One of the very first posts that I published on this blog was entitled The Best of All Possible Worlds. Therein, I presented the following paragraph from the correspondence between Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) and Samuel Clarke (1627-1729):
Thanks! Love this zinger: "They even fabricate what they cannot prove through the phenomena, for so far, except for the force by which sensible bodies move toward the center of the earth, they have not been able to bring forward any trace of the general attraction of matter in our region".
It seems to me we have no way to measure the mass of planets, other than by figuring out for which mass Newton's equations work. So this is a surprisingly good point. Have we measured gravitational forces between objects on Earth?
A fascinating read, he reminds me a little of Velikovsky!
Let's face it he was right too, we should give him his due. How many countless hours of effort, by countless thinkers, for several centuries now have we spent failing to sufficiently explain how magnets, energy or gravity work? There has to be a more fundemental principle in each case that we are unable to see from our present astrolabe.
He might be a bit outspoken with his "barbarous physics" and "longing for the darkness" - but when people begin shoe-horning ideas like dark matter, multiverses and heat death of the Universe into physics, I think we may need exorcists.
I have mixed feelings about this. I agree with Leibniz that resorting to magical thinking inhibits the curiosity that drives discovery. However, there is a certain arrogance in assuming one’s knowledge is so complete as to rule out unknown processes. Ridiculing those who reach conclusions based on experimentation that are inconsistent with that “knowledge” is almost as bad, if not worse, than magical thinking.
Thanks! Love this zinger: "They even fabricate what they cannot prove through the phenomena, for so far, except for the force by which sensible bodies move toward the center of the earth, they have not been able to bring forward any trace of the general attraction of matter in our region".
It seems to me we have no way to measure the mass of planets, other than by figuring out for which mass Newton's equations work. So this is a surprisingly good point. Have we measured gravitational forces between objects on Earth?
A fascinating read, he reminds me a little of Velikovsky!
Let's face it he was right too, we should give him his due. How many countless hours of effort, by countless thinkers, for several centuries now have we spent failing to sufficiently explain how magnets, energy or gravity work? There has to be a more fundemental principle in each case that we are unable to see from our present astrolabe.
He might be a bit outspoken with his "barbarous physics" and "longing for the darkness" - but when people begin shoe-horning ideas like dark matter, multiverses and heat death of the Universe into physics, I think we may need exorcists.
Thanks, this is very informative.
I have mixed feelings about this. I agree with Leibniz that resorting to magical thinking inhibits the curiosity that drives discovery. However, there is a certain arrogance in assuming one’s knowledge is so complete as to rule out unknown processes. Ridiculing those who reach conclusions based on experimentation that are inconsistent with that “knowledge” is almost as bad, if not worse, than magical thinking.