442
J. Maruani
nature, for better or for worse. Darwin himself was actually inspired by the artificial
selection practised by farmers and breeders and by the struggle for life in his society.
The evolution of man will now likely proceed in the fields of culture, science, and
technology [18], possibly using mechanisms similar to those of biological evolution.
The concept of transhumanism, in its different forms, results from this novel paradigm
[19].
3 Differential and Integral Formulations in Physical
Sciences
The laws of motion of material bodies took a long time to be established [14, 15]. As
events on Earth seemed to occur at random, one first looked for predictive rules in
the regular motions of celestial objects. In the 6th century BC, Pythagoras deviced
a system where the Sun, the Moon, and the then known planets were revolving on
circles around a spherical Earth, forming a cosmic lyre ruled by harmonic numbers.
Two centuries later, Aristotle distinguished between sublunar and supralunar worlds,
motions being angular and chaotic in the lower one but circular and regular in the
upper one. When observations were refined and circular motions could no longer cope
with results, auxiliary circles (epicycles) were added to the main circles, culminating
in the complex geocentric system of Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD.
In the 16th century AD, Copernicus came to assess Aristarque’s heliocentric
model with updated numerical tables. A century later, Kepler managed to explain
the distribution and motion of planets by using a model inspired by the five platonician
polyhedra and searching for a musical fifth in the ratio L
3 /T
2 . He was led to three
laws that summarize celestial mechanics, putting an end to the dogma of circular
and uniform motions and linking area and time. Later on, Galileo derived laws for
terrestrial dynamics, introducing the concepts of inertia and acceleration and the
principle of motion relativity. Descartes played a role in the emergence of this new
paradigm by founding analytical geometry, which implies homogeneity and isotropy
of space; he was also first to propose replacing the concept of empty vacuum by that of
a space endowed with geometric and kinematic properties in the vicinity of massive
objects. But it was in the 17th century that Newton developed the theory of universal
gravity, thus unifying terrestrial and celestial mechanics.
Further refinements came with Einstein’s relativistic mechanics, which led to the
intrication of space and time and to the equivalence of mass and energy, then to the
intrication of mass and gravity and to novel cosmology theories. But the increasing
number of phenomena unexplained by these theories led to corrective adjunctions,
reminding of Ptolemy’s epicycles. Even in this most advanced field of science, a new
paradigm appears necessary.
While the human-scale world is well understood in terms of Newton’s unified
mechanics and Maxwell’s electromagnetism, the micro- and macroscopic worlds are
governed by theories that both emerged from the analysis of light properties: quantum
J. Maruani
nature, for better or for worse. Darwin himself was actually inspired by the artificial
selection practised by farmers and breeders and by the struggle for life in his society.
The evolution of man will now likely proceed in the fields of culture, science, and
technology [18], possibly using mechanisms similar to those of biological evolution.
The concept of transhumanism, in its different forms, results from this novel paradigm
[19].
3 Differential and Integral Formulations in Physical
Sciences
The laws of motion of material bodies took a long time to be established [14, 15]. As
events on Earth seemed to occur at random, one first looked for predictive rules in
the regular motions of celestial objects. In the 6th century BC, Pythagoras deviced
a system where the Sun, the Moon, and the then known planets were revolving on
circles around a spherical Earth, forming a cosmic lyre ruled by harmonic numbers.
Two centuries later, Aristotle distinguished between sublunar and supralunar worlds,
motions being angular and chaotic in the lower one but circular and regular in the
upper one. When observations were refined and circular motions could no longer cope
with results, auxiliary circles (epicycles) were added to the main circles, culminating
in the complex geocentric system of Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD.
In the 16th century AD, Copernicus came to assess Aristarque’s heliocentric
model with updated numerical tables. A century later, Kepler managed to explain
the distribution and motion of planets by using a model inspired by the five platonician
polyhedra and searching for a musical fifth in the ratio L
3 /T
2 . He was led to three
laws that summarize celestial mechanics, putting an end to the dogma of circular
and uniform motions and linking area and time. Later on, Galileo derived laws for
terrestrial dynamics, introducing the concepts of inertia and acceleration and the
principle of motion relativity. Descartes played a role in the emergence of this new
paradigm by founding analytical geometry, which implies homogeneity and isotropy
of space; he was also first to propose replacing the concept of empty vacuum by that of
a space endowed with geometric and kinematic properties in the vicinity of massive
objects. But it was in the 17th century that Newton developed the theory of universal
gravity, thus unifying terrestrial and celestial mechanics.
Further refinements came with Einstein’s relativistic mechanics, which led to the
intrication of space and time and to the equivalence of mass and energy, then to the
intrication of mass and gravity and to novel cosmology theories. But the increasing
number of phenomena unexplained by these theories led to corrective adjunctions,
reminding of Ptolemy’s epicycles. Even in this most advanced field of science, a new
paradigm appears necessary.
While the human-scale world is well understood in terms of Newton’s unified
mechanics and Maxwell’s electromagnetism, the micro- and macroscopic worlds are
governed by theories that both emerged from the analysis of light properties: quantum