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The clockwork universe is a concept which compares the
universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents. It comprises all of existence, any fundamental interaction, physical process and physical constant, and therefore all forms of matter and energy, and the structures they form, from s ...
to a
mechanical clock A clock or chronometer is a device that measures and displays time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month, and the ye ...
. It continues ticking along, as a perfect machine, with its gears governed by the
laws of physics Scientific laws or laws of science are statements, based on repeated experiments or observations, that describe or predict a range of natural phenomena. The term ''law'' has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, accurate, broad, or narrow) ...
, making every aspect of the machine predictable. It evolved during the
Enlightenment Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to: Age of Enlightenment * Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...
in parallel with the emergence of Newton's laws governing motion and gravity.


History

This idea was very popular among deists during the
Enlightenment Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to: Age of Enlightenment * Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...
, when
Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed ...
derived his laws of motion, and showed that alongside the law of universal
gravitation In physics, gravity (), also known as gravitation or a gravitational interaction, is a fundamental interaction, a mutual attraction between all massive particles. On Earth, gravity takes a slightly different meaning: the observed force b ...
, they could predict the behaviour of both terrestrial objects and the
Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...
. A similar concept goes back to John of Sacrobosco's early 13th-century introduction to astronomy: '' On the Sphere of the World''. In this widely popular medieval text, Sacrobosco spoke of the universe as the ''machina mundi'', the machine of the world, suggesting that the reported eclipse of the Sun at the crucifixion of Jesus was a disturbance of the order of that machine. Responding to
Gottfried Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Isaac Newton, Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in ad ...
, a prominent supporter of the theory, in the
Leibniz–Clarke correspondence The Leibniz–Clarke correspondence was a scientific, theological and philosophical debate conducted in an exchange of letters between the German thinker Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Samuel Clarke, an English supporter of Isaac Newton during the ...
,
Samuel Clarke Samuel Clarke (11 October 1675 – 17 May 1729) was an English philosopher and Anglican cleric. He is considered the major British figure in philosophy between John Locke and George Berkeley. Clarke's altered, Nontrinitarian revision of the 1 ...
wrote:Davis, Edward B. 1991. "Newton's rejection of the "Newtonian world view" : the role of divine will in Newton's natural philosophy." Science and Christian Belief 3, no. 2: 103-117. Clarke quotation taken from article. In 2009, artist Tim Wetherell created a wall piece for
Questacon Questacon – The National Science and Technology Centre is an interactive science communication facility in Canberra, Australia. It is a museum with more than 200 interactive exhibits related to science and technology. The National Science an ...
(The National Science and Technology centre in Canberra, Australia) representing the concept of the clockwork universe. This steel artwork contains moving gears, a working clock, and a movie of the
lunar terminator A terminator or twilight zone is a moving line that divides the daylight, daylit side and the dark night side of a astronomical object, planetary body. The terminator is defined as the locus (mathematics), locus of points on a planet or natural s ...
.


See also

*
Mechanical philosophy Mechanism is the belief that natural wholes (principally living things) are similar to complicated machines or artifacts, composed of parts lacking any intrinsic relationship to each other. The doctrine of mechanism in philosophy comes in two diff ...
*
Determinism Determinism is the Metaphysics, metaphysical view that all events within the universe (or multiverse) can occur only in one possible way. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes ov ...
*
Eternalism (philosophy of time) In the philosophy of space and time, eternalism is an approach to the ontological nature of time, which takes the view that all existence in time is equally ''real'', as opposed to presentism or the growing block universe theory of time, in wh ...
*
History of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient history, ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural science, natural, social science, social, and formal science, formal. Pr ...
*
Orrery An orrery is a mechanical Solar System model, model of the Solar System that illustrates or predicts the relative positions and motions of the planets and natural satellite, moons, usually according to the heliocentric model. It may also represent ...
*
Philosophy of space and time Philosophy of space and time is a branch of philosophy concerned with ideas about knowledge and understanding within space and time. Such ideas have been central to philosophy from its inception. The philosophy of space and time was both an inspi ...
* Superdeterminism


References


Further reading

* E. J. Dijksterhuis (1961) ''The Mechanization of the World Picture'',
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
* Dolnick, Edward (2011
''The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World''
HarperCollins. * David Brewster (1850) "A Short Scheme of the True Religion", manuscript quoted in ''Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton'', cited in Dolnick, page 65. *
Anneliese Maier Anneliese Maier (; November 17, 1905 in Tübingen, Germany – December, 1971 in Rome, Italy) was a German historian of science particularly known for her work researching natural philosophy in the middle ages. Biography Anneliese Maier was th ...
(1938) ''Die Mechanisierung des Weltbildes im 17. Jahrhundert'' * Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen (1996) "The Emergence of Rational Dissent." ''Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in Eighteenth-Century Britain'',
Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...
page 19. * Westfall, Richard S. ''Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England''. p. 201. * Riskins, Jessica (2016)
The Restless Clock: A History of the Centuries-Long Argument over What Makes Living Things Tick
',
University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the university press of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It pu ...
.


External links


"The Clockwork Universe".
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200214215544/http://physicalworld.org/restless_universe/html/ru_2_11.html , date=2020-02-14 ''The Physical World''. Ed. John Bolton, Alan Durrant, Robert Lambourne, Joy Manners, Andrew Norton. History of physics Isaac Newton Astronomical hypotheses Anthropic principle Physical cosmology Determinism