Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-04T19:39:13.786Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Newton—A Man of His Times

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2009

G. C. Dyer
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

As one of many disciplines which involve the study of bodies and their motion, the science of navigation is heavily indebted to Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727). Newton's outstanding contribution to science was his conception of the abstract idea of force and its mathematical formulation. This enabled the development of quantitative mechanics through the application of, for example, his Law of Inertia and his Law of Universal Gravitation. Whilst limitations in Newtonian physics have now been exposed at the level of sub-atomic particles moving close to the speed of light (Einsteinian physics), Newton's Laws remain the foundation stone to the solution of most everyday dynamical problems.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Navigation , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , April 1975 , pp. 209 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Navigation 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES AND NOTES

1Koestler, Arthur (1959). The Sleepwalkers, p. 314, Hutchinson, London. The Sleepwalkers includes a fascinating account of Kepler's long struggle to reconcile the orbits of Mars with circular motion. The reference to spheres turning on spheres relates to the point that while the observed orbits of the planets did not exhibit perfect uniform circular motion, for early renaissance astronomers (including Copernicus) philosophical considerations demanded that they did so. One duty of early astronomers had been to ‘save the phenomena’ by using a variety of mathematical devices, e.g. some involved postulating that the planet's orbits were composed of circles upon circles. In this way regressions could be explained. Kepler eventually saw that the anomalies in the orbit of Mars could be explained by proposing that its path was elliptical. Viewed in contemporary terms this was very radical thinking.Google Scholar
2Goodman, D. C. (1973). Descartes Principles of Philosophy 1644 Article XXXVI, reprinted in Science and Religious Belief, p. 54, Dorset Press.Google Scholar
3 1974. Towards a Mechanistic Philosophy, p. 24. Open University Press.Google Scholar
4 1974. Towards a Mechanistic Philosophy p. 23. Open University Press.Google Scholar
5Towards a Mechanistic Philosophy p. 63. Open University Press.Google Scholar
6Towards a Mechanistic Philosophy p. 73. Open University Press.Google Scholar
7Descartes, ed. Goodman, p. 56, op cit.Google Scholar
8Towards a Mechanistic Philosophy, p. 23, op cit.Google Scholar
9 1970. Whiteside, D. T.‘Before the Principia’, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 1, p. 10.Google Scholar
10 1970. Whiteside, D. T.‘Before the Principia’, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 1, p. 10.Google Scholar
11 1971. Westfall, R. S.Force in Newton's Physics, Macdonald, London.Google Scholar
12 1924. Burtt, E. A.The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, p. 136, Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
13Reprinted letter, Science and Religious Belief, op. cit. ed. Goodman, p. 132.Google Scholar
14Westfall, R. S. op cit., p. 377. With orthodox mechanical philosophy an aether is essential for action to be transferred through a distance.Google Scholar
15Westfall, R. S. op. cit., p. 378.Google Scholar
16Whiteside, D. T. op cit., p. 5.Google Scholar
17Brooke, John Hedley (1974). God said let Newton be, Open University Press.Google Scholar
18Cohen, I. B. (1961). The Grand Design—A New Physics, Chapter 7, Heinemann. Before the standardization of length it was common to relate it to that of the length of a pendulum which would beat specified time periods at a given location (latitude). A yard was usually related to the beat of a second.Google Scholar
19There is in fact some controversy over the originality of the idea of universal gravitation. Robert Hooke made an explicit statement of the idea in his Cutlerian Lecture of 1676 (published in 1674)—also see ‘The rational basis of Kepler's laws’, Forbes, Brit. Astr. Assoc., 1971, pp. 373–377. Newton can only claim that he had the idea earlier. However, it is mathematical analyses which distinguishes Newton's theories from Hooke's intuition, and which makes Newton the main author of the theory of gravitational attraction.Google Scholar
20Thayer, H. S.Newton's Philosophy of Nature, third letter to Bentley 1692 quoted from selections from his writings, p. 54, Hafner Press.Google Scholar
21Newton's Optics, Query 28, reprinted op cit., Hafner, p. 156.Google Scholar
22Westfall, R. S. op. cit., Newton manuscript quoted, p. 397.Google Scholar
23Brooke John Hedley, op cit., p. 5.Google Scholar
24Brooke John Hedley, op cit., p. 5.Google Scholar
25Westfall, R. S. op cit., p. 395. The other considerations are quoted as being its elasticity and density which Newton had calculated by experiments concerned with the velocity of light.Google Scholar
26Newton's Optics, Query 31.Google Scholar
27Newton's Optics, Query 31.Google Scholar
28Newton's Optics, Query 31.Google Scholar