The Clockwork Universe Part 12

One way was to update the definition of miracle miracle. G.o.d continued to intervene in the world, argued the theologian William Whiston, speaking on Newton's behalf, though perhaps He had changed His style. Even as familiar a feature of our lives as gravity "depends entirely on the constant and efficacious and, if you will, the supernatural and miraculous Influence of Almighty G.o.d." There was nothing inherent in the nature of rocks that caused them to fall; they fell because G.o.d made made them fall. If you stopped to think about it, wrote Whiston, it was as miraculous for a stone to drop to the ground as it would be for it to hover in midair. them fall. If you stopped to think about it, wrote Whiston, it was as miraculous for a stone to drop to the ground as it would be for it to hover in midair.

Leibniz pounced. Newton had committed heresy. Both Leibniz and Newton believed in a clockwork universe, but now Leibniz invoked the familiar image to mock his old enemy. "Sir Isaac Newton, and his followers, have also a very odd opinion concerning the work of G.o.d. According to their doctrine, G.o.d Almighty wants to wind up his watch from time to time: otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion."

Newton fired back in fury. He He was not the one blaspheming G.o.d. To call for a clock that ran forever on its own, as Leibniz had, was to cut G.o.d out of the picture. "If G.o.d does not concern himself in the Government of the World," declared Samuel Clarke, another of Newton's allies, "... it will follow that he is not an Omnipresent, All-powerful, Intelligent and Wise Being; and consequently, that he Is not at all." was not the one blaspheming G.o.d. To call for a clock that ran forever on its own, as Leibniz had, was to cut G.o.d out of the picture. "If G.o.d does not concern himself in the Government of the World," declared Samuel Clarke, another of Newton's allies, "... it will follow that he is not an Omnipresent, All-powerful, Intelligent and Wise Being; and consequently, that he Is not at all."

Newton and Clarke were far from done. This dangerous doctrine of Leibniz's posed a threat not only to Christianity but to political stability as well. To hear Leibniz tell it, the king of the universe was a mere figurehead and not a ruler at all. Think what that meant! "If a king had a kingdom wherein all things would continually go on without his government or interposition," wrote Clarke, then he would not "deserve at all the t.i.tle of king or governor." Who would need such a do-nothing king? Leibniz had allied himself with those scoundrels of whom it "may reasonably be suspected that they would like very well to set the king aside."

Leibniz did not back down. If the cosmos needed constant tinkering, as Newton would have it, then G.o.d had not fully understood a design of His own making. This was to malign G.o.d, to charge our perfect Creator with imperfection.

Deeply religious though both Newton and Leibniz were, they managed to talk past one another. The problem was that they focused on different aspects of G.o.d's greatness. Newton emphasized G.o.d's will, His ability to act however and whenever He chose. Leibniz focused on G.o.d's wisdom, His ability to see ahead of time exactly how every conceivable event would play itself out, down the furthest corridors of time.

That left both these brilliant, devout men caught in traps of their own making. Each had, in a sense, explained too much. Newton wanted above all else to portray G.o.d as a partic.i.p.ant in the world, not a spectator. But Newton's universe seemed to run by itself, despite his protests to the contrary. That made G.o.d a kind of absentee landlord. Leibniz, on the other hand, took as his his unbreachable principle the notion of G.o.d as all-powerful and all-knowing. The catch was that a G.o.d with those traits had no choice but to throw a switch that set in motion precisely the world we have. unbreachable principle the notion of G.o.d as all-powerful and all-knowing. The catch was that a G.o.d with those traits had no choice but to throw a switch that set in motion precisely the world we have.

The problem was that both were guilty as charged, and neither could admit it. Stuck defending indefensible positions, they fought to the death.

Chapter Fifty-Three.

Conclusion In the year 1600, for the crime of a.s.serting that the Earth was one of an infinite number of planets, a man named Giordano Bruno was burned alive. Bruno, an Italian philosopher and mystic, had run afoul of the Inquisition. Charged with heresy, he was yanked from his prison cell, paraded through the streets of Rome, tied to a stake, and set afire. To ensure his silence in his last minutes, a metal spike had been driven through his tongue.

Almost exactly a century later, in 1705, the queen of England bestowed a knighthood on Isaac Newton. Among the achievements that won Newton universal admiration was this: he had convinced the world of the doctrine that had cost Giordano Bruno his life.

