Right, Newton with his prism and silent face. The gravitational theory had less sex appeal because it required some fearsome mathematics, and not many people outside astronomers, new philosophers -- we call them scientists, a term coined by William Whewell in I think 1837, and the stray enlightened despot, cared that much.
--- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> Shane Mage wrote:
> >
> > Carrol Cox wrote:
> >
> > >Nature, and Nature's Laws, lay hid in night;
> > >God said, Let Newton Be, and all was light.
> > > A. Pope
> >
> > But 'twould not last, for Satan, roaring "Ho!
> > Let Einstein Be," restored the status quo.
> > A. Nonymous
>
> Pope, and most of Newton's contemporaries, did not
> associate him with
> gravity but with optics. Hence the decorum here of
> echoing Let there be
> light. I believe that was even still the case in
> Wordsworth's days, and
> his references to Newton make more sense if one
> thinks of the prism
> rather than the moon and an apple.
>
> Carrol
>
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