DP14885 Connecting the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions: The Role of Practical Mathematics
Disputes over whether the Scientific Revolution contributed to the Industrial
Revolution begin with the common assumption that natural philosophers
and artisans formed radically distinct groups. In reality, these groups merged
together through a diverse group of applied mathematics teachers, textbook
writers and instrument makers catering to a market of navigators, gunners
and surveyors. From these “mathematical practitioners” emerged specialized
instrument makers whose capabilities facilitated industrialization in two
important ways. First, a large supply of instrument and watch makers provided
Britain with a pool of versatile, mechanically skilled labour to build
the increasingly complicated machinery of the late eighteenth century. Second,
the less well known but equally revolutionary innovations in machine
tools—which, contrary to the Habbakuk thesis, occurred largely in Britain
during the 1820s and 1830s to mass produce interchangeable parts for iron
textile machinery—drew on a technology of exact measurement developed
for navigational and astronomical instruments.
