Following my previous post about the wonder of music and musicians I thought to offer a passage from Involution: An Odyssey. There is an important underlying reason. In the current climate of warring belief, and engendered antipathies, not to mention ‘ze grreat reset’ I seek to re-enforce that the history of Western Culture was created by individuals. These two men- Newton and Tourte- were separated by twenty years, but from modest beginnings both were pioneers that changed everything.
Being open to questions, and alive to opportunity, was what they shared, and what made the difference.
Involution is a dialogue between Reason ( Science) and Soul ( Art and Music) to show their parallel chronology in the recovery of memory. That collective recovery offers an alternative to Darwinian Evolution, showing the role of self-forgetful genius, sunk in contemplation and seeing anew. Thereby, from Pythagoras to Nicola Tesla, the lone individual recovers and re-directs human understanding.
For those interested in the references alluded to in the video text, here are some short footnotes:
On Newton.
a nose that might have been designed by Isambard…
Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859). A ground breaking engineer, he revolutionised the construction of bridges, tunnels, buildings, railways and ships. Son of a Frenchman, educated in the classics in France, his designs were not only innovative but elegant. His Clifton Suspension Bridge had the longest span of any bridge of the time and is still in use, as are the bridges constructed for the Great Western Railway.
a quart-jug midget child… play farmer if he would…
Isaac Newton (1643-1727) was born after his father’s death to Hannah Ayscough in Woolsthorpe Manor, Lincolnshire. He was so small she said he could be fitted into a ‘quart-jug’. She remarried, a hated step-father, and he was left in the care of his grandmother but on her return (after her second husband’s death) Hannah tried to persuade Newton to farm the Manor.
hypotheses non fingo…
I invent no hypotheses’. This appears at the end of Newton’s Principia Mathematica. It continues ‘…whatever cannot be deduced from the phenomena should be called an hypothesis’.In terms of the scientific use— a generalisation drawn from observed data which will further be confirmed—he constantly invented and employed hypotheses
polished Kepler’s laws…
Kepler’s laws of planetary motion were both proved and mathematically described by Newton in more general terms. Galileo had come very close to the Newtonian addition of the concept of universal gravitation in which Newton was aided by Edmond Halley.
extended Cartesian co-ordinates to calculus and later fought for it…
Calculus extended Descartes in its ability to mathematically describe and predict movement in curvature, which had become necessary in answer to the much more accurate observations of astronomy. The claims of both Leibniz and Newton to primacy raged for the whole of Newton’s life, in an embittered quarrel.
much perturbed by the irritating flattened poles of planet earth…
The shape of the earth and the moon had been demonstrated by LaGrange (1736-1813) as not perfectly spherical, which fact meant that Newton’s assumption, that the force of gravitation exercised between them acted at the centre, had to be adjusted.
On Tourte.
a marriage made in heaven.
François Xavier Tourte (1747-1835). His father was a bow maker and luthier. The Tourte violin bow devised by François was adopted through its use by the great virtuosi, Viotti and Paganini. France has since remained the home of great bow makers, whereas Cremona in Italy was the centre for the violin making by the families of Stradivari, Amati and Guarneri.
sampled timber from the Indies to Peru…
Pernambuco was the wood used by Tourte. It came from Brazil . Pau-Brazil was the original Portuguese name given to the tree, Caesalpina echinata from ‘pau’ (stick) and ‘braza’ (ember-like), a reference to its deep red colour. Originally valued for its red dye, it was a precious source for Renaissance clothing and for the Portuguese its discovery in 1500 gave a great and protected source of income. It only flourishes in mixed forests and is now in such short supply that bow makers world wide, whose livelihood depends upon it, have banded together to supervise replanting. Pernambuco is the name derived from the province in Brazil where it grew abundantly.
If you enjoyed this please let me know, there is much more of Art and Science travelling in tandem to offer!
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