Abstract
THE sixth lecture of the series “Science in the Social World” organized by the Left Book Club Scientists' Group was delivered on March 28 by Prof. P. M. S. Blackett, his subject being “The Social Background of the Rise of Science in the Seventeenth Century”. Prof. Blackett contrasted the view that the rather sudden rise of modern science in the seventeenth century was largely a matter of chance, with the view that this rise was closely related to the technical needs of the time. In particular, the progress of navigation and mining in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had led to a very urgent demand for the solution of certain scientific problems. The importance attached to these problems is shown by the efforts made to solve them. For example, at the end of the fifteenth century, eighty-three astronomers were employed in Lisbon on problems connected mainly with navigation, and by the end of the sixteenth century large financial rewards in the shape of prizes were offered for the solution of the problem of longitude. Again, Agricola in his book “De Re Metallica”, published in 1556, listed sixteen different ways of pumping mines clear of water, a clear sign that no one of them was really satisfactory.It is interesting to note that the use of a clock at sea as a way of finding longitude was suggested so early as 1530, but that it was not until 1764 that this method was successfully used. Many of the scientific problems solved by Newton and his contemporaries had been raised into prominence between one and two hundred years before by the demand of practical techniques. The technical progress in the Middle Ages was not only an important contributory cause of the rise of modern science, but also led to a political struggle between the monarchy and feudal aristocracy against the rising merchant and business class. In England the struggle had been won by the latter by the time of the founding of the Royal Society, and this fact undoubtedly contributed to the rapidity with which science and technique developed in England.
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Social Background of the Rise of Science. Nature 141, 679 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/141679c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/141679c0