Representing space in the scientific revolution / David Marshall Miller.

Representing space in the scientific revolution / David Marshall Miller.

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2014.

xiii, 235 pages ; 24 cm

"The novel understanding of the physical world that characterized the scientific revolution depended on a fundamental shift in the way its protagonists understood and described space. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, spatial phenomena were described in relation to a presupposed central point; by its end, space had become a centerless void in which phenomena could only be described by reference to arbitrary orientations"-- Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: centers and orientations
Pluribus ergo existentibus centris: explanations, descriptions, and Copernicus
Non est motus omnino: Gilbert, verticity, and the law of the whole
Respicere sinus: Kepler, oriented Space, and the ellipse
Mille movimenti circolari: from Impetus to conserved curvilinear motion in Galileo
Directions sont entre elles paralleles: Descartes and his critics on oriented space and the parallelogram rule
Incline it to verge: Newton's spatial synthesis
Conclusion: methodological morals.

Great Britain -- England.

Q125.2 .M55 2014