Mendeleyev's Dream: The Quest for the Elements

by Paul Strathern

Avicenna also pointed out the indissoluble link between time and motion, by means of a compelling poetic image. If every single thing throughout the world was motionless, time would have no meaning.

Avicenna might well have developed a philosophy of genuine originality. His thirst for philosophical and scientific knowledge was driven by a very modern sense of existential bewilderment,

‘The finest imagination in the world could not have conceived of a better idea than the philosophers’ stone to inspire the minds and faculties of men. Without it, chemistry would not be what it is today. In order to discover that no such thing as the philosophers’ stone existed, it was necessary to ransack and analyse every substance known on earth. And in precisely this lay its miraculous influence.’

History is not what actually took place, but what we believe took place.

‘The idea of good is inconceivable if it does not include the pleasures of taste, of love, of hearing and sight… But virtue is no more than an empty word unless it means prudence in the pursuit of pleasure.’

It might appear that Copernicus had forestalled Galileo’s application of mathematics to physics, but this was not so. Copernicus had regarded the movements of the heavens as a purely mathematical problem. Mechanical notions such as weight, momentum and force did not enter into his calculations. Only when Galileo combined mathematics and physics was it possible to conceive of the notion of measurable force. And with that modern science was born.

Then why was Galileo so important? It was as if a host of these different trends came together in his mind – which showed itself to be superior in both quality and reach. Galileo’s application of mathematical analysis, his experiments, his conceptual originality (for example, the notion of force), his consummate technical skill, to say nothing of his strokes of genius – these were what set him apart from his contemporaries. Galileo was not always the first to arrive at an idea (even when he genuinely thought he was), but his was usually the finest mind to do so. And it showed in the results. Nothing illustrates this better than Galileo’s use of the telescope. The original crude perspicillium produced an image that was upside down, as well as having a magnification of less than three. By the time Galileo had finished, he had perfected a telescope capable of a magnification of over thirty which produced an image the right way up. And while others saw the telescope as a military device, Galileo understood the full potential of his ‘improved invention’. He raised his telescope to the night sky, and immediately an entire new universe was revealed.

Galileo restricted science to the question: ‘What happens?’ He ignored science’s concomitant question: ‘What is it?’ Physics can operate without the latter question, but it is a central perception of chemistry.