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Chapter 11 - THE CONSERVATION OF MOMENTUM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2013

Steven C. Frautschi ,
Richard P. Olenick ,
Tom M. Apostol  and
David L. Goodstein
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Summary

And with respect to the general cause, it seems manifest to me that it is none other than God himself, who, in the beginning, created matter along with motion and rest, and now by his ordinary concourse alone preserves in the whole the same amount of motion and rest that he placed in it. For although motion is nothing in the matter moved but its mode, it has yet a certain and determinate quantity, which we easily see may remain always the same in the whole universe, although it changes in each of the parts of it.

René Descartes. Principles of Philosophy (1644)

THE UNIVERSE AS A MACHINE

The seventeenth century was the century when science assumed its modern form and the scientific spirit infected Europe. It was the time when Aristotle's view of nature was rejected and Galileo's great book of the universe was adopted. The new science was nourished by an optimism that mankind could discover the laws of nature.

One of the most significant and influential figures in seventeenth-century natural philosophy was René Descartes. Early in his life, Descartes rebelled against the traditions in which he had been thoroughly educated. He sought new foundations for knowledge, foundations which could underpin certainty in our knowledge of nature. Convinced of the indubitable logic of mathematics, Descartes came to identify mathematics with physics.

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The Mechanical Universe
Mechanics and Heat, Advanced Edition
 , pp. 263 - 294
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1986

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