The Birth of a New Physics by I Bernard Cohen (Vintage 1968 Edition)

The Birth of a New Physics is a book written by I. Bernard Cohen, first published in 1960. The book explores the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century and the birth of modern physics, focusing on the work of Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton.

Cohen argues that the scientific revolution was not simply a matter of new discoveries, but a fundamental shift in the way people thought about the world around them. He describes how Galileo challenged the Aristotelian worldview that had dominated Western thought for centuries, and how Newton built on Galileo’s work to develop a new mathematical framework for understanding the natural world.

The book explores the development of concepts such as inertia, force, and mass, and how they were applied to the study of motion and gravity. Cohen also examines the cultural and historical context of the scientific revolution, including the role of the church and the political and economic forces that shaped scientific inquiry.

The Birth of a New Physics is a seminal work in the history of science, and has been widely praised for its accessible style and insightful analysis. It has inspired generations of scholars to study the history of science and the evolution of scientific thought.