Sometime between those two events, at some point in the course of the 1600s, the modern world was born. Even with hindsight, pinning down the birth date is next to impossible. Still, if we who live in the new world somehow found ourselves transported to Newton's London, we would have a chance of navigating our way. In Bruno's Rome we would founder and drown. And since those earliest days, the pace of change has only accelerated. The world has raced ahead, permanently in fast-forward, with science and technology taking an ever more conspicuous spot in the foreground.

In the decades following his death, Newton's reputation continued to soar. Though gravity remained as mysterious as ever, new generations of scientists built on Newton's theories to produce an ever more detailed, ever more accurate picture of the universe. Each step forward provided still more proof that Newton had read G.o.d's mind.

Perhaps the most dramatic confirmation came in 1846, when a French mathematician named Urbain Le Verrier looked hard at Newton's laws, sat down to calculate, and discovered a new planet. This was Neptune, discovered by deduction. Le Verrier and other astronomers of the day knew that the orbit of the planet Ura.n.u.s was not exactly what theory predicted. The reason, they proposed, was that some unseen planet was tugging it off course. Using Newton's laws, Le Verrier managed to calculate the vital statistics-the ma.s.s, position, and path-of this supposed planet. He sent his results to the German astronomer Joseph Galle. Le Verrier's letter reached Galle on September 23, 1846. On the same evening, Galle directed his telescope to the spot in the sky that Le Verrier had identified. There, just barely visible, he found Neptune.

Long before Le Verrier, the successes racked up by Newton's followers had inspired the hope of similar breakthroughs in every every field. Just as Newton had discovered the laws of inanimate nature, so would some new thinker find the laws of human nature. A handful of rules would explain all the apparent happenstance of history, psychology, and politics. Better still, once its laws came to be understood, society could be reshaped in a rational way. field. Just as Newton had discovered the laws of inanimate nature, so would some new thinker find the laws of human nature. A handful of rules would explain all the apparent happenstance of history, psychology, and politics. Better still, once its laws came to be understood, society could be reshaped in a rational way.

America's founding fathers argued explicitly that the success of the scientific approach foretold their own success. Free minds would make the world anew. Rather than defer to tradition and authority, the new thinkers would start from first principles and build on that st.u.r.dy foundation. Kings and other accidental tyrants would be overthrown, sensible and self-regulating inst.i.tutions set in their place. In the portrait of himself that he liked best, Benjamin Franklin sat deep in thought in front of a bust of Newton, who watched his protege approvingly. Thomas Jefferson installed a portrait of Newton in a place of honor at Monticello.

As they spelled out the design of America's political inst.i.tutions, the founders clung to the model of a smooth-running, self-regulating universe. In the eyes of the men who made America, the checks and balances that ensured political stability were directly a.n.a.logous to the natural pushes and pulls that kept the solar system in balance. "The Const.i.tution of the United States had been made under the dominion of the Newtonian theory," Woodrow Wilson would later write. If you read the Federalist Federalist papers, Wilson continued, the evidence jumped out "on every page." The Const.i.tution was akin to a scientific theory, and the amendments played the role of experiments that helped define and test that theory. papers, Wilson continued, the evidence jumped out "on every page." The Const.i.tution was akin to a scientific theory, and the amendments played the role of experiments that helped define and test that theory.

Newton's posthumous influence was overwhelming, but in one respect his triumph proved too too complete. Newton would have wept with rage to know that his scientific descendants spent their lifetimes proving conclusively that the clockwork universe ran even more smoothly than he had ever believed. It ran so marvelously well, in fact, that a new consensus quickly arose-just as Newton's enemies had claimed, Newton complete. Newton would have wept with rage to know that his scientific descendants spent their lifetimes proving conclusively that the clockwork universe ran even more smoothly than he had ever believed. It ran so marvelously well, in fact, that a new consensus quickly arose-just as Newton's enemies had claimed, Newton had had built a universe that had no place within it for G.o.d. built a universe that had no place within it for G.o.d.

The crowning glory of eighteenth-century astronomy was the proof, by the French mathematician Pierre Simon Laplace, that although the planets did wobble a bit as they circled the sun, those wobbles stayed within a narrow, predictable range. Since the wobbles did not grow larger and larger as time pa.s.sed, as Newton had believed, they did not require that G.o.d step in to smooth things out. Laplace presented his masterpiece, a tome called Celestial Mechanics Celestial Mechanics, to Napoleon.

How was it, Napoleon asked, that in all those hundreds of pages, Laplace had made not a single mention of G.o.d?

