction led him to conclude that, as the moon is kept in her orbit by the attraction of the earth, so the planets might be retained in their orbits by the attraction of the sun. By such steps he was led to the discovery of one of those powers with which the Creator has ordained that matter should reciprocally act upon matter.

    Physical astronomy is the science which compares and identifies the laws of motion observed on earth with the motions that take place in the heavens; and which traces, by an uninterrupted chain of deduction from the great principle that governs the universe, the revolutions and rotations of the planets, and the oscillations of the fluids at their surfaces; and which estimates the changes the system has hitherto undergone, or may hereafter experience—changes which require millions of years for their accomplishment.

  • PREFACE

  • Mary Somerville
  • Book:
    On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences
    Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009, pp ix-x
    First published in:
    1834

  • Summary

    The progress of modern science, especially within the last five years, has been remarkable for a tendency to simplify the laws of nature, and to unite detached branches by general principles. In some cases identity has been proved where there appeared to be nothing in common, as in the electric and magnetic influences; in others, as that of light and heat, such analogies have been pointed out as to justify the expectation, that they will ultimately be referred to the same agent: and in all there exists such a bond of union, that proficiency cannot be attained in any one without a knowledge of others.

    Although well aware that a far more extensive illustration of these views might have been given, the author hopes that enough has been done to show the connexion of the physical sciences.

Page 514 of 634