Tag Archives: Quantum leaps

Arts, Education, History, Science

Quantum Leaps: Hipparchus

C. 170–125 BC

HIPPARCHUS spent long periods taking measurements of the earth’s position in relation to the stars. The results enabled him to make several important findings and calculations.

. The Precession of The Equinoxes

He discovered what is now known as the “precession of the equinoxes” by comparing his own observations with those noted by Timocharis of Alexandria a century and a half previously together with earlier recordings from Babylonia. What Hipparchus soon realised was that by taking into account any observational errors made by his predecessors, the points at which the equinox (the two occasions during the year when day and night are of equal length) occurred seemed to move slowly but consistently from east to west against the backdrop of the fixed stars. He gave a value for the annual precession of around 46 seconds of the arc, which is exceptionally close to the modern figure of 50.26 seconds, given the tools and data then available to him.

. The Distance of The Moon

From these observations, Hipparchus was able to make much more accurate calculations on the length of the year, producing a figure that was accurate to within six and a half minutes.

He was also able to correctly determine the lengths of the seasons and offer more exact predictions of when eclipses would take place.

He made observations of the sun’s supposed orbit and attempted to do likewise with the more irregular orbit of the moon. Although partially successful, he could not make entirely accurate calculations.

Using measurements and timings related to the earth’s shadow during eclipses, other attempts were made to determine the size of the sun and moon and their distances from the earth. Again, while not entirely accurate, Hipparchus proposed that the distance of the moon from the earth was 240,000 miles. This is remarkably close to the modern figure.

. A Catalogue of Stars

Perhaps Hipparchus’ most important astronomical achievement was his plotting of the first known catalogue of the stars, despite warnings from some of his contemporaries that he was thus guilty of impiety. He was inspired to begin this work in 134 BC after allegedly seeing a “new star” which prompted his speculation that the stars were not fixed as had previously been thought.

He went on to record the position of 850 stars in the remaining years of his life, a significant achievement given the resources available to him. What is more, he devised a scale for recording a star’s magnitude or brightness: from the most visible (the first magnitude) to the faintest (the sixth). Though amended considerably, it is a scale still used today.

. Developing Trigonometry

Because of the accelerated developments Hipparchus was making in astronomy, he was required to break new ground in other disciplines, particularly mathematics, to facilitate his celestial observations and calculations. Most notably of all, he developed an early version of trigonometry. With no notion of sine available to him, he constructed a table of chords which calculated the relationship between the length of a line joining two points on a circle and the corresponding angle at the centre.

. Further Influence of Hipparchus

Although Hipparchus is considered to be one of the most influential astronomers of the ancient world, it is arguable that his most impacting achievements lay in the areas of mathematics and geography.

The geographer and astronomer Ptolemy cited Hipparchus as his most important predecessor, and he is most often revered for his astronomical measurements and cataloguing. Yet, as the attributed inventor of trigonometry, as well as being the first person to plot places on the earth’s surface using longitude and latitude, his influence has been long lasting and widespread.

He was able to apply his work on the trigonometry of spheres to the planet from which he made his observations. Significantly, he was the first person to use longitude and latitude in his mathematical calculations to position where places were on the earth’s surface. Like so many of Hipparchus’s achievements, it is his further pioneering work that still resonates today.

Hipparchus was born in Nicaea, Bithynia, now in modern Turkey, where he undertook some of his astronomical observations, along with sustained periods in Rhodes and to a lesser extent in Alexandria.

Most of the detail of Hipparchus’s life that has come down to us is taken from Ptolemy’s record of his achievements (because the vast majority of Hipparchus’s original work has been lost).

Standard
Medical, Psychology, Science

(Quantum Leaps): Sigmund Freud

1856–1939

“The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to the unconscious activities of the mind.” – Freud

SIGMUND Freud’s popular impact remains profound even today. Yet for a scientist who changed the world, some critics would argue that his methods were at best unscientific and at worst downright reckless. Indeed, later thinkers in the fields of psychology and psychiatry have long since discredited many of his conclusions but still the Austrian’s influence pervades. Whatever the rights or wrongs of his ‘scientific’ deductions, Sigmund Freud remains the benchmark by which others working in the same field must compare themselves and compete against.

Medical Beginnings

Freud’s entry into science was far less controversial. He began by studying medicine at the University of Vienna in 1873 and went on to take up a position at a hospital in the same city from 1882. It was time spent working with the French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–93) in Paris 1885, however, which set him on the path of his future career. Here he worked with patients suffering from hysteria and began to analyse the causes of their behaviour. Additional research with Josef Breuer back in Vienna during the early 1890s helped develop the basis for all of his future work, culminating in the publication of Studies in Hysteria in 1895.

