FOR RELEASE: February 26, 1999
CONTACT: Barbara Goyette
[email protected]
410-626-2539
Newton's Thought to be Subject of Conference
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) is everywhere in our modern world: his laws helped build the Golden Gate Bridge, the engineers at General Motors use his principles daily, and NASA's scientists rely on his insights for calculating orbits. Newton conceived his mathematical method as a way of gaining actual truth about nature-a view that shaped the course of modern science. But while his laws govern engineering around the world and his physics and calculus are taught in nearly every college in the country, his writings are rarely read. His most important work, the Principia, is studied by only by a few graduate students in the field of the history of science-and by every student at St. John's College.
This spring, St. John's College in Annapolis plans to focus on the study of Newton through a weekend-long conference on Newton's works and philosophy. The conference, "Beyond Hypotheses: Newton's Experimental Philosophy," will take place March 19 to 21. An accompanying exhibition of books and scientific equipment will run from March 19 through April 18. The exhibit and all events at the conference are free and open to the public.
There will be a keynote lecture on Friday, March 19 at 8:15 p.m. in FSK Auditorium by Francois de Gandt (professor of philosophy, University of Lille, France)-"Does Newton's Science Disclose Actual Knowledge of Nature?" Talks, lectures, and demonstrations will be on-going from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 20 and from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 21. Other speakers at the conference include: William Donahue, independent scholar and publisher-talk and demonstration of the double-prism experiment; George Smith (professor of philosophy, Tufts University)-"How Did Newton Arrive at the Idea of Universal Gravitation?"; Curtis Wilson (tutor emeritus, St. John's College)-talk and demonstration of the double pendulum experiment; William Harper (professor of philosophy, University of Western Ontario)-Newton's argument for universal gravitation; and Dana Densmore (independent scholar and publisher)-lesson on Proposition 7, Book III of the Principia.
The exhibition of Newtoniana will be on display in the Greenfield Library at St. John's College, Annapolis. The first, second, and third editions of Newton's Principia will be on display, showing the development of the "Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy." Other Newton writings will include A Treatise of the System of the World (1728), Isaaci Newtoni Lectiones Opticae (1729), Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel (1733), Opticks (second and third editions), Sir Isaac Newton's Two Treatises of the Quadrature of Curves (1745), and The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728). The volumes are on loan from the Burndy Library of the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology. Also on display will be a model of Newton's double-prism experiment and a replica of Newton's reflector telescope, built in 1668-9. The telescope is on loan from the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
All students at St. John's follow the same curriculum of reading and discussing the "great books," including works by important scientists and mathematicians as well as those by philosophers, historians, political scientists, poets, and novelists. "We think that Newton's Principia and the seminal works of other scientists can and should be studied by undergraduates," said Harvey Flaumenhaft, dean of the college. In laboratory sessions, St. John's students also re-create the experiments that have shaped the development of physics, chemistry, and biology, and in mathematics tutorials, they work through the problems and demonstrate the solutions of mathematicians including Euclid, Apollonius, Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, Lobachevsky, Dedekind, and Einstein.
The Newton conference and exhibition are made possible through the generosity of The Dibner Fund.
For more information, or for a conference schedule, call 410-626-2539. The conference schedule is also posted on the St. John's website at http://www.sjca.edu/campus-events/newton.html.
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