Decline of Science in England [57]
and character of those of the highest degree of accuracy.
One of its numerous processes is to make multitudes of observations, and out of these to select those only which agree, or very nearly agree. If a hundred observations are made, the cook must be very unlucky if he cannot pick out fifteen or twenty which will do for serving up.
Another approved receipt, when the observations to be used will not come within the limit of accuracy, which it has been resolved they shall possess, is to calculate them by two different formulae. The difference in the constants employed in those formulae has sometimes a most happy effect in promoting unanimity amongst discordant measures. If still greater accuracy is required, three or more formulae can be used.
It must be admitted that this receipt is in some instances rather hazardous: but in cases where the positions of stars, as given in different catalogues, occur, or different tables of specific gravities, specific heats, &c. &c., it may safely be employed. As no catalogue contains all stars, the computer must have recourse to several; and if he is obliged to use his judgment in the selection, it would be cruel to deny him any little advantage which might result from it. It may, however, be necessary to guard against one mistake into which persons might fall.
If an observer calculate particular stars from a catalogue which makes them accord precisely with the rest of his results, whereas, had they been computed from other catalogues the difference would have been considerable, it is very unfair to accuse him of COOKING; for--those catalogues may have been notoriously inaccurate; or--they may have been superseded by others more recent, or made with better instruments; or--the observer may have been totally ignorant of their existence.
It sometimes happens that the constant quantities in formulae given by the highest authorities, although they differ amongst themselves, yet they will not suit the materials. This is precisely the point in which the skill of the artist is shown; and an accomplished cook will carry himself triumphantly through it, provided happily some mean value of such constants will fit his observations. He will discuss the relative merits of formulae he has just knowledge enough to use; and, with admirable candour assigning their proper share of applause to Bessel, to Gauss, and to Laplace, he will take THAT mean value of the constant used by three such philosophers, which will make his own observations accord to a miracle.
There are some few reflections which I would venture to suggest to those who cook, although they may perhaps not receive the attention which, in my opinion, they deserve, from not coming from the pen of an adept.
In the first place, it must require much time to try different formulae. In the next place it may happen that, in the progress of human knowledge, more correct formula: may be discovered, and constants may be determined with far greater precision. Or it may be found that some physical circumstance influences the results, (although unsuspected at the time) the measure of which circumstance may perhaps be recovered from other contemporary registers of facts. [Imagine, by way of example, the state of the barometer or thermometer.] Or if the selection of observations has been made with the view of its agreeing precisely with the latest determination, there is some little danger that the average of the whole may differ from that of the chosen ones, owing to some law of nature, dependent on the interval between the two sets, which law some future philosopher may discover, and thus the very best observations may have been thrown aside.
In all these, and in numerous other cases, it would most probably happen that the cook would procure a temporary reputation for unrivalled accuracy at the expense of his permanent fame. It might also have the effect of rendering even all his crude observations of no value; for that part of the scientific world whose opinion is of most weight, is generally so unreasonable, as to
One of its numerous processes is to make multitudes of observations, and out of these to select those only which agree, or very nearly agree. If a hundred observations are made, the cook must be very unlucky if he cannot pick out fifteen or twenty which will do for serving up.
Another approved receipt, when the observations to be used will not come within the limit of accuracy, which it has been resolved they shall possess, is to calculate them by two different formulae. The difference in the constants employed in those formulae has sometimes a most happy effect in promoting unanimity amongst discordant measures. If still greater accuracy is required, three or more formulae can be used.
It must be admitted that this receipt is in some instances rather hazardous: but in cases where the positions of stars, as given in different catalogues, occur, or different tables of specific gravities, specific heats, &c. &c., it may safely be employed. As no catalogue contains all stars, the computer must have recourse to several; and if he is obliged to use his judgment in the selection, it would be cruel to deny him any little advantage which might result from it. It may, however, be necessary to guard against one mistake into which persons might fall.
If an observer calculate particular stars from a catalogue which makes them accord precisely with the rest of his results, whereas, had they been computed from other catalogues the difference would have been considerable, it is very unfair to accuse him of COOKING; for--those catalogues may have been notoriously inaccurate; or--they may have been superseded by others more recent, or made with better instruments; or--the observer may have been totally ignorant of their existence.
It sometimes happens that the constant quantities in formulae given by the highest authorities, although they differ amongst themselves, yet they will not suit the materials. This is precisely the point in which the skill of the artist is shown; and an accomplished cook will carry himself triumphantly through it, provided happily some mean value of such constants will fit his observations. He will discuss the relative merits of formulae he has just knowledge enough to use; and, with admirable candour assigning their proper share of applause to Bessel, to Gauss, and to Laplace, he will take THAT mean value of the constant used by three such philosophers, which will make his own observations accord to a miracle.
There are some few reflections which I would venture to suggest to those who cook, although they may perhaps not receive the attention which, in my opinion, they deserve, from not coming from the pen of an adept.
In the first place, it must require much time to try different formulae. In the next place it may happen that, in the progress of human knowledge, more correct formula: may be discovered, and constants may be determined with far greater precision. Or it may be found that some physical circumstance influences the results, (although unsuspected at the time) the measure of which circumstance may perhaps be recovered from other contemporary registers of facts. [Imagine, by way of example, the state of the barometer or thermometer.] Or if the selection of observations has been made with the view of its agreeing precisely with the latest determination, there is some little danger that the average of the whole may differ from that of the chosen ones, owing to some law of nature, dependent on the interval between the two sets, which law some future philosopher may discover, and thus the very best observations may have been thrown aside.
In all these, and in numerous other cases, it would most probably happen that the cook would procure a temporary reputation for unrivalled accuracy at the expense of his permanent fame. It might also have the effect of rendering even all his crude observations of no value; for that part of the scientific world whose opinion is of most weight, is generally so unreasonable, as to