The Sleepwalkers (242 page)

III THE
NEWTONIAN
SYNTHESIS

I.
'Tis all in Pieces

ON
the
opening
pages
of
this
book,
2,300
years
earlier
in
this
story,
I
compared
the
intellectual
situation
of
Greece
in
the
sixth
pre-Christian
century
to
an
orchestra
which
is
tuning
up,
each
player
absorbed
in
his
own
instrument,
while
waiting
for
the
entrance
of
the
conductor.
In
the
seventeenth
Christian
century,
the
second
heroic
age
of
science,
the
situation
repeated
itself.
The
conductor
who
pulled
the
orchestra
together
and
made
a
new
harmony
out
of
the
caterwauling
discords
was
Isaac
Newton,
born
on
Christmas
Day,
1642,
eleven
months
after
Galileo
had
died.

It
is
appropriate
that
this
survey
of
man's
ideas
about
the
universe
should
end
with
Newton
for,
in
spite
of
more
than
two
centuries
that
have
passed
since
his
death,
our
vision
of
the
world
is
by
and
large
still
Newtonian.
Einstein's
correction
of
Newton's
formula
of
gravity
is
so
small
that
for
the
time
being
it
only
concerns
the
specialist.
The
two
most
important
branches
of
modern
physics,
relativity
and
quantum
mechanics,
have
not
so
far
been
integrated
into
a
new
universal
synthesis;
and
the
cosmological
implications
of
Einstein's
theory
are
still
fluid
and
controversial.
Until
a
new
maestro
emerges,
or
perhaps
until
space
travel
provides
new
observational
data
on
our
cosmic
environment,
the
blueprint
of
the
universe
remains
essentially
the
one
that
Newton
drew
for
us,
in
spite
of
all
disturbing
rumours
about
the
curvature
of
space,
the
relativity
of
time,
and
the
runaway
nebulae.
There,
after
the
long
voyage
from
the
Babylonian
star
gods,
the
Greek
crystal
spheres,
the
medieval
walled
universe,
our
imagination
has
temporarily
come
to
rest.

During
the
last
quarter-millennium
of
unprecedented
human
change,
Newton
has
enjoyed
an
influence
and
authority
only
comparable
to
that
of
Aristotle
in
the
two
previous
millennia.
If
one
had
to
sum
up
the
history
of
scientific
ideas
about
the
universe
in
a
single
sentence,
one
could
only
say
that
up
to
the
seventeenth
century
our
vision
was
Aristotelian,
after
that
Newtonian.
Copernicus
and
Tycho,
Kepler
and
Galileo,
Gilbert
and
Descartes
lived
in
the
no-man's-land
between
the
two
–
on
a
kind
of
table-land
between
two
wide
plains;
they
remind
one
of
stormy
mountain
streams,
whose
confluence
finally
gave
rise
to
the
broad,
majestic
river
of
Newtonian
thought.

Unfortunately,
we
know
very
little
about
the
intimate
working
of
Newton's
mind
and
the
method
by
which
he
achieved
his
monumental
synthesis.
I
shall
not
go
into
his
life;
any
attempted
contribution
to
the
vast
literature
on
Newton
would
be
a
separate
undertaking.
Instead,
I
shall
briefly
describe
the
scattered
cosmological
jigsaw
puzzle
as
it
presented
itself
to
the
young
Newton;
how
he
succeeded
in
perceiving
that
the
odd
disjointed
bits
were
pieces
of
a
single
puzzle,
and
how
he
managed
to
put
them
together,
we
do
not
know.
What
he
achieved
was
rather
like
an
explosion
in
reverse.
When
a
projectile
blows
up,
its
shiny,
smooth,
symmetrical
body
is
shattered
into
jagged,
irregular
fragments.
Newton
found
fragments
and
made
them
fly
together
into
a
simple,
seamless,
compact
body,
so
simple
that
it
appears
as
self-evident,
so
compact
that
any
grammar-schoolboy
can
handle
it.

The
following,
then,
were
the
parts
of
the
puzzle
which
confronted
Newton
in
the
1660s,
thirty
years
after
Kepler's,
twenty
years
after
Galileo's
death.
The
key
pieces
were
Kepler's
laws
of
the
motion
of
heavenly
bodies,
and
Galileo's
laws
of
the
motions
of
bodies
on
earth.
But
the
two
fragments
did
not
fit
together
(any
more
than
relativity
and
quantum
mechanics
do
today).
The
forces
which
drove
the
planets
in
the
Keplerian
model
did
not
stand
up
to
the
physicist's
scrutiny.
And
vice
versa
,
Galileo's
laws
of
falling
bodies
and
projectiles
had
no
apparent
bearing
on
the
motions
of
planets
or
comets.
According
to
Kepler,
planets
moved
in
ellipses,
according
to
Galileo
in
circles.
According
to
Kepler,
they
were
driven
along
by
"spokes"
of
a
force
issuing
from
the
rotating
sun;
according
to
Galileo,
they
were
not
driven
at
all
because
circular
motion
was
self-perpetuating.
According
to
Kepler,
the
laziness
or
inertia
of
the
planets
made
them
tend
to
lag
behind;
according
to
Galileo,
the
very
principle
of
inertia
made
them
persist
in
going
round
in
circles.
"'Twas
all
in
pieces,
all
cohesion
gone."