THE INTELLIGIBILITY OF NATURE science.culture A series edited by Steven Shapin Other science.culture series titles available: The Scientific Revolution,by Steven Shapin () Putting Science in Its Place,by David N.Livingstone () Human-Built World,by Thomas P.Hughes () THE INTELLIGIBILITY OF NATURE How Science Makes Sense of the World Peter Dear         Peter Dear is the President Andrew O.White Professor ofthe History ofScience atCornellUniversity.He is the author ofRevolutionizing the Sciences:European Knowledge andIts Ambitions,–and Discipline and Experience:The Mathematical Way in the ScientificRevolution,the latter published by the University ofChicago Press. The University ofChicago Press,Chicago  The University ofChicago Press,Ltd.,London © by The University ofChicago All rights reserved.Published  Printed in the United States ofAmerica   :---(cloth) Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dear,Peter Robert. The intelligibility ofnature :how science makes sense ofthe world / Peter Dear. p.cm.— (Science.culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. --- (alk.paper) .Science—Methodology—History..Science—Philosophy—History. .Reasoning—History..Philosophy ofnature—History.I.Title.II.Series. ..  —dc  oThe paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of theAmerican National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence ofPaper forPrinted Library Materials,.-.  ,    Contents List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction:Science as Natural Philosophy, Science as Instrumentality  .The Mechanical Universe from Galileo to Newton  .A Place for Everything:The Classification of the World  .The Chemical Revolution Thwarted by Atoms  .Design and Disorder:The Origin of Species  .Dynamical Explanation:The Aether and Victorian Machines  .How to Understand Nature? Einstein,Bohr,and the Quantum Universe  Conclusion:Making Sense in Science  Notes  Bibliographical Essay  Index  Illustrations .. An optical puzzle  .. Descartes’s mechanical ideas  .. A magnet according to Descartes  .. Creation of sparks,from Hooke’s Micrographia  .. Geoffroy’s table of rapports  .. From Linnaeus’s Systema vegetabilium  .. From Cuvier’s Tableau élémentaire de l’histoire des animaux  .. Lavoisier’s experiment to analyze water  .. Dalton’s atoms  .. Darwin’s Galápagos finches  .. Diagram of descent,from Darwin’s Origin of Species  .. Man and apes,from Huxley’s Man’s Place in Nature  .. Magnetism according to Faraday  .. Diffraction of light according to Fresnel  .. An experiment to show magneto-optic rotation  .. Maxwell’s electromagnetic aether  .. From W.H.Russell’s The Atlantic Telegraph  .. Bohr’s atomic model for hydrogen  .. Interference fringes  .. The first three harmonics of a musical string  .. Heisenberg’s flawed thought-experiment  .. Natural philosophers at work  .. Quantum chemistry  .. The earth according to Hutton  .. An isosceles triangle  .. The four-color map theorem 