Practical Matter: Newton's Science in the Service of Industry and Empire, 1687-1851

“A highly ambitious and provocative survey of the cultural history of science and industry” from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries (Journal of Modern History).

In 1687, the publication of Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica sparked a profound transformation in the world. From that event in the late-seventeenth century to the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851, science gradually moved to the center Western thought and economic development. In Practical Matter, Margaret Jacob and Larry Stewart chronicle this dramatic, epochal shift.

Despite powerful opposition on the Continent, a Newtonian understanding gained broad-based acceptance and practical application. By the mid-eighteenth century, the race was on to apply Newtonian mechanics to industry and manufacturing. The ascendancy of the new science culminated in the creating of the Crystal Palace Exhibition, London’s temple to scientific and technological progress.

With fascinating insight into the changing culture of industry and higher learning, Jacob and Stewart show that there was nothing inevitable about the Scientific Revolution. “It is easy to forget that science might have been stillborn, or remained the esoteric knowledge of court elites. Instead, for better and for worse, science became a centerpiece of Western culture.”

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Practical Matter: Newton's Science in the Service of Industry and Empire, 1687-1851

“A highly ambitious and provocative survey of the cultural history of science and industry” from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries (Journal of Modern History).

In 1687, the publication of Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica sparked a profound transformation in the world. From that event in the late-seventeenth century to the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851, science gradually moved to the center Western thought and economic development. In Practical Matter, Margaret Jacob and Larry Stewart chronicle this dramatic, epochal shift.

Despite powerful opposition on the Continent, a Newtonian understanding gained broad-based acceptance and practical application. By the mid-eighteenth century, the race was on to apply Newtonian mechanics to industry and manufacturing. The ascendancy of the new science culminated in the creating of the Crystal Palace Exhibition, London’s temple to scientific and technological progress.

With fascinating insight into the changing culture of industry and higher learning, Jacob and Stewart show that there was nothing inevitable about the Scientific Revolution. “It is easy to forget that science might have been stillborn, or remained the esoteric knowledge of court elites. Instead, for better and for worse, science became a centerpiece of Western culture.”

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Practical Matter: Newton's Science in the Service of Industry and Empire, 1687-1851

Practical Matter: Newton's Science in the Service of Industry and Empire, 1687-1851

by Margaret C. Jacob, Larry Stewart
Practical Matter: Newton's Science in the Service of Industry and Empire, 1687-1851

Practical Matter: Newton's Science in the Service of Industry and Empire, 1687-1851

by Margaret C. Jacob, Larry Stewart

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Overview

“A highly ambitious and provocative survey of the cultural history of science and industry” from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries (Journal of Modern History).

In 1687, the publication of Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica sparked a profound transformation in the world. From that event in the late-seventeenth century to the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851, science gradually moved to the center Western thought and economic development. In Practical Matter, Margaret Jacob and Larry Stewart chronicle this dramatic, epochal shift.

Despite powerful opposition on the Continent, a Newtonian understanding gained broad-based acceptance and practical application. By the mid-eighteenth century, the race was on to apply Newtonian mechanics to industry and manufacturing. The ascendancy of the new science culminated in the creating of the Crystal Palace Exhibition, London’s temple to scientific and technological progress.

With fascinating insight into the changing culture of industry and higher learning, Jacob and Stewart show that there was nothing inevitable about the Scientific Revolution. “It is easy to forget that science might have been stillborn, or remained the esoteric knowledge of court elites. Instead, for better and for worse, science became a centerpiece of Western culture.”


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780674264694
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication date: 01/18/2023
Series: New Histories of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 216
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

Margaret C. Jacob is Distinguished Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles.

Larry Stewart is Professor of History, University of Saskatchewan, Canada.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1 1 The Newtonian Revolution 9 2 The Western Paradigm Decisively Shifts 26 3 Popular Audiences and Public Experiments 61 4 Practicality and the Radicalism of Experiment 93 5 Putting Science to Work: European Strategies 119 Epilogue 155 Notes 161 Acknowledgments 191 Index 193
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