The Birth Pains of Science

Maybe it started only by a casual glance, a chance encounter, or even a formal introduction, but the chemistry was there. Perhaps the romance took only days or weeks, or possibly it took years. The courting may have occurred unconsciously at first, or the progress was slow, but as feelings were nurtured, the embers that seemed at times to almost go out suddenly burst into flames. Two rings, two vows and the two became one, resulting in time in birth pains and delivery of a new person.

The romance between two people is not unlike the progress of science. An idea in someone's head brought on by a casual glance at something, or a chance encounter as when an apple falls from a tree, or a formal introduction in a classroom setting starts the idea growing and over time produces a scientific concept and birth of a theory.

But not unlike a pregnancy and birthing experience, scientific products of conception do not always result in something viable. Sometimes the idea is purposely aborted, or naturally miscarries, or simply dies much later in the scientific womb, resulting in a stillbirth. Occasionally a delivery becomes obstructed and requires a Caesarean section to be performed by a doctor. This occasionally happens in science. One person originates an idea, and someone else brings it to completion. Then, again, a real delivery may bring forth what appears to be a beautiful, healthy baby, only to discover later that a cardiac malformation will cut the life short unless corrected surgically. Sometimes this happens in science. What may appear at first to be a beautiful, new scientific idea will die unless major changes are made as, in real life a cardiac malformation is surgically corrected. In this way a scientific paradigm, or theory, is altered to fit the new data as more is learned about a given topic. However, some people, even scientists, become so enamored with their paradigms that they refuse to change or give them up just like some folks who still believe in a flat Earth. A preconceived idea must never be chosen over what is demonstrated to be real. To quote Niles Eldredge: "Repeated failure to confirm predicted observations means we have to abandon an idea no matter how fondly we cherish it, or how earnestly we may wish to believe it is true." Again, when a birthing experience produces a perfect baby, the birthing process is almost always painful. This is how it often is in science. Even when a new scientific idea finally becomes accepted in the scientific community, its initial delivery is often associated with much psychological pain and trauma borne by the originator. Occasionally, in life or science, twins, triplets, or quadruplets are delivered with what appears to be minimal effort or pain. Some scientific theories are even adopted for someone else to raise.

Through the course of history there have been many brilliant men who tried to explain natural phenomena. Unfortunately, at first they did not use testing methods, which would either prove or disprove their explanations of how something might look or work. As a result, many false explanations became impregnated in the minds of additional wise men and were handed down generation after generation with no one daring to question the truth of what they had been taught. This produced many false paradigms, some of which lasted for thousands of years. Webster's II College Dictionary defines a paradigm as "A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, esp. in an intellectual discipline." A paradigm is similar to a scientific hypothesis or even a theory. Think of them as visualizing something before it's fully understood. The early Greeks proposed many mathematical and scientific paradigms, some of which have survived and some of which have been discarded.

Aristotle, (384 to 322 BCE) a Greek philosopher, taught that there were four Earthly elements: Earth, air, fire, and water. He believed that all celestial bodies were composed of a fifth element called aither. Aristotle considered aither to be a perfect substance. And because he believed that every heavenly body from the moon and outward away from Earth was composed of the perfect element aither, they therefore had to be perfect. He taught that they were perfectly round and traveled in perfect circles. In the arena of physics, Aristotle taught that heavier bodies would fall faster than lighter bodies as long as they had the same shape. About this time the dominant school of Greek mathematical astronomers taught that the Earth was stationary, located at the center of the universe, and that all heavenly bodies beyond the Earth were each attached to consecutively larger transparent, crystalline spheres that moved around the Earth, producing day and night. The moon was attached to the first crystalline sphere; the next contained the sun, followed by five consecutive spheres containing the five planets known to them. Altogether, these teachings prevailed for about 2,000 years, until Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton made their debut on the scientific scene.

These paradigms were further bolstered by Claudius Ptolemy (150 CE). His mathematical calculations seemed to confirm the ancient Greek teachings. Ptolemy's mathematical and astronomical writings, thirteen volumes in all, were preserved by the Arabs and became known as the Almagest, meaning "the greatest." In one volume, Ptolemy said that the Earth was stationary and the center of the universe (geocentrism). Like Aristotle, he thought that the moon, sun, and planets moved around the centrally placed Earth along with the stars. He believed the stars to be points of light attached to a concave dome. Ptolemy noted that the various planets moved at different speeds and sometimes seemed to stop and move backward against the backdrop of the distant stars. Ptolemy worked out an elaborate number of epicycles and equents, to mathematically predict where the planets would be at a given time. His paradigm lasted more than 1,200 years.

