Astronauts in the International Space Station can do it (because of the absence of gravity). And at Whewell’s time there was enough physics available to predict this.

Good idea! I should have thought of that …

Reply to Musical Beef: If you’re referring to my commen (Jenny Haniver)t, sorry, I should have quoted the specific portion of j.a.m.’s comment that I was referring to (and I should have written “comment” instead of “post”), to wit: “There are mathematicians who love poetry but don’t use it to solve equations. Conversely, there are poets who love math but few if any try to transform equations into iambic verse.” True, it was off-topic re science and faith, but I wanted to challenge that statement. I was simply trying to demonstrate that poetry and science aren’t inherently incompatible, even when it comes to iambic verse. And the example I gave rhymes, too: ABBA. Sadly, I’m not much good at math or poetry – but I think that there’s a lot more math at work in well-constructed poetry than poets are aware of (but this may be veering into woo), and when I behold a well-constructed equation, I see pure poetry. Whewell wasn’t attempting to be poetic – he fell off the rails right after penning those lines but, to me, those lines are pure poetry and good math. In times past, scientists sometimes wrote serious treatises in verse, Fracastorius for one, wrote a treatise on syphilis in verse. I read that in the late 17th century science was often expressed in verse, and that Lewis Carroll experimented with mathematical logic to write poetry. By no means was I attempting to reconcile science with faith. Lordy, no. Also, ever since I first came across Whewell’s quote, I found it so charming that I love sharing it, so shoehorned it in where, perhaps, I shouldn’t have.

Sorry. I thought this comment was from j. a. m.
(Maybe it’s because it’s very late here, but I could still use some explanation.)

Could you please be more explicit about how that is supposed to refute our claim that religion and science are non-compatible epistemologies?

Why is it that when I read this post, this came to mind:

And hence no force, however great
can stretch a cord, however fine
into a horizontal line
that shall be absolutely straight.

Those tetrameters are almost verbatim the words of William Whewell:

“Hence no force, however great, can stretch a cord, however fine, into a horizontal line which is accurately straight”.

All I did was preface the “And”, then slightly, but not materially, alter the last clause and, there are four nice tetrameters describing a mathematical principle.

One would donate the money to an institution dedicated to preserving the separation of science and faith.

I’m assuming you mean 3:13? If so, done. If not, let me know which one you mean.

(I’ve just noticed – doesn’t time look suspiciously like a Biblical verse? Possible inspiration for measurements of all sort expressed this way to relate to the Bible or Qur’an!)

If you feel so moved, you’re welcome to use my 3:31 post similarly.

Cheers,

b&

No. People are free to do that themselves if they want to – I’m happy for you to submit the same entry to Heather’s Homilies and Templeton. However, their deadline is after mine so there’s an outside chance of letting the cat out of the bag early if someone from Templeton reads this site. Also, I don’t think they have a word limit, so there’s more scope in the Templeton competition.