Read Online The Best Australian Science Writing 2012 by Elizabeth Finkel - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elizabeth Finkel
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The DIY impulse was also manifest in perhaps the most famous physicist in Caltechâs history, the quantum theorist Richard Feynman. Feynman was the scientist who electrified the world on television with his demonstration of why the space shuttle Challenger blew up at its launch, killing all the astronauts on board. Those old enough to remember will recall how he dropped a rubber O-ring into a beaker of dry ice and water, causing the O-ring to shatter and thereby explaining how the spacecraft had failed. In 1965Feynman was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on quantum field theory, yet in 1963 he had set out to perform a task that from the perspective of the scientific mainstream was the equivalent of building a steam engine.
The task Feynman set himself was to derive one of Newtonâs most important results without using any of the powerful mathematics now available to us. Specifically, he decided to reconstruct one of Newtonâs key proofs about gravity without using calculus, only using the laws of Euclidean geometry, a branch of mathematics that had been known to the ancient Greeks. Feynman wasnât doing this to advance the state of physics. He was doing it to experience the pleasure of building a law of the universe from scratch. Like Jim Carter with his steam car project, Feynman wanted to make something important using only the most rudimentary tools.
He presented the fruits of his labour to a class of undergraduates at Caltech as one of his legendary Feynman Lectures, and it was an achievement from which he had evidently gained an enormous amount of pride. Almost 300 years after Newton had presented his proof, Feynman set out to reprise the masterâs geometrical reasoning for his Caltech class. âIâm giving this lecture just for the fun of it,â he explained. Many of the students might already have done the proof for themselves with calculus â that is now an undergraduate exercise, and can be done with a single page of equations. Feynman himself noted that âitâs much easier to do with calculusâ, and some of the students must have wondered why their professor was bothering them with this antediluvian version of the problem. Then Feynman described what he had in mind: âFor your entertainment and interest,â he said, âI want you to ride in a buggy, for its elegance, instead of a fancy automobile.â
What Feynman set out to do was to prove that if Newtonâs law of gravity is correct then the planets must travel around thesun in elliptically shaped orbits. Newton himself had shown that this was true and his proof played a pivotal role in helping to convince people of the 17th century that his gravitational law should be taken seriously. One must bear in mind that in the 17th century the idea of a mathematical law describing gravity was almost inconceivable. In that century, the very idea of an invisible force acting throughout space was itself heretical, for it seemed to smack of magic, and all that the new mechanistic science was trying to overthrow. Newton understood that his cosmology depended on the gravity law and that the fate of the new physics as a whole rested on his ability to convince his colleagues that what he was saying was real. In order to make them believe in his law he felt he had to demonstrate its truth using only the kind of mathematics they would completely trust. That meant he had to forego the new-fangled calculus heâd been inventing and use only the tried and true tools of geometry, tools that even the most conservative mathematicians would accept. Newton presented his gravity law, along with his geometrical proof about the planetary orbits, in the book that launched Newtonian science upon the world, the Principia Mathematica . Feynman wanted to understand exactly what he had done.
In the preparatory notes Feynman made for his lecture he wrote: âSimple things have simple demonstrationsâ, then,
The task Feynman set himself was to derive one of Newtonâs most important results without using any of the powerful mathematics now available to us. Specifically, he decided to reconstruct one of Newtonâs key proofs about gravity without using calculus, only using the laws of Euclidean geometry, a branch of mathematics that had been known to the ancient Greeks. Feynman wasnât doing this to advance the state of physics. He was doing it to experience the pleasure of building a law of the universe from scratch. Like Jim Carter with his steam car project, Feynman wanted to make something important using only the most rudimentary tools.
He presented the fruits of his labour to a class of undergraduates at Caltech as one of his legendary Feynman Lectures, and it was an achievement from which he had evidently gained an enormous amount of pride. Almost 300 years after Newton had presented his proof, Feynman set out to reprise the masterâs geometrical reasoning for his Caltech class. âIâm giving this lecture just for the fun of it,â he explained. Many of the students might already have done the proof for themselves with calculus â that is now an undergraduate exercise, and can be done with a single page of equations. Feynman himself noted that âitâs much easier to do with calculusâ, and some of the students must have wondered why their professor was bothering them with this antediluvian version of the problem. Then Feynman described what he had in mind: âFor your entertainment and interest,â he said, âI want you to ride in a buggy, for its elegance, instead of a fancy automobile.â
What Feynman set out to do was to prove that if Newtonâs law of gravity is correct then the planets must travel around thesun in elliptically shaped orbits. Newton himself had shown that this was true and his proof played a pivotal role in helping to convince people of the 17th century that his gravitational law should be taken seriously. One must bear in mind that in the 17th century the idea of a mathematical law describing gravity was almost inconceivable. In that century, the very idea of an invisible force acting throughout space was itself heretical, for it seemed to smack of magic, and all that the new mechanistic science was trying to overthrow. Newton understood that his cosmology depended on the gravity law and that the fate of the new physics as a whole rested on his ability to convince his colleagues that what he was saying was real. In order to make them believe in his law he felt he had to demonstrate its truth using only the kind of mathematics they would completely trust. That meant he had to forego the new-fangled calculus heâd been inventing and use only the tried and true tools of geometry, tools that even the most conservative mathematicians would accept. Newton presented his gravity law, along with his geometrical proof about the planetary orbits, in the book that launched Newtonian science upon the world, the Principia Mathematica . Feynman wanted to understand exactly what he had done.
In the preparatory notes Feynman made for his lecture he wrote: âSimple things have simple demonstrationsâ, then,
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