Aristotle's teachings reached their acme about 1,500 years after his death when Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) introduced them again into Western thought in 1266 in his Summa Theologica. He was so successful in this reintroduction of Aristotle and Ptolemy that their paradigms of "how the heavens go" and other concepts dominated Western teaching for about three centuries. In the minds of so-called educated elite and those in authority, this notion controlled their thinking so much that any alternate approach to this cosmology or other natural phenomena was considered unacceptable. It even could carry the penalty of death. This set the stage for the development of a deep antagonism between those with dogmatic paradigms and the newly emerging scientific community.

Notwithstanding, Aristotle's cosmological conception was a stillbirth from its inception, but even though dead, was kept alive in the minds of very bright men for centuries. Ptolemy's math seemed somewhat resuscitative, causing Aristotle's paradigms to survive even longer, but to no avail. The truth about the "baby's" death had to wait for more than a millennium until Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and others performed an academic autopsy, which showed the causes of its demise.

Nicholaus Copernicus (1473-1543) was born and raised in Poland but as a young man went to Italy where he studied canon law and medicine. While a student at the University of Bologna, he studied astronomy as a sideline. His interest in it was stimulated while living in the home of a mathematics professor, Domenico Maria de Novara. The more Copernicus learned, the more he began to think that Aristotle and Ptolemy were wrong about the Earth being at the center of the universe. He began to think of the sun as the center (heliocentrism) and that the Earth circled around the sun. He was reluctant to tell many people about his beliefs because he might be arrested by the authorities. Eventually, however, when he was much older and living hundred of miles away from Italy, he wrote a book titled Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (on the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), explaining his ideas. His book was published in Nuremberg, Germany, just before he died in 1543. In fact, it is believed that a copy of his newly published book was handed to him on his death bed only hours before he died. The birthing of the heliocentric paradigm took much of his lifetime.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was a German mathematician who for a time taught mathematics at University of Graz in Austria until he was driven out by Archduke Ferdinand, over a disagreement on a special matter. He fled with his wife and children back to Germany with two wagons of household goods. Later, he became the assistant to Tycho Brahe, a Danish astronomer, who used instruments other than telescopes to plot the courses of planets across the sky. All of Tycho Brahe's meticulous records, collected over many years of observations, fell into Kepler's hands when Tycho died about a year after the two began working together. From this data, Kepler was able to plot the path of the planet Mars in the sky. To his surprise, he found that Mars traveled in an elliptical path around the sun, with the sun at one focus of the ellipse. This surprised Kepler because Aristotle and Ptolemy had emphasized that the heavenly bodies traveled in perfect circles. His passion for finding the answers to these questions is demonstrated by the fact that it took him almost five years to complete the calculations on Mars. This was because he did all of his calculations by hand using ink and quill. He had to repeat his calculations several times to insure he had made no mistakes. He may well have worked far into the night solving these problems by candlelight. Kepler discovered three laws of planetary motion. First, every planet follows an elliptical path around the sun. (An ellipse is like a circle with two centers, the sum of both radii at any given point on the ellipse remains constant). Second, as a planet goes around the sun, its speed varies so that a line from the sun to the planet sweeps over equal areas during equal times. Third, the time that it takes a planet to go around the sun once, when squared, is proportional to the cube of the mean distance from the sun. These laws are "Kepler's Three Laws of Planetary Motion." All three of these scientific triplets were born viable, but only through many years of effort.

Just think, if Archduke Ferdinand had not forced Kepler out of Austria, he may never have found employment with Tycho Brahe. When Tycho died, most likely all of his valuable data would probably have died with him. We would never have heard of Kepler or his three laws of planetary motion. It was the third law that later became so critical for the delivery of Newton's universal law of gravitation.

Galileo Galilee was born in Italy February 15, 1564, the year of Shakespeare's birth, and in the same year that Michelangelo died. He lived until 1642, the year of Newton's birth. Galileo, at age 17, entered the University of Pisa to study medicine. However, Galileo soon grew tired of studying Aristotle and Galen, enjoying the study of mathematics and physics instead. Much to the dismay of his professors, he soon began to attack the views of Aristotle on these subjects. At age 25, his reputation as a mathematician landed him a three-year appointment as professor of mathematics at the University of Pisa. He took advantage of this situation to study accelerated motion for the next three years. His studies led him to a clear understanding of acceleration and inertia. His contribution to physics at this time in his life was in the field of mechanics. His contract at Pisa was not extended at the end of the three years, undoubtedly because he antagonized his tradition-bound associates. It was during this time that he reportedly performed his famous experiment where he dropped two different sized weights from the leaning bell tower. Both weights hit the ground at the same time, which contradicted Aristotle's teaching that heavier weights fall faster than lighter weights. Whether it was the results of this experiment or other things that Galileo said or wrote, the status quo at Pisa was disturbed and he was forced to leave. However, shortly following the end of his contract at Pisa, he secured the appointment of professor of mathematics at the University of Padua where he continued his scientific investigations.

