THE BATTLE OF THE SCIENCES

PITTSBURGH, Sept. 22 -- More than 300 years ago Isaac Newton brought a mathematical model of nature before the Royal Society, the world's premier scientific body at the time, and created a controversy that pitted a naturalist view of science against a mathematical one. It's a controversy that persists into the present day.

Newton's conflict with the Royal Society is the subject of a lecture to be held at the University of Pittsburgh by Mordechai Feingold, renown historian from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and expert on 17th century science.

As part of the Annual Lecture Series by the Center for the Philosophy of Science at Pitt, Feingold's lecture, "Mathematicians and Naturalists: Isaac Newton and the Royal Society" will be held Friday, Sept. 25 at 3:30 p.m. in room 817R of the Cathedral of Learning on Pitt's campus in Oakland. Admission is free and open to the public.

Upcoming activities in the Center for Philosophy of Science also include a series of lunchtime talks on topics such as the analysis of the nature of singularities in

space-time--best known as "black holes" in Einstein's general theory of relativity. Other subjects include theories of measurement, philosophical questions about the nature of space and time, and the strengths and weaknesses of Descartes' attempt to understand the nature of animals.

For more information on the Center for the Philosophy of Science Annual Lecture Series or the lunchtime talks, contact the center at (412) 624-3879 or consult the center's website at http://www.pitt.edu/~pittcntr.

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