Verticity
Encyclopedia
In the history of physics, verticity (Latin: verticitate) is the tendency of magnets, among other things, to move around or toward the vertices or poles of the Earth. Scholars of the English Renaissance typically associated verticity with magnets. Francis Bacon
argued that the verticity seen in magnets is also spread amply throughout the cosmos and explains the motion of oceans, winds, and even celestial bodies.
Bacon formulated his unusual theory partly in response to the acclaimed 1600 treatise On the Magnet and Magnetick Bodies, and on That Great Magnet the Earth, written by William Gilbert. Gilbert discussed two kinds of verticity. Surface verticity is the tendency to point north found in ordinary "loadstones" and magnetised iron. This verticity was a weaker expression of a much more powerful sort of verticity intrinsic to the core of the Earth. Gilbert was an early adopter of geomotivism, and this so-called deep verticity was his explanation of the then-controversial idea that the Earth spun on its axis. Deep verticity also explained surface verticity. Over time, pieces of the core are dislodged, their verticity corrupted and weakened by exposure to the degraded matter of Earth's crust, and the result is the variety of weak magnets found nearer the Earth's surface.
Bacon rejected much of Gilbert's magnetic theory. He denied both geomotivism and deep verticity. He adopted the Telesian
view that the core of Earth was cold, passive, and unmoving. Earth did not rotate and its core was certainly absent any magnetic properties. He attributed the verticity of magnets not to Earth's core, but rather associated it with the general tendency of everything other than Earth's core to move westward around the center of the Earth. The Atlantic Ocean moved westward and ricocheted off the Eastern coast of the New World, creating the tides. The planets, stars, sun and moon moved westward across the sky. The rotation of magnets was simply a weak manifestation of the same kind of westward migration undertaken daily by sundry terrestrial and celestial objects.
An open question is why Bacon was moved to give a unified account of the motion of magnets and other natural movers. Graham Rees tentatively suggested (2006, p. liii) that Bacon tended to conceive related occurrences as part of a spectrum. It might have seemed to Bacon that magnets are part of continuum encompassing the unturning Earth, the weakly rotation-prone magnets on Earth's surface, and the westward-hurtling planets above.
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
argued that the verticity seen in magnets is also spread amply throughout the cosmos and explains the motion of oceans, winds, and even celestial bodies.
Bacon formulated his unusual theory partly in response to the acclaimed 1600 treatise On the Magnet and Magnetick Bodies, and on That Great Magnet the Earth, written by William Gilbert. Gilbert discussed two kinds of verticity. Surface verticity is the tendency to point north found in ordinary "loadstones" and magnetised iron. This verticity was a weaker expression of a much more powerful sort of verticity intrinsic to the core of the Earth. Gilbert was an early adopter of geomotivism, and this so-called deep verticity was his explanation of the then-controversial idea that the Earth spun on its axis. Deep verticity also explained surface verticity. Over time, pieces of the core are dislodged, their verticity corrupted and weakened by exposure to the degraded matter of Earth's crust, and the result is the variety of weak magnets found nearer the Earth's surface.
Bacon rejected much of Gilbert's magnetic theory. He denied both geomotivism and deep verticity. He adopted the Telesian
Bernardino Telesio
Bernardino Telesio was an Italian philosopher and natural scientist.While his natural theories were later disproven, his emphasis on observation made him the "first of the moderns" who eventually developed thescientific method.-Biography:...
view that the core of Earth was cold, passive, and unmoving. Earth did not rotate and its core was certainly absent any magnetic properties. He attributed the verticity of magnets not to Earth's core, but rather associated it with the general tendency of everything other than Earth's core to move westward around the center of the Earth. The Atlantic Ocean moved westward and ricocheted off the Eastern coast of the New World, creating the tides. The planets, stars, sun and moon moved westward across the sky. The rotation of magnets was simply a weak manifestation of the same kind of westward migration undertaken daily by sundry terrestrial and celestial objects.
An open question is why Bacon was moved to give a unified account of the motion of magnets and other natural movers. Graham Rees tentatively suggested (2006, p. liii) that Bacon tended to conceive related occurrences as part of a spectrum. It might have seemed to Bacon that magnets are part of continuum encompassing the unturning Earth, the weakly rotation-prone magnets on Earth's surface, and the westward-hurtling planets above.