Halley’s Atheism and the end of the world

1977 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-40 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Exact Nature ◽  
The Public ◽  
Earth History ◽  
Ecclesiastical Authority ◽  
The World ◽  
Consistent Picture ◽  
End Of The World ◽  
New Evidence

Edmond Halley’s views on theology and natural philosophy have often drawn puzzled attention both from his contemporaries and from subsequent scholars. There has seemed to be a contrast between some public statements he made when under pressure from ecclesiastical authority, and his continued, and privately-held, faith in the over-arching relevance of science (1). However, it now emerges from some unpublished papers which Halley read to the Royal Society in the 1690s that he made public his own debate over such issues as the eternity of the world. This new evidence gives us a much more consistent picture of Halley’s work, and it refutes the view that there were two Halleys—the public orthodox face and the private heterodox one. It is true that the work of Edmond Halley presents us with a picture of considerable diversity. Nevertheless, throughout the 1690s he was primarily concerned with an investigation of Earth history independently of scriptural authority, and this gave some unity to his varied researches. However, there were both ideological and institutional problems with such a programme. The Anglican establishment of the period after 1688 was filled with a sense of threat. This led to a series of statements antipathetic to Halley’s attitude, including a devaluation of the power of unaided reason and an emphasis on the power of God’s Providence. Halley’s failure to obtain the Savilian Chair of Astronomy in 1691/2 was due in part, perhaps, to this antipathy. Yet this failure was also precipitated by the personal antagonism aroused by Halley’s jocular style, and the innate irascibility of Flamsteed. Because of these other sources of controversy the exact nature of Halley’s atheism remains confused. Even his identification with the ‘infidel mathematician’ of Berkeley’s Analyst is problematic. Yet the fact is that Halley took these charges seriously enough to spend several years working to show that one of them was unjustified. He had been accused of believing that the world would continue for eternity, and he was to try and show that it must, in the end, come to a halt.

scholarly journals Halley and the eternity of the world revisited

2013 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 315-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dmitri Levitin
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Unsuccessful Attempt ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Players ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Relationship

Since the publication in Notes and Records of the Royal Society of an article by Simon Schaffer in 1977, it has been a historiographical commonplace that there was an ‘underlying unity’ to the religio-philosophical opinions of Edmond Halley, specifically on issues concerning the age of the world. This article (i) argues that the evidence adduced for this claim—specifically the account of a lecture given by Halley to the Royal Society in 1693—has been misinterpreted, and (ii) brings forward some new evidence concerning the mysterious events surrounding Halley's unsuccessful attempt to secure the Savilian Professorship in Astronomy in 1691 and the nature of his religious heterodoxy, both as it was developed by himself and as it was perceived by contemporaries. It thus functions as a full revisionist account of one of the key players in the destabilization of the relationship between natural philosophy and Genesis in the first decades of the Royal Society.

The periodic table: icon and inspiration

2015 ◽  
Vol 373 (2037) ◽  
pp. 20140211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martyn Poliakoff ◽  
Samantha Tang
Keyword(s):  
Periodic Table ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Educational Resource ◽  
Online Video ◽  
The Public ◽  
Professional Interest ◽  
The World

To start this discussion meeting on the new chemistry of the elements held on 12 May 2014, Martyn Poliakoff, Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, was invited to give the opening remarks. As a chemist and a presenter of the popular online video channel ‘The periodic table of videos’, Martyn communicates his personal and professional interest in the elements to the public, who in turn use these videos both as an educational resource and for entertainment purposes. Ever since Mendeleev’s first ideas for the periodic table were published in 1869, the table has continued to grow as new elements have been discovered, and it serves as both icon and inspiration; its form is now so well established that it is recognized the world over as a symbol for science. This paper highlights but a few of the varied forms that the table can take, such as an infographic, which can convey the shortage of certain elements with great impact.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, F. R. S

1984 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-49 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
General Nature ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Prime Concern ◽  
The World ◽  
Special Concern ◽  
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Professor of Physics, Mathematics, Astronomy and Natural Philosophy at Göttingen University, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1793. At his death, on 24 February 1799, he left numerous writings of scientific and general nature, as well as many letters and, most important of all, copious personal notes. It is for these that he is mainly remembered. They include reflections on practically all the topics which were of special concern in the Age of Enlightenment. Due to their diversity it is not easy to obtain a comprehensive overview of his ideas and opinions, especially as they are often contained or developed in articles on assorted matters. Many of his themes lost their topicality, though by no means their relevance to Lichtenberg’s prime concern, to understand the world and in particular the human mind, in order to achieve realistic improvements. He jotted down his notes from 1764 until he died, in what he called his ‘waste books’, a term he borrowed from English tradesmen (1). Many of his notes are pointed, witty and unusually candid. Thus they allow remarkable insights into the trends of the last decades of the eighteenth century. They also demonstrate the importance of the Royal Society in establishing Göttingen as the leading scientific university in Germany and spreading English philosophical, literary and cultural influence.

Essay reviews: The spring-tide of experimental philosophy

1992 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-316
Keyword(s):  
Steady State ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Spring Tide ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
The Public ◽  
Experimental Learning ◽  
Middle Period ◽  
Public Demonstration

Marie Boas Hall, Promoting experimental learning: experiment and the Royal Society, 1660-1727 . Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xiii + 207, £35.00 ISBN 0-521-40503-3 In her welcome new book, Marie Hall traces the development and the subsequent decline of the public demonstration of experiments at the weekly meetings of the Royal Society, from the foundation in late 1660 to the end of Newton’s Presidency, at his death in 1727. The history is divided into three periods: the early optimistic Baconian phase, from 1660 to the mid-1670s; the more sombre middle period of the last quarter of the 17th century, when the attempted recapture of the early ideals met with only modest success; and the years spanned by Newton’s Presidency (1703- 27), when ‘Experiments of Fruit’ were largely abandoned in favour of ‘Experiments of Light’, and attention turned from useful inventions to the natural philosophy of a time-bounded universe in the steady-state, with its theosophic and theotechnic implications.

