Page 96 - A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking

A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking... Chapter 12
Copernicanism, regretted having allowed its publication. The Pope argued that although the book had the
official blessing of the censors, Galileo had nevertheless contravened the 1616 decree. He brought Galileo
before the Inquisition, who sentenced him to house arrest for life and commanded him to publicly renounce
Copernicanism. For a second time, Galileo acquiesced.

Galileo remained a faithful Catholic, but his belief in the independence of science had not been crushed. Four
years before his death in 1642, while he was still under house arrest, the manuscript of his second major book
was smuggled to a publisher in Holland. It was this work, referred to as Two New Sciences, even more than his
support for Copernicus, that was to be the genesis of modern physics.

ISAAC NEWTON

Isaac Newton was not a pleasant man. His relations with other academics were notorious, with most of his later
life spent embroiled in heated disputes. Following publication of Principia Mathematica – surely the most
influential book ever written in physics – Newton had risen rapidly into public prominence. He was appointed
president of the Royal Society and became the first scientist ever to be knighted.

Newton soon clashed with the Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, who had earlier provided Newton with
much-needed data for Principia, but was now withholding information that Newton wanted. Newton would not
take no for an answer: he had himself appointed to the governing body of the Royal Observatory and then tried
to force immediate publication of the data. Eventually he arranged for Flamsteed’s work to be seized and
prepared for publication by Flamsteed’s mortal enemy, Edmond Halley. But Flamsteed took the case to court
and, in the nick of time, won a court order preventing distribution of the stolen work. Newton was incensed and
sought his revenge by systematically deleting all references to Flamsteed in later editions of Principia.

A more serious dispute arose with the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz. Both Leibniz and Newton had
independently developed a branch of mathematics called calculus, which underlies most of modern physics.
Although we now know that Newton discovered calculus years before Leibniz, he published his work much
later. A major row ensued over who had been first, with scientists vigorously defending both contenders. It is
remarkable, however, that most of the articles appearing in defense of Newton were originally written by his
own hand – and only published in the name of friends! As the row grew, Leibniz made the mistake of appealing
to the Royal Society to resolve the dispute. Newton, as president, appointed an “impartial” committee to
investigate, coincidentally consisting entirely of Newton’s friends! But that was not all: Newton then wrote the
committee’s report himself and had the Royal Society publish it, officially accusing Leibniz of plagiarism. Still
unsatisfied, he then wrote an anonymous review of the report in the Royal Society’s own periodical. Following
the death of Leibniz, Newton is reported to have declared that he had taken great satisfaction in “breaking
Leibniz’s heart.”

During the period of these two disputes, Newton had already left Cambridge and academe. He had been active
in anti-Catholic politics at Cambridge, and later in Parliament, and was rewarded eventually with the lucrative
post of Warden of the Royal Mint. Here he used his talents for deviousness and vitriol in a more socially
acceptable way, successfully conducting a major campaign against counterfeiting, even sending several men to
their death on the gallows.

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