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Ibn al-Haytham did not invent the Scientific Method
It would appear that Ihtesham Ali, with his 29.5k followers on Twitter, is a repeat offender. After having totally ballsed up an account of al-Khwarizmi’s al-Kitāb al-Mukhtaṣar fī Ḥisāb al-Jabr...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – LXIV
1023 days ago, I posted the first episode of this series tracking the development of physics from Aristotle’s τὰ φυσικά to the point where the term physics began to be used. Now in the sixty-fourth...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – LXIII
It would be no exaggeration to say that the publication of Newton’s Principia was like a tidal wave swamping the European scientific community in the closing stages of the seventeenth century....
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – LXII
When Newton had his exchange with Robert Hooke in 1679 concerning Hooke’s hypothesis on planetary motion it rewoke his interest in the topic, which he had dabbled in around 1664 and led to him...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – LXI
More than twenty years would pass between Newton’s awakening and his extraordinary period of learning in the mid 1660s and his finally putting pen to paper and writing the Principia. That period of...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – LIX
Towards the end of the last episode of this series where I outlined the early life of Isaac Newton, I noted that between 1664 and the early 1670s, he undertook one of the most impressive period of...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – LVII
In the early modern period England lagged well behind the European continent in the development of the natural sciences and mathematics. We are now rapidly approaching the man whose work would not...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – LVI
In a previous post in this series I looked at the life of Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) in general and his contribution to the development of optics in particular. In that post I emphasised that...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – LIV
In the history of science of the seventeenth century Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) occupies a rather strange niche. On the basis of his scientific achievements and his influence there can be very...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – LIII
When Isaac Beeckman (1588–1637) was introducing the young René Descartes to mathematical physics in Breda in 1618, he gave him exercises to help him develop his skill in this new discipline. One of...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – LII
Many people who write extensively about René Descartes concentrate almost exclusively on his philosophy and his hyped up, supposed role as the father of modern philosophy. However, he wrote...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – LI
In his book, The History of the Barometer (The Johns Hopkins Press, 1964), W. E. Knowles Middleton whilst discussing the contact between Isaac Beeckman (1588–1637) and René Descartes[1] (1596–1650)...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – L
Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour, manipulation, and detection of electromagnetic radiation, which for most of its history meant simply light. The study of light begins with...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – XLVIII
In 1618, the same year that Isaac Beeckman (1588–1637) was teaching the principle of inertia to René Descartes (1596–1650), Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) made one of the most significant discoveries in...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – XLVII
A central theme of this series has been theories of motion over the two thousand years from Aristotle up to the seventeenth century. A fundamental plank on which the accepted theory of motion in...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – XLVI
We now turn our attention to the third, and in this series last, of the members of what I have termed the Galileo–Castelli school of mathematics; Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608–1679). Giovanni Alfonso...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – XLV
Today we look at the life and work of the physicist and mathematician, Evangelista Torricelli (1608–1647), who is the second member of what I have termed the Galilei-Castelli school of mathematics....
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – XLIII
Galileo’s troubles with the Roman Catholic Church started with the so-called Letter to Castelli. In December 1613, Castelli had been present at dinner in Pisa with Grand Duke Cosimo II de’ Medici...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – XLI
Many moons ago when I studied mathematics at university in Germany, the first two years (four semesters) essentially consisted of two ninety minute lectures, starting at eight o’clock, four days a...
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From τὰ φυσικά (ta physika) to physics – XL
Until the publication of his Sidereus Nuncius in 1610, Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was basically a nobody on the European scientific scene. Professor for mathematics, the lowest of the low in the...
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