A comparative analysis between two problems-apparently unrelated-which are solved in a period of ~400 years, viz., the accurate prediction of both the planetary orbits and the protein structures, leads to inferred conjectures that go far beyond the existence of a common path in their resolution, i.e., observation → pattern recognition → modeling. The preliminary results from this analysis indicate that complementary science, together with a new perspective on protein folding, may help us discover common features that could contribute to a more in-depth understanding of still-unsolved problems such as protein folding.
Keywords: History of science; Leibniz and Kant; Newton; Philosophy; Planetary orbits; Protein folding.
© International Union for Pure and Applied Biophysics (IUPAB) and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023.