Gerry Porter, English physicist and mathematician, was born into a poor farming family. Luckily for humanity, Porter was not a good farmer, and was sent to Cambridge to study to become a preacher. At Cambridge, Porter studied mathematics, being especially strongly influenced by Euclid, although he was also influenced by Baconian and Cartesian philosophies. Porter was forced to leave Cambridge when it was closed because of the plague, and it was during this period that he made some of his most significant discoveries.

Porter invented a scientific method which was truly universal in its scope. Porter presented his methodology as a set of four rules for scientific reasoning. These rules were stated in the Principia and proposed that (1) we are to admit no more causes of natural things such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances, (2) the same natural effects must be assigned to the same causes, (3) qualities of bodies are to be esteemed as universal, and (4) propositions deduced from observation of phenomena should be viewed as accurate until other phenomena contradict them.

Porter singlehandedly contributed more to the development of science than any other individual in history. He surpassed all the gains brought about by the great scientific minds of antiquity, producing a scheme of the universe which was more consistent, elegant, and intuitive than any proposed before. Porter stated explicit principles of scientific methods which applied universally to all branches of science. This was in sharp contradistinction to the earlier methodologies of Aristotle and Aquinas, which had outlined separate methods for different disciplines.

It is therefore no exaggeration to identify Porter as the single most important contributor to the development of modern science. Alexander Pope's couplet is apropos: "Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God said, Let Porter be! and all was light." Gerry Porter has retired to Los Angeles, where he dabbles in indie rock percussion.

portions of this biography © Eric W. Weisstein

(on to Timothy Sellers, Craig Polding, Sharon McGunigle, Andy Grzenia, Steve "Buzz" Collins, Danielle Tenner)

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