The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World
by Edward Dolnick
2011 / 416 pages
read by Alan Sklar – 10h 7m
rating 7  / history of science/math

I should have finished this before the New Year,  but here it sat, half finished and waiting for me.   I don’t know how I missed it in trying to clean up unfinished books.

This is basically a rather lively portrait of Isaac Newton and that era of history in which he and other scientists worked.  That era which used Decartes’  idea that the world operated like a clock – a self-regulating universe where God had set up everything in perfect order and they could measure it and come to know it.   Some scientists were more enamored with that idea than others but in general that’s the way it was with cutting edge math-science- philosophy or  “natural science” as it was called then.  Still there was was much that was clouded in the mystery of the unknown,  so there was still plenty of belief in angels, superstitions and miracles. >>>>MORE (no spoilers) >>>>