Seeing Further (55 page)

metaphysics, 79, 94

defining, 95

of Leibniz, 85–86, 90–91, 105

meteorology, 478

Michelino, Domenico, painting by,
65

Milankovitch cycles, 394

Milky Way galaxy,
458–59

Millau Viaduct,
248–49
, 249

millenarian cults, 407

Miller, Stanley, 332–33

Miller-Urey experiment, 332–33,
332

Millikan, Glenn, 261

Milstein, Cesar, 267

Milton, John,
Paradise Lost,
114–15

mind, science of, 77, 79–80

miniaturisation, 353

mining, 302–3

Minkowski, Hermann, 455

Minkowskian void, 74

Mitterrand, Fran÷ois, 270

mobile phones,
477

Modjeski, Ralph, 240–41,
240

Moisseiff, Leon S., 243

Monod, Jacques,
Chance and Necessity,
330, 335

Monsarrat, C. N., 240–41,
240

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 48

Montgolfier brothers, and ballooning, 158, 160, 161, 163, 164, 165, 166, 169, 179

Monthly Review,
165

moon, creation of, 328

Moore, Keith, 10

morality, 391

Moray, Robert, 25–26, 28

Morgan, George Cadogan, 139, 152–53

Moss, Richard, 438

motion:

laws of, 100–101, 364, 365, 372–73

as mathematical concept, 117, 127

Muhsam, Hans, 471

Muldoon, Paul,
The End of the Poem,
417

multiverse theory, 339

Murakami, Haruki,
Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World,
410

museums:

collections in, 187–92, 196–99, 201

functions of, 187

gardens as, 189, 192–95

information retrieval in, 192–93

for the public good, 191

myoglobin, 265

Nairne, Edward, 136, 137, 138, 145–48, 149, 150, 152

nanotechnology, 319, 479, 483

Napoleon Bonaparte, 6

Nash, David, 393

National Academy of Sciences, 430

Natural History Museum, London, 186, 191, 198, 275

natural selection,
see
evolution

Nature:

balance of, 396

constants of, 374–75

forces of, 365, 367, 374

laws of, 61, 80, 363–64, 366, 372, 373–74, 450

mathematical concepts of, 117–18, 352

medieval study of, 69

patterns in, 363–65

rationality of, 448

navigation:

and ballooning, 172–76

early days of, 356

GPS, 357,
358
, 454

mercury barometer, 173

Neumann, John von, 98

Newton, Isaac,
88
, 111,
112

and alchemy, 91

and Arian heresy, 91n

and cosmology, 62, 67, 74, 75

death mask of, 10–11,
10

death of, 129

early years of, 347–48

on the end of the world, 407

on free will, 93–94

and
Geographia,
24

on gravity, 72, 344,
347
, 348, 363, 373, 450, 463, 470

importance of, 204, 211

and Leibniz, 85, 89–94, 100–102, 105

as Master of the Mint, 84

mathematical laws of, 93, 126–29, 344, 348, 359

and metaphysics, 92

microscope of, 11,
11

on motion, 100–101, 364, 365, 372–73

on optics, 33–34,
34
,
35
, 128–29, 472

Principia,
10, 126–28,
126
, 348

and religion, 62, 72–73, 75

and Royal Society, 12, 13, 32–35, 73, 84

telescope invented by, 30, 32

on time, 446, 449–50, 452, 455

New York World’s Fair (1939), 244

New York World Trade Center, 245

Niagara Gorge Suspension Bridge, 241

Nicolas of Cusa,
On Learned Ignorance,
66

Nightingale, Florence, 263

Norman, Robert, 113

Nuclear Energy: The future climate
(Royal Society), 418

nuclear fusion reactions, 330

nuclear weapons:

and apocalypse, 408,
408

“heroic age” of, 481–82

opponents of, 268, 270

nylon, 311

Obama, Barack, 481,
482

oceans, heat capacity in, 428

Oldenburg, Henry, 5, 32, 34, 35, 119n

Olson, Ken, 476

Oparin, Alexander, 332

Order Out of Chaos
(Linnean Society), 193

Orwell, George, 387

Oster, George, 379

Ouroboros symbol of cyclicality,
448

Ove Arup, 247

Owen, Richard, 186–87, 201

oxygen:

