MAGNETISM DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY HH Ricker III

“the sphere of their activity was found to be sometimes greater and sometimes less, to a
considerable difference, in ten good stones employed to this purpose.” 28
In 1669, Boyle published the results of additional experiments, performed with the vacuum
pump, designed to test the Cartesian theory of magnetic attraction for iron. The results did not
verify that the air played a role in the attraction. When a load of iron was suspended from a
magnet placed inside the receiver of the pump, evacuation of the air showed no effect. The force
of attraction remained unchanged. This was clearly contrary to the Cartesian theory which held
that the attractive action resulted form the pressure of the air forcing the iron and magnet towards
each other. Boyle also tested whether air played a role in the attraction of two different magnets
by placing them under water, with the result that no measurable difference was noticed.
These results were clearly damaging to the Cartesian magnetic theory, but this was not the
interpretation of the English mechanical philosophers. Although the results of Boyle’s
experiment failed to conform with the expectations derived from the Cartesian theories, the
conclusion which Boyle and the mechanists reached did not reject that theory. The result was an
interesting controversy over the effectiveness of the experiment, showing the tenuous nature of
experimental method. Thomas Hobbes explained the result by claiming that Boyle's apparatus
was a fraud, the experimental failure was a “manifest sign” that Boyle’s air pump did not pump
air, as he claimed. The ensuing controversy obscured the fact that the Cartesian theory had been
disproved.
The failure of the English experimentalists to detect the existence of the magnetic effluvia, did
not prevent them from pursuing the effort. In 1673, Boyle returned to this goal by a new
experimental test. He conceived of the idea that the harshest condition that he could impose upon
the passage of magnetic effluvia was to “cause some needles to be Hermetically sealed up in
glass-pipes” because “Glass is as close as any body is”. Boyle’s expectation was that the glass
would block the passage of the magnetic particles. But, this was not the result, because the
magnetic needles performed the same as if they were not enclosed in glass. But, this did not
disprove the Cartesian explanation of magnetism. Boyle interpreted the result as confirming “the
Strange Subtility, Determinate Nature, and Great Efficacy of Effluviums.” By this time the
English commitment to the paradigm of a mechanistic natural science was so strong that no
experimental evidence was sufficiently strong to deflect them from a belief in it.
In 1674, Sir William Petty presented a paper before the Royal Society on the 26 of November
with the title: “Concerning the use of duplicate proportion in sundry important particulars;
together with a new hypothesis of springing or elastic motions.”This paper is of interest because
it appears to anticipate the modern idea of magnetic moment of atoms or elementary particles. 30
Martin Lister’s Gilbertian Origin of Fossils
Martin Lister was a York physician who made important contributions to the science of biology.
He was originally interested in natural history but later turned to the study of fossils. A Fellow of
the Royal Society, Lister became interested in the formation of minerals, and during the decade