On the Genius and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton

2018 ◽  
pp. 73-86
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Universal Gravitation ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
The World ◽  
The Law

This chapter presents George Boole's lecture on the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton. The first subject of importance that engaged Newton's attention was the phenomena of prismatic colors. The results of his inquiries were communicated to the Royal Society in the year 1675, and afterwards published with most important additions in 1704. The production was entitled “Optics; or, a Treatise on the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light.” It is considered one of the most elaborate and original of his works, and carries on every page the traces of a powerful and comprehensive mind. Newton also discovered universal gravitation, which was announced to the world in 1687 through the publication of the “Principia, or Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.” The object of the “Principia” is twofold: to demonstrate the law of planetary influence, and to apply that law to the purposes of calculation.

scholarly journals Rethinking Schizophrenia in the Light of New Evidence: Thirty Years after the Vermont Longitudinal Study of Persons with Severe Mental Illness

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 199
Author(s):  
Alberto Fergusson ◽  
Miguel Gutierrez-Pelaez
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Severe Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
Empirical Correction ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mind ◽  
New Evidence

Despite new evidence, procedures, client testimony, and movements around the world, old myths regarding schizophrenia still prevail among both the public and mental health professionals.  Thirty years have passed since the mind-blowing publication in 1987 of the Vermont Longitudinal Study of Persons with Severe Mental Illness (Harding, Brooks, Ashikaga, Straus, & Breier), which led to Harding and Zahniser’s 1994 article, Empirical Correction of Seven Myths about Schizophrenia with Implications for Treatment.  We need to systematically review what we know and what we do not know in the light of new evidence.  We need to find ways  to communicate  the knowledge derived from academic research on schizophrenia and psychosis to professionals working with this population, and to people with schizophrenia and their families. Thus can we begin to break down the rock-solid prejudices that have been rooted in humanity for centuries.

Manufacturing nature: science, technology and Victorian consumer culture

1996 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iwan Rhys Morus
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Small Group ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Public Place ◽  
The Public ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Science Technology

The public place of science and technology in Britain underwent a dramatic change during the first half of the nineteenth century. At the end of the eighteenth century, natural philosophy was still on the whole the province of a relatively small group ofaficionados. London possessed only one institution devoted to the pursuit of natural knowledge: the Royal Society. The Royal Society also published what was virtually the only journal dealing exclusively with scientific affairs: thePhilosophical Transactions. By 1851, when the Great Exhibition opened its doors in Hyde Park to an audience of spectators that could be counted in the millions, the pursuit of science as a national need, its relationship to industrial progress were acceptable, if not uncontested facts for many commentators.

IV. An account of a method of dividing astronomical and other instruments, by ocular inspection; in which the usual tools for graduating are not employed; the whole operation being being so contrived, that no error can occur but what is chargeable to vision, when assisted by the best optical means of viewing and measuring minute quantities

1809 ◽  
Vol 99 ◽  
pp. 105-145 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
The Public ◽  
A Value ◽  
The World

It would ill become me, in addressing myself to the Members of this Society upon a subject which they are so well enabled to appreciate, to arrogate to myself more than may be assigned as my due, for whatever of success may have been the result of my long continued endeavours, exerted in prosecuting towards perfection the dividing of Instruments immediately subservient to the purposes of Astronomy . A man very naturally will set a value upon a thing on which so much of his life has been expended; and I shall readily, therefore, be pardoned for saying, that considering some attainments which I have made on this subject as too valuable to be lost, and being encouraged also by the degree of attention which the Royal Society has ever paid to practical subjects, I feel myself ambitious of presenting them to the public through what I deem the most respectable channel in the world. It was as early as the year 1775, being then apprentice to my brother, the late Mr. John Troughton, that the art of dividing had become interesting to me; the study of astronomy was also new and fascinating; and I then formed the resolution to aim at the nicer parts of my profession.

Dr William Brownrigg, F. R. S.: Physician, Chemist And Country Gentleman

1977 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-271 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Coal Mines ◽  
Systematic Investigation ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Evidence

Dr William Brownrigg (1712-1800) of Ormathwaite Hall near Keswick in Cumberland, was the first scientist to undertake a systematic investigation of the poisonous gases in coal mines. As a result of his work he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1742 and awarded the Copley Medal in 1766. However, he never gained the reputation which seemed to be merited by the importance of his research, and contemporaries believed this to have been as a result of his refusal to leave his native Cumberland and live in London. Sir James Lowther of Whitehaven, his first patron, commented in 1750 that ‘if he was in London he would probably get into better business’, while his friend and biographer Joshua Dixon wrote of his having been ‘repeatedly solicited’ to move to the capital. Brownrigg himself commented that ‘my situation here, at so great a distance from the capital. . . lies me under great disadvantages in communicating them [i.e. his experiments] to the public’. New evidence concerning Brownrigg has recently become available, from which it is clear that his preference for Cumberland was determined both by his scientific interests and also by his many other concerns. As a result it is now possible to attempt some re-assessment of his career, which may help to explain why he did not receive the acclaim he was thought to have deserved.

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