The Idea of ‘Free Association’

In common with views generally held at the time, at the heart of Freud’s conclusions was a belief that mental illness was normally a psychological rather than a physical brain disease. Once one accepted this premise then Freud’s introduction of the idea of “psychoanalysis” for diagnosing the causes of mental disorder (and indeed ultimately to explain all mental behaviour) was a logical one.

One of the innovative tools he developed to aid in this was the idea of “free association”. Rather than hypnotise people as was traditional, Freud advocated this method whereby patients enunciated thoughts or ideas which came into their consciousness without prior contemplation or analysis.

Dream Theory

From this Freud believed he could make an insight into the “unconscious” of a patient and, in particular, the “repressed” thoughts and emotions (often related to past negative experiences) which their “conscious” prevented from being articulated or enacted upon. For Freud, having a patient understand and acknowledge their repressed desires was a route to therapy and ultimately the treatment of a mental disorder. He also believed that dreams offered a major insight into repressed thoughts held in the unconscious mind. This is shown in his most prominent work – which fully established his revolutionary approach – and which is entitled The Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1899.

While many critics were able to bear with – if not necessarily agree with – Freud’s interpretations up until this point, he caused an outcry with his 1905 Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. His conclusions included the explanation that most repressed behaviour was in essence suppression of sexual impulses and, most shockingly, this activity began in infancy. It was here that he also introduced the now notorious concept of the Oedipus complex, a phrase used by Freud to describe feelings of sexual attraction of a child for its parent of the same sex, and hostility to the parent of the other sex. This phrase, Freud claimed, speculatively at best, was one that all children passed through.

Gradually, however, Freud’s analyses would gain credibility, if not necessarily with everyone, and certainly by the 1920s they had entered the popular consciousness on a global scale. He wrote many other texts including the 1923 The Ego and the ID. Freud effectively redefined the “unconscious” as the “ID”, an intangible collection of base impulses such as instincts and emotions present in the mind from birth. With experience, living and structure, aspects of the ID would gradually help formulate a person’s “ego”.

Freud By Name, Freudian By Nature

Freud’s legacy remains as much in the tools of language that he has bestowed on the modern world as anything else. Terms he introduced or of which he altered the meaning to give them our now common understanding, include: psychoanalysis, free association, the ID, the ego, neuroses, repression, the Oedipus complex and, of course, the Freudian slip. The structured, systematic approach he brought to analysing an inherently difficult-to-quantify subject also pervaded the work of his successors in the field.

Standard
Arts, History, Science

Quantum Leaps: Charles Darwin

1809 – 1881

Darwin2

Darwin: ‘Man, with all his noble qualities, still bears the stamp of his lowly origin.’

THE spark for Darwin’s accomplishments was ignited with the 1831 HMS Beagle expedition, which was to chart coastlines in the South Americas and other areas of the Pacific. Darwin, supposedly studying religion at the time, had become increasingly absorbed with natural history and persuaded the Professor of Botany, John Henslow, to put him forward for the post of unpaid naturalist on the Beagle’s voyage. He thereby abandoned his university studies. His father, and initially the vessel’s Captain FitzRoy, resisted, but he eventually persuaded them to let him take part in the five-year expedition.

 

DURING the journey, Darwin made many geological and biological observations, but it was his time spent around the Galapagos Islands which would end up having the most significant impact on him. The ten islands are relatively isolated, even from each other, and as such act as a series of distinct observatories through which Darwin could draw comparisons. He noted that the islands shared many species of flora and fauna in common, but that each land mass often displayed distinct variations within the same group of organisms. For example, he famously noted fourteen different types of finch across the islands, notably with different shaped beaks. In each instance the particular beak seemed to best suit the capture of that bird’s prevalent food source, whether it be seeds, insects or fish.

Over the ensuing years, and upon his return to England, Darwin pondered on the reasons for the variations in the finches and other plants and animals. He soon surmised that the birds had descended from a single parent species, rather than each springing up independently. From this, he acknowledged the idea of evolution, a concept which had existed for some time but was not widely accepted. Darwin began looking for an explanation for this evolution. One text which had a particular impact on him was Thomas Malthus’s 1798 work An Essay on the Principle of Population which Darwin read in 1838. Malthus had been concerned with overpopulation resulting in famine, and the possible competition for food which would ensue. Darwin immediately saw that this could also be applied to the animal world too, where only those best adapted to food collection in their environments would survive. Those that could not compete would die out and the characteristics of the successful animals, which may have occurred in the first place by chance, would be passed onto future generations. As environments changed and animals moved about, success criteria would change, gradually resulting in variations within species, as had happened with the finches. Ultimately, new species would also be created.

