The first "mechanical" clock was first created by the Europeans in the late 13th century. The clocks works were exposed allowing many philosophers and scientist to take interest and even further their discoveries. For example Robert Boyle, philosopher took the metaphor of the many working pieces of the clock as a way of understanding how the natural world was placed together and how it functions today. Not only did philosophers take great interest in the works but scientists as well. What was it about the clock that intrigued these people? What were these scientists looking for? Johannes Kepler, German astronomer, was out to prove the universe is not like the divine being but more like a clock and in doing so found the key to the solar system.
These are certainly the positive sides of curiosity and science. There is certainly much fear of science and the curiosity that comes along with science. For example the Large Hadron Collider. This is a nine year, so far, project, that is being created to "collide" protons. Some say the day this will happen is the day the earth will fall into a black hole. Scientist being interviewed really don't believe this will happen but believe it will open the door for more discoveries. As one scientist claims, this is the beginning of moving matter from one side of the world to the next in a matter of seconds! This is certainly years to come but the beginning of new discoveries of science.
Think back to the inventor of the clock. Was the intent for people to use the clock to understand the universe, or was it simply to keep track of time and keep order? Or both?
Resources of articles:
Large Hadron Collider: The Discovery Machine
a global collaboration of scientists in preparing to start up the greatest particle physics experiment in history
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-discovery-hadron-collider&print=true
Johaness Kepler
http://Galileo.phys.Virginia.EDU/classes/109N/1995/lectures/kepler.html
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