"I had no need of that hypothesis," Laplace told the emperor.

Newton outlived his longtime enemy Leibniz. "Mr. Leibniz is dead, and the dispute is finished," a colleague wrote Newton in 1716. It was not finished; even without an enemy, Newton fought on for another six years. For a long while, posterity would treat Leibniz with scarcely more regard. Newton's achievements were celebrated by the likes of Alexander Pope and William Wordsworth, who composed worshipful verses in his honor. Leibniz had the misfortune to stir the wrath of Voltaire, the greatest wit of his age, who caricatured him in a book still read today.

At least in scientific circles, though, Leibniz's reputation has grown through the centuries. In every history of logic or computers, especially, his ahead-of-their-age insights now meet with stunned admiration. Even in physics, where his ideas have long since been abandoned, his ambitious dreams still thrive. Today's physicists toss around such phrases as a "theory of everything." Leibniz would have felt right at home.

Near the end, Leibniz had received a letter from Caroline, Princess of Wales, his onetime pupil. She sent word that the king might possibly, at last, bring him to England. "Nothing could give me a greater desire to go there than the kindnesses of Your Royal Highness," Leibniz wrote back, "but as I do not hope to go soon, I do not know if I can hope to go later; for there is not a lot of later to hope for in me."

Leibniz died in Germany, neglected, nearly alone, and beset by a host of painful ailments. He was buried in an unmarked grave (a marker was eventually added). "You would have thought it was a felon they were burying," wrote one of the few funeral guests, "instead of a man who had been an ornament to his country."

Newton's body lies in Westminster Abbey beneath a marble statue. Perhaps it is fitting that Newton was treated as nearly G.o.dlike and Leibniz as merely mortal. "The more I got to know Leibniz," one recent biographer wrote, "the more he seemed to me all-too-human, and I quarreled with him." No one ever directed the same complaint against Newton. Leibniz was too human, and Newton seemed scarcely human at all.

In the 1980s, as we have seen, the astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, a scientist of towering reputation, went through the Principia Principia line by line in an attempt to probe the mind of his predecessor. "During the past year," Chandrasekhar told me in a 1987 interview, "I've taken proposition after proposition, written out my own proof, and then compared it with Newton's. In every case, his proofs are incredibly concise; there is not a superfluous word. The style is imperial, just written down as if the insights came from Olympus." line by line in an attempt to probe the mind of his predecessor. "During the past year," Chandrasekhar told me in a 1987 interview, "I've taken proposition after proposition, written out my own proof, and then compared it with Newton's. In every case, his proofs are incredibly concise; there is not a superfluous word. The style is imperial, just written down as if the insights came from Olympus."

"If you take great scientists," Chandrasekhar went on, "even though they made discoveries that one could not have made oneself, one can imagine imagine making them-people say, 'I could have done that, but I was just stupid.' Normal scientists can think of greater men, and it is not difficult to imagine doing what they did. But I don't think it's possible for any scientist to imagine what it would have been like to be Newton." making them-people say, 'I could have done that, but I was just stupid.' Normal scientists can think of greater men, and it is not difficult to imagine doing what they did. But I don't think it's possible for any scientist to imagine what it would have been like to be Newton."

Temperamentally, the gulf was nearly as big as it was intellectually. The usual consolations of life, friendship and s.e.x included, appealed to Newton hardly at all. Art, literature, and music had scarcely more allure. He dismissed the cla.s.sical sculptures in the Earl of Pembroke's renowned collection as "stone dolls." He waved poetry aside as "a kind of ingenious nonsense." He rejected opera after a single encounter. "The first Act I heard with pleasure, the 2d stretch'd my patience, at the 3d I ran away."

"If we evolved a race of Isaac Newtons, that would not be progress," Aldous Huxley once remarked, with a mix of wonder and horror. "For the price Newton had to pay for being a supreme intellect was that he was incapable of friendship, love, fatherhood, and many other desirable things. As a man he was a failure; as a monster he was superb."

Huxley's notion of a Faustian trade-off smacks a bit of sour grapes, as if to rea.s.sure the rest of us that this genius business is not all we imagine it to be. But Huxley was right to emphasize the gulf between Newton and everyone else. Newton's best biographer, Richard Westfall, told me many years ago that, in the course of examining Newton's life, he had lived with the man for twenty years. Westfall's magnum opus, Never at Rest Never at Rest, is a model of insight and empathy, but Westfall lamented that he never felt he knew Newton. On the contrary, Newton came to seem ever more mysterious, not only in intellect but in motives and hopes, fears and ambitions. "The more I learned," Westfall recalled, "the more I realized how far he was from me, in every regard." Newton was, Westfall declared, "wholly other."