Nevertheless, it is Galileo's contribution to astronomy for which he is best remembered rather than his contributions to falling objects. Galileo was the first to use a telescope to study the heavens. He was a believer in the Copernican theory, and he made three telescopic discoveries, the last of which helped to confirm the heliocentric ideas of Copernicus and to also negate the geocentric ideas and other teachings of Aristotle and Ptolemy. Galileo's observations included three findings. First was the visualization of the mountains and valleys on the moon. Aristotle had taught that the moon was perfectly round and smooth. Second were the four moons "circling" Jupiter. Aristotle taught that all heavenly bodies circled the Earth. The third observation was that Venus passed through phases similar to the phases of Earth's moon. This could not happen if Venus circled the Earth as Aristotle and Ptolemy had taught. Poor Aristotle and Ptolemy, you would expect their paradigms to be in trouble by this time, but it was Galileo who was in trouble instead. It was the educated elite of Galileo's day who were determined to destroy not only these scientific triplets but their father as well. Considered one of the first of the modern physicists, Galileo confirmed his teaching with either experiments or observations, rather than depending upon what some ancient wise men had taught. Because he was so vocal about his findings, he incurred the ire of the authorities who thought of Aristotle's teachings as etched in stone. He was tried and, as a result, his last few years were spent in house arrest. It was fortunate for him that he was not burned at the stake.

Isaac Newton was born prematurely on the morning of December 25, 1642. His father had died about three months before Isaac was born but Mrs. Newton married again soon after Newton's birth, leaving him to be raised by his elderly grandmother in a rural farmhouse. Newton was a sickly child, and some thought he would never reach manhood. Isolated from other children, he learned to play by himself, even after starting school. In grammar school, Isaac did not study very hard until he got into a fight one day with a fellow student whose grades were better than his. Isaac not only won the fight, but he also decided to defeat his opponent scholastically as well. This stimulus soon placed him first in his class. At home, he began to neglect farm chores for reading and building mechanical contraptions like windmills and water clocks. In fact, he even made kites in which he placed lanterns for flying at night. He also could draw very well, and he decorated his room with some of his own artistry. When he was about fifteen years old, and his mother again was living with him on the farm, she tried hard to make a farmer out of her studious son. But Newton showed no interest in farming, and she sent him back to school to prepare for entrance into London's Trinity College at Cambridge University, where he enrolled as a student in 1661.

Scholastically, he did not distinguish himself until he became a student of Professor Isaac Barrows, a mathematician who filled the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge in 1663. From then on, it seemed that Newton had found his niche as his extraordinary mathematical talent not only became evident, but also became his driving force. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1665. However, the bubonic plague outbreak in London forced closure of Cambridge University for two years. This caused Newton to return to the Woolsthorpe farm. Now in his early twenties, Newton made some of his greatest discoveries during this time of "enforced idleness." He completed his theory of colored light, discovered the binomial theorem of algebra, and invented differential and integral calculus, all within a few months' time. However, because he did not publish his methods of calculus until much later, he was drawn into a controversy between himself and the German mathematician Gottfried Leibnitz who had discovered similar methods about the same time. Aside from the disagreements between himself and Leibnitz, this set of scientific and mathematical triplets seemed to be brought into the world without much pain or suffering. Also, during this two-year period, it is said that Newton conceived the idea of gravitation supposedly from seeing an apple fall from one of the trees on the farm. He completed the law of gravity much later after developing his Three Laws of Motion (another set of scientific triplets). The first law of motion states that an object will remain at rest unless moved by a force. The second law of motion states that an object's acceleration is equal to the net force on the object divided by its mass. From this is derived the famous equation force equals mass times acceleration or F=ma. The last or third one says, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Important as these three laws of motion are, he is probably best remembered for his law of gravitation, which mathematically describes the attraction between two objects with a mass such as the earth or moon. Obviously, there was much more to his discovery of the universal law of gravitation than simply seeing an apple fall from the tree to the ground. It was from Kepler's Third Law of Planetary Motion that he made the deduction of the now well-known Inverse Square Attraction Law. It says that the force of attraction between any two bodies of matter is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them and directly proportional to the mass of each body.