discovery of, 304,
305

and steel production, 306

Paine, Clifford E., 243

palaeontologists, 450, 461

Paley, Rev William, 205, 219

paper, and plastic, 313–14

parabola, 455

paradox of the plankton, 291, 293

Parkinson, Sydney, 190

Pascal, Blaise, 97

Pauli exclusion principle, 98

Pauling, Linus, 256, 260

Paxton, Joseph, 237

Peierls, Rudolf, 482,
483

penicillin, structure of, 252, 262

pepsin, 261

Pepys, Samuel, 29

Perutz, Max, 255, 263–66,
264
, 267–68, 271

Petty, William, 300, 301

pharmaceuticals, 315–16

phenomenology, 104

phenotypes, 227

Phillips, David, 266, 268–69

Phillips, Thomas, portrait by,
168

Philosophical Transactions
(Royal Society), 3, 5, 24, 30, 34, 176, 363, 468

philosophy:

in medieval world, 66–67

natural, 348, 349–59

“new,” 301

photography:

of bridge designs, tests, and disasters, 235, 238–41,
245

digital, 353–56,
354

JPEG standard, 354–56

seeing via, 388–89

physics, 69, 338, 448

Planck, Max, 193

planets:

extra-solar, 327–28

formation of, 326–27

life on, 328–31, 334

orbits of, 326–27, 403

plastics, 309–13

plate tectonics, 394

Plato, 85, 119, 298

Platonism, 104, 111, 119

Pleiades star cluster, 62,
63

Plot, Robert, 197

polymer materials, 209–13

Pope, Alexander, 55

population growth, 480, 485

Porter, George F., 240–41,
240
, 469

possible-world theory, 102–3

Powers, Richard, 319

Priestley, Joseph, 10, 160, 179, 305, 396

primum mobile,
64

probabilities, inverse, 2

probability, theory of, 353

Project Habbakuk, 264

Promethian Science
(World Bank), 154

protein structure analysis, 261

Proxima Centauri, 456

psychoanalysis, 77, 79

pterodactyls, 185

Ptolemaic model, 66

Ptolemy, 109

Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, 270, 482

PVC (polyvinylchloride), 311, 312

Pythagoras, 69–70,
70
, 72

quantum effects, 74

quantum information technology, 319

quantum mechanics, 98, 99, 101, 129, 338

many-worlds interpretation of, 102–3

quantum theory, 470

quantum universe-nucleation process, 339

Quebec Bridge, 239–41,
240

quintessence, 65

radioactivity:

dating artifacts via, 452

discovery of, 451

railway bridges, 230–49

railway gauges, 237

Ramakrishnan, Venkatramen, 267

Ramanujan, Srinivasa, 476

Randall, Lisa, 368n

random chance vs. design, 205–6, 289–93

Raphael, 71

rationalism, empiricism vs., 111, 113–21, 122–23, 129

Ray, John, 193

rayon, 311

realism:

actualist, 102

modal, 102, 104

Reed-Solomon codes, 346, 351

Rees, Martin, 339, 415

Our Final Century,
406–7

relativism, 124

relativity, 74, 99, 129, 337, 373, 453–54, 456, 470,
471

Renaissance, 71, 72, 303

Restoration, 301

Riemann, Georg, 471

risk assessment:

in climate change, 435–41, 442–43

as consequence x probability, 436–37

Roberts, Paul,
The End of Food,
409

Roberts brothers, 173

Robespierre, Maximilien, 143

Robinson, Heath, 171

robotic intelligence, 477–78, 479

rocks, dating of, 451–52,
452

Roddenberry, Gene, 60

Roebling, John, 238, 241, 246

Rotblat, Joseph, 482,
483

Rothwell, Richard, portrait by,
49

Royal Academy of Engineering, 418

Royal Albert Bridge (Saltash Bridge), 238

Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, 191–92

Royal Geographic Society, 274

Royal Society:

aims of, 469

Cowley’s ode to, 301

founding of, 3, 18,
19
,
20
, 47, 108–9, 111, 113, 122, 301

influence of, 15, 274

international aspect of, 5

longevity of, 11–12

meetings of,
136

membership in, 7–9, 12–13, 123, 137, 257

name of, 5–6

range of interests of, 3, 5, 13–15, 21–22, 24–29, 135–36, 418, 468

on the side of reason, 73

Summer Science Exhibition, 13

treasures in storeroom of, 10–11

Royal Society of Literature, 418–19

Royal Society Year Book,
13

Rozier, Pilâtre de, 159, 166

Rudwick, Martin,
Bursting the Limits of Time,
196

Russell, Bertrand, 90, 92, 95–96,
96

History of Western Philosophy,
96

Rutherford, Ernest, 13, 196, 476

Sadler, James, 181

Sagan, Carl, 80

Saint-Fond, Barthé lemy Faujas de, 166, 168, 170

Salisbury, Bishop of, 33

Saltash Bridge (Royal Albert Bridge), 238

salvation, 74

San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, 243–44

Sanger, Fred, 267

Sargasso Sea, 285

Scheele, Carl Wilhelm, 304

Schneider, C. C., 240

Schönbein, Christian, 310

Schrödinger, Erwin, 471, 474

Schwarz, John, 366

science:

age of, 73

English as language of, 3

ethics in, 479

experimental, 298

full disclosure in, 430

humanitarian goals of, 122

and mathematics, 359, 363

museum specimens in, 188, 196, 201

for peace, 268

Promethian, 132, 142–43, 148–54

public acceptance of, 73

public applications of, 144

pure vs. applied, 297–98, 301–2, 316, 318–19, 469, 475–78

and religion, 76–77

responsibility of, 482–83

routine in, 190

and social change, 346

and technology, 298, 475–78

unending quest of, 469

self, and space, 76–77

self-adaptive systems, 383

self-organising criticality, 381–82

SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), 335–36

Shanghai,
480

Sheldon, John, 174

Sheldrake, Rupert, 79

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft,
49
, 410, 423

Frankenstein,
49–51,
50
, 154

Shelton Regulator clock, 10

silicon, 313

silicon chip, 475, 477

silk, 313

simplicity, quest for, 363–68

Simpson, George Gaylord, 336

Sloane, Sir Hans, 198–99,
199

smallpox epidemic, 47–48

Smeathman, Henry, 159

Smith, William, 196, 450

Smolin, Lee,
The Trouble with Physics,
99

Snoblen, Stephen D., 407

Snow, C. P., 297–98, 301, 302

Socié té Philomathique, Paris, 6

soil, biodiversity in, 285, 291

Solander, Daniel, 190, 191, 199

solar eclipse, 11

solar system:

age of, 330

Copernicus on, 116,
116
, 322,
323

extent of, 326

heliocentric model of, 116

Kepler on, 375, 376,
376

location of, 325

Solé, Richard, 383

Solnhofen fossils, 184–86,
185

Somerset House,
136
, 137, 158

soul:

crossing over, 79

idea of, 76–77, 80

space:

concepts of, 61–62

Earth seen from, 386–88,
387
, 389, 396, 398, 402–3,
402

Euclidian view of, 71–72, 74

and heaven, 72–73

hyperspace, 74–76

and mathematics, 343, 344–48, 349, 351–52

post-Newtonian, 74–76

reality of, 75

and religion, 72–73

and self, 76–77

short history of, 62–72

three-dimensional, 367–68

and time, 64, 74, 92, 449–50, 454–55

space-time, 74, 454, 455–56, 460, 463

spatial monism, 79–80

species:

arrangement of, 195–96

diversity of, 196, 284–85;
see also
biodiversity

new, formation of, 218, 315–17

Spenser, Edmund,
The Faerie Queen,
412

spin, 371

Spinoza, Baruch, 117, 118–19

Spix’s macaw, 283

Sprat, Thomas, 27, 30, 301

Sprengel, Hermann, 9

Starkey, George, 301

stars:

carbon in, 329

distribution in the universe, 325

lifetimes of, 329, 330, 462

Milky Way galaxy,
458–59

Pleiades, 62,
63

Proxima Centauri, 456

supernovae, 329, 397

Star Trek
(film), 60, 61

state space theory, 102

steel:

alloys, 307

Bessemer process for, 303–4, 306

stem-cell technology, 317