Newton's contemporaries sensed the same gap. When the Principia Principia was new, the Marquis de L'Hopital, a skilled mathematician, read it with incredulity. L'Hopital had been pondering a technical question about how streamlined objects move through fluids, and an English mathematician showed him that Newton had worked out a solution in the was new, the Marquis de L'Hopital, a skilled mathematician, read it with incredulity. L'Hopital had been pondering a technical question about how streamlined objects move through fluids, and an English mathematician showed him that Newton had worked out a solution in the Principia Principia. "He cried out with admiration Good G.o.d what a fund of knowledge there is in that book? he then asked the Doctor every particular about Sir Isaac even to the colour of his hair said does he eat & drink & sleep. Is he like other men?"

In all the important ways, he was not like other men. Perhaps we would do better to acknowledge the gulf than to try to bridge it. At Cambridge, Newton could occasionally be seen standing in the courtyard, staring at the ground, drawing diagrams in the gravel with a stick. Eventually he would retreat indoors. His fellow professors did not know what the lines represented, but they stepped carefully around them, in order to avoid hindering the work of the lonely genius struggling to decipher G.o.d's codebook.

Acknowledgments.

My first career ambition, years ago, was to play professional basketball. This plan did not long endure. It was succeeded by a far longer-lived but perhaps equally foolish notion, to spend a lifetime studying theoretical mathematics. After several years wandering dazed through infinite dimensional s.p.a.ces, I left the hunt to those better suited to it. But I owe thanks to a host of mentors, Fred Solomon and Gene Dolnick notable among them, who first opened my eyes to mathematical beauty.

In researching this book I pestered many long-suffering physicists, historians, and philosophers with queries about everything from spiral galaxies to Leibniz's thoughts on unicorns. I owe special grat.i.tude to Rebecca Grossman, Mike Briley, Cole Miller, and, especially, Larry Carlin, who carried out, solely for my benefit, the best of all possible philosophy tutorials. Steven Shapin, an eminent historian of science, generously shared his deep insights into science and the 1600s. Owen Gingerich and Simon Schaffer sorted out historical mysteries that had stumped me. All my guides have been disabused of the belief that there's no such thing as a foolish question.

Michele Missner once again tracked down countless articles, the more obscure the better. Katerina Barry, an unflappable researcher as well as an artist and web designer, gathered images from libraries and museums across Europe and America. Rob Crawford resolved crises large and small with skill and grace. Hugh Van Dusen, my friend and my editor, demonstrated once again that he is the ideal ally.

My sons Sam and Ben, both writers, read every draft and weighed in on every editorial decision. No one could have better colleagues.

Lynn deserves more thanks than I know how to put in words.

Notes.

Sources for quotations and for a.s.sertions that might prove elusive can be found below. To keep these notes in bounds, I have not doc.u.mented facts that can be readily checked in standard sources. Publication information is provided in the notes only for those sources not listed in the bibliography.

EPIGRAPH.

The universe is but a watch: Bernard de Fontenelle, Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds (London, 1803), p.10. (London, 1803), p.10.

PREFACE.

xv The murder rate The murder rate: Manuel Eisner, "Modernization, Self-Control, and Lethal Violence. The Long-Term Dynamics of European Homicide Rates in Theoretical Perspective," British Journal of Criminology British Journal of Criminology 41, no. 4 (2001). 41, no. 4 (2001).

xv "a sooty Crust or Furr" "a sooty Crust or Furr": Barbara Freese, Coal Coal: A Human History A Human History (New York: Penguin, 2004), p.35, quoting John Evelyn. (New York: Penguin, 2004), p.35, quoting John Evelyn.

xv "a stinking "a stinking, muddy muddy, filth-bespattered" filth-bespattered": J. H. Plumb, The First Four Georges The First Four Georges (London: Fontana, 1981), p.17. (London: Fontana, 1981), p.17.

xvi The same barges The same barges: Emily c.o.c.kayne, Hubbub Hubbub: Filth Filth, Noise Noise, and Stench in England and Stench in England, p.93.

xvi When Shakespeare and his fellow When Shakespeare and his fellow: Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World A Brief Economic History of the World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), p.107. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), p.107.

xvi the palace at Versailles the palace at Versailles: Katherine Ashenburg, The Dirt on Clean, p.116.

xvifn The historian Jules Michelet The historian Jules Michelet: Ashenburg, The Dirt on Clean The Dirt on Clean, p.12. Ashenburg notes that Michelet exaggerated. She puts the correct figure at four centuries.

xvii "Men expected the sun" "Men expected the sun": Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World Science and the Modern World, p.5.

