Disputes over whether the Scientific Revolution contributed to the Industrial Revolution begin with the common assumption that natural philosophers and artisans formed 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 ranging from navigators and surveyors to bookkeepers. Besides its direct economic contribution in diffusing useful numerical skills, this “practical mathematics” facilitated later industrialization in two ways. First, a large supply of instrument and watch makers provided Britain with a pool of versatile, mechanically skilled labor 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.

关于科学革命是否促成了工业革命的争论始于一个普遍的假设，即自然哲学家和工匠形成了不同的群体。实际上，这些群体通过不同的应用数学教师、教科书作者和仪器制造商组合在一起，以满足从导航员和测量员到簿记员的市场需求。除了在传播有用的数字技能方面的直接经济贡献外，这种“实用数学”还以两种方式促进了后来的工业化。首先，大量的仪器和手表制造商为英国提供了一批多才多艺的机械熟练劳动力，用于制造 18 世纪后期日益复杂的机械。其次，机床领域鲜为人知但同样具有革命性的创新——其中，