The Simplification of Science and the Science of Simplification

Abstract

In order to understand the successes of science, we can do no better than to examine physics—and particularly mechanics—for these sciences are often taken to be ideal models. The beauty of the mechanical model of the world was well expressed by Deutsch,¹ who said that mechanism

... implied the notion of a whole which was completely equal to the sum of its parts; which could be run in reverse; and which would behave in exactly identical fashion no matter how often these parts were disassembled and put together again, and irrespective of the sequence in which the disassembling or reassembling would take place. It implied consequently that the parts were never significantly modified by each other, nor by their own past, and that each part once placed in its appropriate position with its appropriate momentum, would stay exactly there and continue to fulfill its completely and uniquely determined function.