Happy Newtonmas 25 Dec 201122 Jun 2018 Isaac Newton was born on the 25th of December (under the old Calendar; in our calendar he was born on 4 January, but ignore that for this post). In a wonderful marriage of good scholarship and computers (often a very bad arrangement), Cambridge University Library’s Digital Library project has digitised some of Isaac’s notebooks and manuscripts. This one is his Trinity College Notebook, which he wrote as an undergraduate. Of interest to me, given that I am about to publish a chapter in a book (in Portuguese!) on the use of tree diagrams and thinking, is his version of the Arbor Porphyriana (Tree of Porphyry) used for generations to teach Aristotle’s logical division, or diaeresis: Logical trees are a very old way of representing classifications of ideas by division; we would call them subsets today. History Logic and philosophy Science
History The best scientific ideas 20 Feb 2010 Over on talk.origins Roger Ebert’s review of The Creation, a film about Darwin’s private life, was mentioned, which starts out Darwin, it is generally agreed, had the most important idea in the history of science. Thinkers had been feeling their way toward it for decades, but it took Darwin to… Read More
Epistemology Does teleology hang on in Venice? 18 Dec 201022 Jun 2018 Here’s an interesting paper, which I haven’t had time to digest, but which I thought I’d better mention before it enters the fog my brain contains these days… It’s by David Depew, one of my favourite philosophical writers on evolution (in no small part because he takes a historical approach… Read More
Administrative Academic genealogies 29 Oct 2010 Wasting time usefully with my friend and co-student of Gareth Nelson, Malte Ebach, we wondered what our academic genealogies were. My thesis advisors were Gareth J. Nelson and Neil Thomason. Gary was advised by William A. Gosline (1915-2002), who was advised by George Sprague Myers (1905-1985), who was a student… Read More
Perception! yum … Newton certainly knows how to cut it (must read very carefully and sleep on it) geometry ? novelty Th?nk you
I recognise that diagram! Another blog I read included the same scanned page in a post published earlier this month. I have no point beyond just sharing the joy of unexpected recognition.
Ooh! Newton’s tree even has baubles on it. BTW, isn’t explaining Newton’s theological views a great way of trolling gnu atheists who call today Newtonmass? Oh and happy boxing day!
Newton may well have been the greatest and most important scientist of all time. And he was religious too, so I suppose we should put that one down for the accomodationists. I’m happy to be celebrating Newtonmas. May the mass x acceleration be with you.
And he was religious too… Newton was not merely religious he was a fundamentalist religious fanatic who seriously believed that he, and he alone, had been chosen by God to reveal the truths of nature. Definitely not an accomodationist.
Prezado João S. Wilkins, Qual é o título do livro em português? Seriously, what’s the title of the book you’re writing the chapter on tree diagrams and thinking? Any working papers? Any work-in-progress we Portuguese-speaking people could peruse ahead of the others? Any scraps? Anything at all? When will it be published? Feliz Natal, Feliz Newtonmas
Pombo, O. and Pina, M. (edrs) Em Torno de Darwin. Lisboa: Fim de Século (in press). As to publication, sometime this coming year. I have nothing online, sorry.
Have you published something by now? Happy to read about tree diagrams and thinking. Warm regards, Verena