Vortices in the Æther Due to the Infinite Perfections of God - How Descartes' Baconian transhumanism and leisurely Platonic deductive approach to science led to error, confusion, and ultimately death.
Be this as it may, it is not Galileo, in any case, nor Bruno, but Descartes who clearly and distinctly formulated principles of the new science, its dream de reductione scientiae ad mathematicam, and of the new, mathematical, cosmology. Though, as we shall see, he overshot the mark and by his premature identification of matter and space deprived himself of the means of giving a correct solution to the problems that seventeenth century science had placed before him.
Alexandre Koyré, From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe, 1957.
Descartes has always been celebrated for his contributions to mathematics rather than physics. Mathematics is internally self-consistant, so it's something that you can do while lounging in your bed. I turned away from theoretical physics because too much of it involves the creation of incomprehensible mathematical constructs which are supposed to explain the universe. Most of these can never be tested, only inferred through observation, much as Descartes did. Mathematics is the language of physics, but just because you are a virtual "poet" in that language doesn't mean that what you say is true or makes sense.
How do we know that Stigler's Law is itself not an example of Stigler's Law, as someone else may have observed this phenomenon before Stigler and was not given credit?
"I lack the space in the margin to reproduce Fermat's proof."
Rats! Well maybe next time?
I'll be sure to keep dropping little Easter Eggs in there to reward you and anyone else autistic enough to read through all the references.
I'm amazed someone actually read through all the references!
Be this as it may, it is not Galileo, in any case, nor Bruno, but Descartes who clearly and distinctly formulated principles of the new science, its dream de reductione scientiae ad mathematicam, and of the new, mathematical, cosmology. Though, as we shall see, he overshot the mark and by his premature identification of matter and space deprived himself of the means of giving a correct solution to the problems that seventeenth century science had placed before him.
Alexandre Koyré, From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe, 1957.
Descartes has always been celebrated for his contributions to mathematics rather than physics. Mathematics is internally self-consistant, so it's something that you can do while lounging in your bed. I turned away from theoretical physics because too much of it involves the creation of incomprehensible mathematical constructs which are supposed to explain the universe. Most of these can never be tested, only inferred through observation, much as Descartes did. Mathematics is the language of physics, but just because you are a virtual "poet" in that language doesn't mean that what you say is true or makes sense.
Stigler's Law:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_examples_of_Stigler%27s_law
How do we know that Stigler's Law is itself not an example of Stigler's Law, as someone else may have observed this phenomenon before Stigler and was not given credit?
Somewhere I read that it is an example of Stigler's Law. But I lost the reference.