So I've read this now? (I read only part of it for RMSE, not realizing that that Decree of the Inquisition of Rome and Judgment of the professors of the college of Sapienza were also parts of the same pamphlet, or even if they're not, they're all making fun of Maupertuis.)
The very first part, where Voltaire is all "well obviously anyone who wrote all this stuff must be very young" is hilarious partially because then he refers to Maupertuis in the entire remainder of this pamphlet as a "young student" and similar.
The first part of Doctor Akakia I don't really get -- is this supposed to be making fun of Maupertuis's physics in a way that's too subtle for me to get, or did Maupertuis also talk about doctors and biology?
I'm actually kind of confused by this part generally speaking, because first he says "It is proper to inform [Maupertuis], that experience is the only mistress of man in discovering the salubrious virtues of herbs and plants" which okay, could maybe be a reference to experimental physics being a thing (e.g., that whole thing Leibnitz was trying to do with trying to explain the world from first principles) but then he says "Our young Logician pretends that physicians should henceforth be only empirics, and advises them to banish all theory" which seems to be a totally different/opposite point?!
I would fain know whether the young spark... has ever done such service to mankind, as he who unexpectedly rescued Marshal Saxe from the jaws of death after the battle of Fontenoy.
...okay, someone explain this to me, I know this is a dig :P
Decree of the Inquisition of Rome: this I understood a little more of!
We declare that the laws on the collision of bodies, perfectly hard, are puerile and imaginary, since there is no such thing that we know of as a body perfectly hard, except it be thick skulls, on which we have in vain endeavored to operate.
In physics, a common way to simplify a collision problem is to assert that it's "perfectly elastic" (no energy is absorbed by the colliders, which corresponds I think to Voltaire saying "perfectly hard") which means that kinetic energy (and momentum) is preserved. (So this goes back to the whole force vive debate about kinetic energy vs. momentum.)
The assertion, that the product of space by velocity is always a minimum, appears to us false; for the product is sometimes a maximum, as Leibnitz thought, and as it has been since demonstrated. It seems that the young author borrowed only half of Leibnitz's idea, and herein we discharge him from the imputation of having taken the entire notion from Leibnitz.
I'm not sure where Leibniz said this (in the disputed letter, maybe?) and it's not my understanding of how the principle of least action developed historically, but it's certainly true that the calculation of variations is used in the context of both minima and maxima... though that was some time later. So I think Voltaire does have something of a point here, but possibly by accident? I'm not sure though because I am not sure what Leibnitz said.
We are afraid lest the author should inspire his fellow students with some slight inclination of searching after the philosopher's stone; for he says, in whatever light we consider it, we cannot prove the impossibility of it.
...I am on Maupertuis's side here, sorry Voltaire :P Maupertuis was making a point of logic, not a point of sensibleness.
let him not upon every occasion, whether to the purpose or not, mention the polar circle.
Heh, I can just see Voltaire getting really annoyed with Maupertuis' conversation... ("But why isn't he talking more about ME?")
If any of his comrades should propose in a friendly manner a different opinion from his, if he should have the confidence to tell him that he builds upon the authority of Leibnitz, and some other philosophers, if he should particularly show him a letter of Leibnitz, and formally contradict our young student, let him not imagine, without any reflexion, nor publish to all the world, that his comrade has forged a letter of Leibniz to rob him of the glory of being an original.
The Diatribe of Doctor Akakia
So I've read this now? (I read only part of it for RMSE, not realizing that that Decree of the Inquisition of Rome and Judgment of the professors of the college of Sapienza were also parts of the same pamphlet, or even if they're not, they're all making fun of Maupertuis.)
The very first part, where Voltaire is all "well obviously anyone who wrote all this stuff must be very young" is hilarious partially because then he refers to Maupertuis in the entire remainder of this pamphlet as a "young student" and similar.
The first part of Doctor Akakia I don't really get -- is this supposed to be making fun of Maupertuis's physics in a way that's too subtle for me to get, or did Maupertuis also talk about doctors and biology?
I'm actually kind of confused by this part generally speaking, because first he says "It is proper to inform [Maupertuis], that experience is the only mistress of man in discovering the salubrious virtues of herbs and plants" which okay, could maybe be a reference to experimental physics being a thing (e.g., that whole thing Leibnitz was trying to do with trying to explain the world from first principles) but then he says "Our young Logician pretends that physicians should henceforth be only empirics, and advises them to banish all theory" which seems to be a totally different/opposite point?!
I would fain know whether the young spark... has ever done such service to mankind, as he who unexpectedly rescued Marshal Saxe from the jaws of death after the battle of Fontenoy.
...okay, someone explain this to me, I know this is a dig :P
Decree of the Inquisition of Rome: this I understood a little more of!
We declare that the laws on the collision of bodies, perfectly hard, are puerile and imaginary, since there is no such thing that we know of as a body perfectly hard, except it be thick skulls, on which we have in vain endeavored to operate.
In physics, a common way to simplify a collision problem is to assert that it's "perfectly elastic" (no energy is absorbed by the colliders, which corresponds I think to Voltaire saying "perfectly hard") which means that kinetic energy (and momentum) is preserved. (So this goes back to the whole force vive debate about kinetic energy vs. momentum.)
The assertion, that the product of space by velocity is always a minimum, appears to us false; for the product is sometimes a maximum, as Leibnitz thought, and as it has been since demonstrated. It seems that the young author borrowed only half of Leibnitz's idea, and herein we discharge him from the imputation of having taken the entire notion from Leibnitz.
I'm not sure where Leibniz said this (in the disputed letter, maybe?) and it's not my understanding of how the principle of least action developed historically, but it's certainly true that the calculation of variations is used in the context of both minima and maxima... though that was some time later. So I think Voltaire does have something of a point here, but possibly by accident? I'm not sure though because I am not sure what Leibnitz said.
We are afraid lest the author should inspire his fellow students with some slight inclination of searching after the philosopher's stone; for he says, in whatever light we consider it, we cannot prove the impossibility of it.
...I am on Maupertuis's side here, sorry Voltaire :P Maupertuis was making a point of logic, not a point of sensibleness.
let him not upon every occasion, whether to the purpose or not, mention the polar circle.
Heh, I can just see Voltaire getting really annoyed with Maupertuis' conversation... ("But why isn't he talking more about ME?")
If any of his comrades should propose in a friendly manner a different opinion from his, if he should have the confidence to tell him that he builds upon the authority of Leibnitz, and some other philosophers, if he should particularly show him a letter of Leibnitz, and formally contradict our young student, let him not imagine, without any reflexion, nor publish to all the world, that his comrade has forged a letter of Leibniz to rob him of the glory of being an original.
HA. (And then it goes on like that for a while.)