Speculative Truth
Subtitle: Henry Cavendish, Natural Philosophy, and the Rise of Modern Theoretical Science
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; Oxford University Press
Published: February 20, 2004
Language: eng
Number of pages: 272
ISBN-13: 9780195160048
First sentence: A late-eighteenth-century scientific dictionary explained what distinguished a natural philosopher: If we consider the difference there is between natural philosophers, and other men, with regard to their knowledge of phenomena, we shall find it consists not in an exacter knowledge of the efficient cause that produces them, for that can be no other than the will of the Deity; but only in a greater and more enlarged comprehension, by which analogies, harmonies, and agreements are described in the works of nature, and the particular effects explained; that is, reduced to general rules, which rules grounded on the analogy and uniformness observed in the production of natural effects, are more agreeable, and sought after by the mind; for that they extend our prospect beyond what is present, and near to us, and enable us to make very probable conjectures, touching things that may have happened at very great distances of time and place, as well as to predict things to come; which sort of endeavour towards
Description: "Speculative Truth: Henry Cavendish, Natural Philosophy, and the Rise of Modern Theoretical Science consists of two major parts. In the first, Russell McCormmach writes a detailed biography and commentary on Lord Henry Cavendish, the pioneering British physicist active in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries who, in the modern sense, is widely considered the first full-time scientist. The second is the inaugural full text publication of Cavendish's long-missing paper that reveals for the first time his theory of heat. Founded upon the principle of the conservation of energy, and upon the identification of heat with the vibrations of the interior parts of bodies, this theory would not be surpassed for over half a century. Cavendish wrote it for publication, but for unknown reasons withheld this work. In treating Cavendish's thinking McCormmach offers a window into natural philosophy, its character, goals, possibilities, and limitations. At once a contribution to a growing body of scholarship on natural philosophy and an analysis of theoretical research, Speculative Truth yields a fascinating view and discourse on the rise of scientific attitudes and ways of knowing - virtually the birth of modern science."--BOOK JACKET.