 

UNFORTUNATELY, such a hypothesis would challenge the commonly held view of man as the lord of the earth, specifically created and placed upon the planet in God’s image – as described in Genesis in the Bible. Darwin was implicitly suggesting that man had evolved by chance over thousands of years. He correctly anticipated uproar and resistance to his ideas, particularly from religions leaders. Consequently, he kept his theories dark for twenty years while he gathered additional evidence to back up his case.

He finally published in 1858. He did this jointly with Alfred Russell Wallace (1823–1913), whose independent ideas were remarkably similar to Darwin’s. They agreed to a joint public declaration of their hypotheses by submission of a paper to the Linnean Society. Darwin followed this up with a more detailed account in 1859 containing evidence he had collected over the previous decades called On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.

The predicted outcry ensued and a fierce debate followed, but Darwin already had a number of close associates, particularly Thomas Huxley, known as ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’, who would vigorously defend his ideas. This left Darwin free to follow through further implications of his hypothesis in other works, including the 1871 text The Descent of Man, which articulated the idea of the evolution of the human race from other creatures.

THE LEGACY OF DARWIN

Darwin’s ideas took a long time to become generally accepted (even today they are not embraced by everyone), challenging as they did all previous conceptions of what is meant to be human.

As has been the case with so many scientists, he encountered particularly fierce opposition from the Church, whose members preferred the safety of a sacred text to the uncertainties of observation and experiment.

The idea of evolution through natural selection is, however, at the heart of modern biology. The man who disappointed his father for lack of academic interest had eventually gone on to turn an entire branch of academia on its head.

CHRONOLOGY

. 1831–36 Darwin takes the job of unpaid naturalist aboard HMS Beagle

. 1859 Publishes The Origin of Species

. 1871 Publishes The Descent of Man

. 1881 Dies and is buried at Westminster Abbey

. See also Quantum Leaps: ‘Galileo Galilei’…

RELATED: THOMAS MALTHUS

Previously written by the site author and filed on November 23, 2007 on another domain:

The Concept of ‘Overpopulation’

In 500 BC, the Chinese philosopher Han Fei–Tzu wrote:

…“In ancient times, people were few but wealthy and without strife. People nowadays think that five sons are not too many. Each son has five sons too and before the grandfather dies there are already 25 descendants. Therefore, people are more and wealth is less; they work hard and receive little. The life of a nation depends on having enough food, not upon the number of people.”

 

THIS is the earliest known comment on birth rates and population growth, and the earliest statement of the concept of over-population.

They were ideas that would return again and again in antiquity. Aristotle emphasized the need for food production to keep pace with population growth:

“When there are too many farmers the excess will be of the best kind; when there are too many labourers and mechanics, it will be of the worst kind.”

The concerns of the philosophers were justified. The population of the world grew steadily from 3-million in 10,000 BC to 250-million by the time of Christ.

Malthus concluded that the poor-law system at the time in England, with its indiscriminate doles given to large families, was actually destructive rather than helpful. Saying so seemed, and to many still seems, heartless and illiberal but it was an honest inference logically arrived at. It was not surprising then that his book provoked a storm of controversy. Malthus offered readers the hope that the birth rate might be reduced by sexual abstinence and the use of birth control – and reducing the birth rate was the answer.

 

IN MODERN TIMES the person who did most to draw attention to the dangers of overpopulation was Thomas Malthus. In 1798, at the age of 32, he published his great work, ‘Essay on the Principle of Population.’ In this landmark book, Malthus maintained that optimistic views regarding population are groundless, and that population has a tendency to increase faster than the means of maintaining it. Food production increases at an arithmetic rate; population increases at a geometric rate. In other words, human population will go on increasing until there is no food left, or until there is some other check, such as pestilence or war, and then collapse through famine.

But was Malthus wrong? Writing at the end of the eighteenth century, he was unaware of the effects that improved transport in the form of steamships and railways would have. He was unaware that colonization of new regions would open up new areas to food production. As a result, the population collapse he predicted was long delayed. He may not have been wrong in the long term, of course – only wrong for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The ideas of Malthus also lay behind the scare-mongering that went on in the 1960s and 1970s, when many influential economists and ecologists argued that human population growth was running out of control – that starvation lay just round the corner. The simple Malthusian model may work well for organisms that depend on a narrow range of foods, but the human race is far more complicated than that. People have been able to develop new high-yield strains of wheat, rice and other key foods, so that the food supply is more elastic than once thought. The over-population scare campaigns of the 1960s and 70s nevertheless generated a great deal of interest in population control, and most countries now have more or less effective birth control programmes in place. Some countries, such as Singapore, have found that their attempts to reduce the birth rate were too effective and they now need to encourage people to have more children in order to meet all their labour needs.

Standard