NEWTON’S WORLD

I just read James Gleick’s “Isaak Newton”. I had read his book, “Chaos” which is a good read, and was not surprised to find Newton worth my time. I recommend it.

I would comment on the book from the K4D perspective. Newton lived in a very different time, and his world view was very different than ours. Gleick makes the point that Newton was an alchemist, committed to the aims and assumptions of that group of people. He was also a Christian of the 17th century, and much of his thought was based on the assumptions of that faith.

He was fortunate in that Galileo had developed the measure of the second, in a world in which there were few clocks. Newton made great sun dials, but you don’t measure seconds with a sun dial. Gleick notes that Newton in his alchemy used eights of a minute as his temporal reference.

The “knot” was the only unit of measure of velocity, and basically only sailors measured velocity. Newton had to invent concepts like mass and inertia! It is hard to imagine how difficult it would be to think about physics without such concepts.

Newton had done precise mathematical measurements in developing his optics, but these could be done in his rooms with simple instruments (prism, pin-hole light source, ruler). When he sought to compare the predictions of his theory of gravity with observations, using real quantitative measurements there were not precise measurements available for the critical variables to test the theory. Where the royal astronomer had made measurements, he was reluctant to release the data. Newton had to do an amazing amount of data collection in a time where few were doing so.

It is really amazing that Newton was able to invent suites of new concepts, then invent the means of testing them quantitatively, then obtain the data to do so.

I suspect that some of the difficulty in development is that we are still pre-Newtonian in key areas of behavioral and social sciences. Moreover, the world views of key actors are not always the most informed nor the most adequate for the purpose of development. Development models are too often poorly formulated, and development data inadequate. Still one can not read about Newton’s accomplishments without some hope.