Beauty and Revolution in Science / / James W. McAllister.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Archive Pre-2000
• VerfasserIn: McAllister, James W.,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2018]; ©1999
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (240 p.) :; 9 halftones

Explaining why he embraced the theory of relativity, the Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist P. A. M. Dirac stated, "It is the essential beauty of the theory which I feel is the real reason for believing in it." How reasonable and rational can science be when its practitioners speak of "revolutions" in their thinking and extol certain theories for their "beauty"? James W. McAllister addresses this question with the first systematic study of the aesthetic evaluations that scientists pass on their theories.Using a wealth of other examples, McAllister explains how scientists' aesthetic preferences are influenced by the empirical track record of theories, describes the origin and development of aesthetic styles of theorizing, and reconsiders whether simplicity is an empirical or an aesthetic virtue of theories. McAllister then advances an innovative model of scientific revolutions, in opposition to that of Thomas S. Kuhn.Three detailed studies demonstrate the interconnection of empirical performance, beauty, and revolution. One examines the impact of new construction materials on the history of architecture. Another reexamines the transition from the Ptolemaic system to Kepler's theory in planetary astronomy, and the third documents the rise of relativity and quantum theory in the twentieth century.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Two Challenges to Rationalism -- 2. Abstract Entities and Aesthetic Evaluations -- 3. The Aesthetic Properties of Scientific Theories -- 4. Two Erroneous Views of Scientists' Aesthetic Judgments -- 5. The Inductive Construction of Aesthetic Preference -- 6. The Relation of Beauty to Truth -- 7. A Study of Simplicity -- 8. Revolution as Aesthetic Rupture -- 9. Induction and Revolution in the Applied Arts -- 10. Circles and Ellipses in Astronomy -- 11. Continuity and Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics -- 12. Rational Reasons for Aesthetic Choices -- References -- Index