"He [Thales] held the sun and the planets for Gods. And in the same sense Pythagoras, on account of its immense force of attraction, said that the Sun was a prison of Zeus [Jupiter], that is, a body possessed of the greatest circuits. And to the mystical philosophers, Pan was the supreme divinity insipiring this world with harmonic ratio like a musical instrument and handling it with modulation, according to that saying of Orpheus 'striking the harmony of the world in playful song.'" -- Isaac Newton, mathematician, 1690
Circuits has multiple definitions. The sort of "circuits" Newton is talking about is similar to the Indy 500.
ReplyDelete"And now we might add something concerning a certain most subtle spirit which pervades and lies hid in all gross bodies; by the force and action of which spirit the particles of bodies attract one another at near distances, and cohere, if contiguous; and electric bodies operate to greater distances, as well repelling as attracting the neighboring corpuscles; and light is emitted, reflected, refracted, inflected, and heats bodies; and all sensation is excited, and the members of animal bodies move at the command of the will, namely, by the vibrations of this spirit, mutually propagated along the solid filaments of the nerves, from the outward organs of sense to the brain, and from the brain into the muscles. But these are things that cannot be explained in few words, nor are we furnished with that sufficiency of experiments which is required to an accurate determination and demonstration of the laws by which this electric and elastic spirit operates." -- Isaac Newton, mathematician, Principia, 1686
ReplyDeleteDesperation, thy name is Oils.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't used to describe current flow in 1686. It was used to describe forces of attraction. Hell, it had only entered English 43 years before Newton used it.
Electric Universe is dead science.
Next?
I guess Zeus was the god of lightning because lightning wasn't observed until the 17th century. Ignorance thy name is Jeffery.
ReplyDeleteI guess Zeus was the god of lightning because lightning wasn't observed until the 17th century. Ignorance thy name is Jeffery.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't make any sense. Lightning was observed by homo for millions of years.
You imply that Newton (who you denigrate at all other times for his explanation of gravity) was using "electric" the way we would today. That is not the case.
Etymology much? No? I'll continue.
Eletricity was originally used to describe attraction. And later to describe current flow. Newton did not use it in that sense. Arab scientists had long known that lightning was current, but they didn't use the Greek term, they had their own words for it.