Is it not an extraordianary phenomenon?

Question

While researching to write an article on human creativity, its nature and incidence, I came upon a very interesting observation: the persistence of creativity in the sciences almost concentrated in certain areas of the world. There are , certainly, manifestations of the outward reach of creative enterprise in many lands and climes, there is also an exuberant birth and growth, in the sciences, in what we now term as British Islands. Not all over the palce, but most notably it took birth in the middle areas of ENGLAND and in Scotland. Almost all the basic fundamental principles, now accepted as the laws of physics, have sprung from England; these comprise the known laws in Heat, Light, Electricity, Magnetism, Astrophysics and Evolutionary Biology. In Scotland, however, the inventive genius took a different shape; they concentrated on the mechanical side, creating machines on the principles developed in ENGLAND. Germany too exploited the power-based innovation based on the fundamentals borne in England, just as the Japanes are doing today with great efficiency in applied mechanics.

Basic to all these developments are the priciples of science iniated in England over the last two cenuries after the great Industrial Revolution. I am fascinated by this apparent phenomenon and I would like you to contribute to this discussion. THank you very much indeed for your cooperation.

Answer 1

British scientists, rather than just English or Scottish, have made many contributions to technology and fundamental scientific advances. For example, The Cornish man John Couch Adams (June 5, 1819 – January 21, 1892) developed general and special perturbation theory for orbital motion and he correctly predicted the position of Neptune before it was discovered. Furthermore, the Chemist Sir Humphrey Davy, 1st Baronet FRS (17 December 1778 – 29 May 1829) was also Cornish as was the steam engineer Richard Trevithick (April 13, 1771 – April 22, 1833). More recently the Welsh physicist Brian David Josephson (born 4 January 1940; Cardiff, Wales) contributed to the development of super conductivity theory and the Cornish radio astronomer Antony Hewish (born Fowey, Cornwall, May 11, 1924) discovered neutron stars. But British scientists were not alone in their contributions to the advancement of physics and its supporting mathematical structure, many Europeans, Americans, Japanese, Russians and Indians, among other ethnicities’, have made great and important contributions too! I will use physics as the main example for developing my arguments here. The arguments will necessarily have to be brief along with, unfortunately, some glaring omissions!

Starting perhaps with Newton's great theoretical advances in mathematics, mechanics, optics, and gravitation; British scientists and technologists were perhaps slightly ahead of the world in certain areas of physics, mathematics, and other sciences until the middle of the ninetieth-century. Never the less, Newton used the mathematics of Euclid, along with his own fluxions (later called differential calculus after its co-developer Leibniz), and the planetary motion theories of the German mathematician Kepler, to develop his theory of gravity. However, many European theorists and scientists contributed to the development of mathematics and mechanics. Without Laplace, Lagrange, and the Irish genius Hamilton, where would mathematical physics be today?

Germans made most of the theoretical advances in physics during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Let us not forget that Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was a German Jew. Although British physicists (Thompson and Chadwick) and a New Zealander (Rutherford) discovered the electron, neutron and nucleus/proton respectively; a Dane (Bohr) developed the first successful atomic model, which was later replaced by the quantum mechanics of an Austrian Schrödinger and a German Heisenberg. Bohr later developed the first nuclear model in 1936 (the Liquid Drop model), with the single particle shell model being developed by the American-German Marie Meyer in 1949. Bohr’s son added the collective nuclear model in 1956.   A German and Austrian team of Otto Hann and Lise Meitner  discovered nuclear fission  just before the outbreak of world war two. World war two was ended by two atomic bombs developed in the USA by a joint British, German, Hungarian, Italian (Enico Fermi) and American team. Most of the more recent theoretical and experimental discoveries have been made by multinational teams of physicists, mathematicians, and engineers. If anything, British scientists no longer make such a large contribution to the world of physics or mathematics; with the exceptions of perhaps Steven Hawking and Roger Penrose.

Thus, to summarise – although British scientists have made many brilliant insights along the road of discovery, within science and engineering, they have always been building upon the work of many others around the world! Furthermore, the English and the Scots are not the only British contributors’ to creative science and engineering. The Cornish, Welsh and Irish inventors, engineers and scientists have also made their contributions felt! Isaac Newton said ‘If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants (1676)’. He was perhaps referring to Galileo, Kepler,  and Copernicus – all Europeans!