CHAPTER 1. LONDON, 1660.

4 skeletally thin Robert Boyle skeletally thin Robert Boyle: Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth A Social History of Truth. Shapin devotes a fascinating chapter to the riddle of "Who Was Robert Boyle?"

4 Boyle maintained Boyle maintained three: Lisa Jardine, three: Lisa Jardine, On a Grander Scale On a Grander Scale, p.194.

4 "low of stature" "low of stature": Leo Hollis, London Rising London Rising, p.48.

4 a "miracle of youth" a "miracle of youth": Jardine, On a Grander Scale On a Grander Scale, p.236, quoting John Evelyn.

5 "the most fearful" "the most fearful": John Maynard Keynes, "Newton, the Man," p.278, quoting the Cambridge mathematician William Whiston.

CHAPTER 2. SATAN'S CLAWS.

7 "Any cold might be" "Any cold might be": Peter Earle, The Making of the English Middle Cla.s.s The Making of the English Middle Cla.s.s: Business Business, Society and Family Life in London 16601730 Society and Family Life in London 16601730 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), p.302. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), p.302.

7 life expectancy was only life expectancy was only: Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic Religion and the Decline of Magic, p.5.

7 London was so disease-ridden London was so disease-ridden: A. Lloyd Moote and Dorothy Moote, The Great Plague The Great Plague, p.26.

7 "puppy boiled up" "puppy boiled up": Anna Beer, Milton Milton, p.386.

8 "I have had the misfortune" "I have had the misfortune": Earle, The Making of the English Middle Cla.s.s The Making of the English Middle Cla.s.s, p.302.

8 When Charles II suffered When Charles II suffered: T. B. Macaulay, History of England History of England, ch. 4, "James the Second," available at http://www.strecorsoc.org/macaulay/m04a.html. I drew details from Macaulay's History History; Antonia Fraser's Royal Charles Royal Charles, p.446; and an account by the king's chief physician, Sir Charles Scarburgh, at http://tinyurl.com/y3wgtom.

8 "For what is the cause" "For what is the cause": Adam Nicolson, G.o.d's Secretaries G.o.d's Secretaries (New York: Harper, 2005), p.25. (New York: Harper, 2005), p.25.

10 "People lived in continual terror" "People lived in continual terror": Morris Kline, Mathematics in Western Culture Mathematics in Western Culture, p.235.

11 "Those are my best days" "Those are my best days": Eugen Weber, Apocalypses Apocalypses, p.100.

12 "Threatening my father and mother" "Threatening my father and mother": Richard Westfall includes the entire list in his "Writing and the State of Newton's Conscience."

12 writer and theologian Isaac Watts writer and theologian Isaac Watts: Roy Porter, The Creation of the Modern World The Creation of the Modern World, p.157.

CHAPTER 3. THE END OF THE WORLD.

13 "The trumpet would sound" "The trumpet would sound": Perry Miller, "The End of the World," p.171.

14 "Books on the Second Coming" "Books on the Second Coming": Frank Manuel, A Portrait of Isaac Newton A Portrait of Isaac Newton, p.129.

14fn Christopher Wren's father Christopher Wren's father: Adrian Tinniswood, His Invention So Fertile: A Life of Christopher Wren A Life of Christopher Wren, p.17.

14 "great apostasy" "great apostasy": Richard Westfall, Never at Rest Never at Rest, p.321.

15 "What shall be the sign" "What shall be the sign": Matthew 24:3, King James Bible.

15 "s.e.xual musical chairs" "s.e.xual musical chairs": Lawrence Stone, The Family The Family, s.e.x s.e.x, and Marriage and Marriage, p.328.

16 "So horrible was it" "So horrible was it": David Levy's Guide to Observing and Discovering Comets David Levy's Guide to Observing and Discovering Comets (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p.9, quoting Ambroise Pare. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p.9, quoting Ambroise Pare.

16 "The thick smoke" "The thick smoke": Tinniswood, His Invention So Fertile His Invention So Fertile, p.10, quoting Andreas Celichius.