The New Sciences
The Second Scientific Revolution

1. The Second Scientific Revolution

   1. The Scientific Revolution of the 16th-18th centuries revolutionized the "Classical Sciences"

      1. These include astronomy, mathematics, mechanics, optics

      2. These sciences had been around since the dawn of human civilization

      3. They were, at least through the Scientific Revolution, primarily theoretical, mathematical and observational

   2. The 19th and 20th centuries witnessed the emergence of new, "Baconian" sciences

      1. These included initially the study of magnetism, electricity, heat

      2. Other new sciences emerged as well, or were radically altered beyond recognition, such as chemistry and geology

      3. These science were more experimental, based on qualitative study

      4. Rested more on collection of raw data than upon theoretical modeling

      5. Because they were based on data collection, they were also highly dependent on the development of technical equipment

   3. As the classical and the Baconian sciences begin to emerge in the early 19th century, a "Second" Scientific revolution begins

      1. Qualitative, data driven sciences become more mathematical and theoretical

      2. Theoretical and mathematical sciences begin to do much more with data collection

      3. Separate sciences began to merge or collaborate on ever larger scales

         1. Study in biology, electricity, mechanic, magnetism, and chemistry all contributed to the discovery of electromagnetic induction and field theory

         2. The unification of the study of heat and of motion produced thermodynamics

         3. The realization that electricity and light moved at the same speed confirmed suspicions of a deeper unity underlying both, and the whole natural world

   4. The Classical World View

      1. The unification and collaboration of sciences enabled a unified intellectual understanding of the physical world emerged (the Classical World View) by the 1880s

      2. Elements of the Classical World View

         1. Space and time are uniform and absolute - space is Euclidean and time flows at a constant, absolute rate

         2. The universe is made up of three things: matter, energy, and a universal ether

         3. Matter

            1. matter was made up of chemical atoms with no interior parts

            2. these atoms each had unique characteristics

            3. they could be combined to form complex chemicals, but could not be divided

         4. Ether

            1. The realization that electricity flowed in fields and that light seemed to behave as a wave seemed to confirm Newton's idea of an ether

            2. Did not waves and flows need something to flow in?

         5. Energy

            1. These atoms contained mechanical energy, and their motions and those of ever larger objects could be understood through Newton's mechanics

            2. all forms of energy - light, heat, mechanical, electromagnetic, chemical - could be interchanged, converted into one another

   5. Science as an institution and profession reorganizes

      1. Having abandoned the medieval universities in the First S.R., science returns to the university in the Second

         1. New schools are founded - the Ecole Polytechnique (France), 1794; the Royal Institution (England) 1799- among others

         2. New kinds of teaching and research emerge in the universities, notably the teaching laboratory

         3. The PhD increasingly becomes a requirement or a career in science as the nineteenth century advances

      2.  New specialized institutions and associations emerge for the various sciences, as do new journals

      3. And new language - the word "scientist" is coined in English in 1840

2. Applied Sciences in the Second Scientific Revolution

   1. As both industrialization and science progress, real collaboration becomes increasingly common in the 19th century

   2. Faraday's and Maxwell's work on energy fields led directly to new developments

      1. Wheatstone and Morse's work on the telegraph followed shortly on Faraday's demonstration of magnetic inductions

      2. Maxwell and Hertz's work on electromagnetic waves directly inspired Marconi to develop the radio

      3. The development of electrical generators and motors was also a logical outcome of Faraday and Maxwell's work

   3. This was true in other areas - 19th century advances in chemistry led to the development of synthetic dyes

   4. But in all of these cases and others, significant technical hurdles had to be overcome to turn scientific discovery into viable, commercial technologies