Answer 2

I think Bramble's answer is too harsh, although he does have a point.

I think the renaissance and industrial revolution, which you appear to attribute to Britain, should more fairly be thought of as a European phenomenon, not just British.

That's not to say, however, that Britain didn't play an impressive part - it certainly did.

Answer 3

you need to get out more

Answer 4

Not that I would deny my countries contribution to the sciences but I must point out that most cultures at one time or another have made significant contributions also. From what I would surmise, when a culture reaches a level of te3chnological development in excess of those around it there is time to reflect on the world (you aren't in a daily struggle to find food) and that reflection leads to new insights and invention. The romans made many an advance (roads, aquaducts, etc), arabian and greek development  of mathematics were millenia ahead of that in europe. Indeed if it were not for the mathematics exported to the west in medieval times it is unlikely that the industrial revolution could have taken place. The wheel (invented circa 5000 BC in mesopotamia), I would say, has enabled major advance. I would think it arrogant for any one culture to lay claim to the advances of a whole species.

Answer 5

I agree that the industrial revolution and the birth of the great leap in scientific knowledge that happened in the nineteenth century were phenomenal. It all came together in the twentieth century and took us from horse drawn carriages to the Moon and beyond.  The Apollo project has been likened to JFK giving the U.S. a swift kick into the twentieth first century and the technology that the space age has spawned.  The industrial revolution, was not unlike a sudden burst of technology that might occur, and mankind would be changed as much as, if the Earth were contacted and given knowledge by an advanced alien civilization. A lot is made about ancient knowledge and it's rediscovery in the age of enlightenment but the birth of science as we know it is a modern marvel. I believe none of it may have happened if it were not for the birth of institues of higher education like colleges and universities.  It brought together men of science and gave them the means to make great discoveries in many cases.

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Answer 6

... And I'm sure this would be very interesting if said in plain English. Is WHAT not an extraordinary phenomenon?

Answer 7

I agree, England quite simply rules when it comes to inventions.

Banknotes, cash machines, fans, and much much more.

Answer 8

Yes this is what I have been thinking for a long time.

The genius of say Newton and the major inventions that England have discovered is it just a coincidence.

The question is why is there so many ideas and inventions came from a small island?

What is it about people,climate and are location is there a connection.

Answer 9

Apologies but I have absolutly no idea what your talking about.

Answer 10

I hope you will get a lot of answers this question.

This kind of clustering is an extremely interesting phenomenon.  Look up the "Scottish Renaissance", and you might also consider classical Greece and Renaissance Italy.  Also the enormous disproportion of Nobel prizewinners between different ethnic groups.

Some relevant factors may be a high enough population density, adequate communications, a class of people with at least some leisure, and an attitude of willingness to entertain new ideas.

This last I regard as of enormous importance as we move forward into what may well be an extremely troubling era for humankind, which is why I spend time on YA.

Answer 11

The problem is: it is necessary to prove that e.g. German scientists adopted and developed the ideas of English scientists. In 18th and 19th centuries, scientists' communication with each other was inefficient, so it was possible that one scientist discovered something, and later a scientist in a different country discovered the same independently.

Answer 12

Do I detect that you are British and researching In British libraries??  What a heap of bullshit!!  I am tempted to draw a sporting analogy here to the English still wallowing in the pride of their dubious 1966 world cup victory?  

Whilst there's no denying that there have been major intellectual contributions from British, to imply that Britain was ever the centre of the universe in this respect seems altogether pre- Copernican.

Whilst fully recognising pinnacles such as Newton, Maxwell, Faraday, Kelvin and Rutherford, not to mention truly worthy notables such as Stevenson, Harrison and Napier, can we seriously say they overshadowed Lorenzo, Galileo, Leibnitz, Lagrange, Laplace, Bernoulli, Gauss, Lorentz, Einstein, Schroedinger, Pauli, Heisenberg, Planck, Bohr, Curie and a host of other non-Brits?  There may be a case for claiming that Europe was the cradle of the Renaissance but to even imply that the islands somehow deserve more than their proportion of the credit for the intellectual works of history is little short of ludicrous.

I suggest you do some more serious research (also into spelling and formulation) before shooting out such useless garbage.