The Archaeology of the Inverse Square Law: (1) Metaphysical Images and Mathematical Practices

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History of Science 43 (4):391-414 (2005)
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Abstract

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 modem science - the Inverse Square Law of universal gravitation - before its celebrated application by Newton to celestial mechanics. What did it take, we ask, to tum a particular mathematical ratio into a candidate for a law of nature?

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10.1177/007327530504300402

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Hooke versus Newton.Johs Lohne - 1960 - Centaurus 7 (1):6-52.

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