THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE INVERSE SQUARE LAW-CD METAPHYSICAL IMAGES AND MATHEMATICAL PRACTICES

摘要

The following paper, together with its sequel ("The use and non-use of mathematics"), is a study in the mathematization of nature. It looks into the history of one of the most emblematic achievements of this fundamental aspect of the making of modern science - the Inverse Square Law of universal gravitation - before its celebrated application by Newton to celestial mechanics. What did it take, we ask, to turn a particular mathematical ratio into a candidate for a law of nature?