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René Descartes
Though he is best known for his contributions to physics, 17th-century British scientist Isaac Newton also dabbled in astronomy, theology, and other fields of study. Kuhn is largely interested in Newton’s study of gravity, which moved physics away from the Cartesian model. Kuhn also discusses Newton’s desire to link math and motion, which Newton encoded in his treatise Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (also called the Principia).
Isaac Newton Quotes in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
The The Structure of Scientific Revolutions quotes below are all either spoken by Isaac Newton or refer to Isaac Newton. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 9
Quotes
What occurred was neither a decline nor a raising of standards, but simply a change demanded by the adoption of a new paradigm. Furthermore, that change has since been reversed and could be again. In the twentieth century Einstein succeeded in explaining gravitational attractions, and that explanation has returned science to a set of canons and problems that are, in this particular respect, more like those of Newton’s predecessors than of his successors.
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Chapter 12
Quotes
These examples point to the third and most fundamental aspect of the incommensurability of competing paradigms. In a sense that I am unable to explicate further, the proponents of competing paradigms practice their trades in different worlds. One contains constrained bodies that fall slowly, the other pendulums that repeat their motions again and again. In one, solutions are compounds, in the other mixtures. One is embedded in a flat, the other in a curved, matrix of space.
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Isaac Newton Quotes in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
The The Structure of Scientific Revolutions quotes below are all either spoken by Isaac Newton or refer to Isaac Newton. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 9
Quotes
What occurred was neither a decline nor a raising of standards, but simply a change demanded by the adoption of a new paradigm. Furthermore, that change has since been reversed and could be again. In the twentieth century Einstein succeeded in explaining gravitational attractions, and that explanation has returned science to a set of canons and problems that are, in this particular respect, more like those of Newton’s predecessors than of his successors.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12
Quotes
These examples point to the third and most fundamental aspect of the incommensurability of competing paradigms. In a sense that I am unable to explicate further, the proponents of competing paradigms practice their trades in different worlds. One contains constrained bodies that fall slowly, the other pendulums that repeat their motions again and again. In one, solutions are compounds, in the other mixtures. One is embedded in a flat, the other in a curved, matrix of space.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
