October 24, 2018 Wednesday
Bedtime Story
What Novum Organum was About
For a long time after Aristotle, great
importance was laid upon the logic part at the cost of the assumptions on which
the truth would be arrived at.
This is what Francis Bacon was critical of
and pointed it out scathingly in the very opening of the first volume.
This is what he had to say:
“The syllogism is made up of propositions,
propositions of words, are words are markers of notions.
Thus if the notions themselves (and this is
the heart of the matter) are confused, and recklessly abstracted from things,
nothing built on them is sound.
The only hope therefore lies in true
induction.”
One must keep in mind, and I do not mind
repeating, that Bacon’s treatise “New Instrument of Science” is not a science
book say like that of Newton’s Principia.
It, in a sense, perhaps is much more than
that with no disregard to Newton.
What this treatise is about is well
reflected by the illustration on its cover page that is pregnant with deep
metaphorical connotation.
The cover page shows a galleon (these large
multi-decked sailing ships are hardly to be seen these days) passing between
the two mythical Pillars of Hercules that stand on either sides of the Strait
of Gibraltar.
Now let us consider the reason for Bacon
using the Strait of Gibraltar.
A strait is nearly synonymous with channel
(and converse of an isthmus) though not with a canal for the simple reason
being that canal is artificial and man-made whereas straight or a channel is a
naturally occurring geographical structure.
A straight is narrow waterway that connects
two large water bodies and for this reason it has to lie between two large land
masses.
A straight or a channel is usually
navigable for sailing of even larger shipping vessels and this allows
navigation for international trading possible making them politically sensitive
special economic zones.
In the specific case of Gibraltar, this
narrow straight links Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Sea which in a way
means that one upon a time for the great civilizations around the Fertile
Crescent it was the only passage for the explorers to the New World or even the
rest of the Old World.
Now if you were to enter the Strait of
Gibraltar from the Mediterranean Sea side, both the ends of it – the European
as well as the African - are flanked by large hard rocky masses that are called
promontories.
The European promontory would be the
Northern one and the African promontory the Southern one.
Of these two promontories the Northern or
the European one is more prominent and is known as the Rock of Gibraltar and
the both together are known as the Pillars of Hercules.
But what is the story behind this peculiar
name?
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
Advertisements
Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
No comments:
Post a Comment