The Newtonian Revolution as a revolution in scientific reasoning (original) (raw)
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The Universal Law of Gravitation and Newton's Scientific Method
Interpreting Newton, 2012
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Newton's Path to Universal Gravitation: The Role of the Pendulum
Science & Education, 2006
Much attention has been given to Newton's argument for Universal Gravitation in Book III of the Principia. Newton brings an impressive array of phenomena, along with the three laws of motion, and his rules for reasoning to deduce Universal Gravitation. At the centre of this argument is the famous 'moon test'. Here it is the empirical evidence supplied by the pendulum and Huygens' results which drive Newton's argument. This paper explores Newton's argument while paying close attention to the role the pendulum plays in the argument.
Newton's claim to provide experimental proofs is often criticized. It is argued that his proofs are based on hypotheses and not inferred from the experiment alone. This criticism, however, applies a hypothetico-deductive analysis to Newton's experimental reasoning. Such an analysis is not consistent with Newton's own understanding of his proof method. The following reconstruction of Newton's proof method is intended to do justice to his understanding by applying the conception of iconic proofs to Newton's proof by experiments. The main purpose of this analysis is to explain Newton's dictum that the experiment alone serves as the source of evidence from which his theorems are derived. After a general distinction between symbolic and iconic proofs and its illustration by Euclidian proofs and Aristotelian syllogisms, I will apply this distinction to Newton's experimental proofs and analyze Newton's proof of the heterogeneity of sunlight by his experimentum crucis as an iconic proof. Finally, I show that this experiment and its underlying method is still prominent in Newton's Opticks.
Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy
Isis, 2002
This book is a collection of papers originally presented at a series of meetings at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Cambridge, MA. The volume is in two parts. In the first, we find four essays devoted to the 'motivations and methods' of Newton's research by M. Mamiani, I. B. Cohen, A. E. Shapiro, and M. Feingold. In the second, we find five essays devoted to questions concerning celestial dynamics and rational mechanics by J. B. Brackenridge, C. Wilson, M. Nauenberg, M. Blay, and G. Smith. An appendix contains a paper by Newton's well-known biographer, Richard S. Westfall, prefaced by an appreciation honoring the late author by I. B. Cohen. The specific subjects of the essays are as wide-ranging as they are varied in argumentative style and methodology. I will not review the essays by summarizing them one by one. Some of their technical content might intimidate the reader unfamiliar with this type of historical research. So I will discuss them according to what I believe are the fundamental strengths (and a few weaknesses) of this collection, trying to keep technicalities to a minimum. My choice should by no means be taken as an implicitly judgmental approach to the book. The authors of the essays will, I hope, excuse the limited competence of the reviewer. I have grouped my comments under two broad headings, 'Methods' and 'Results'. Methods I sometimes found myself baffled while reading this book, strangely not because of the arduous mathematical notation which is frequently
How Newton Could Have Developed His Law of Gravitation
2013
The main idea in this paper is that physicists should have either explored the universe to discover a 'solar system' in which Newton's law of gravitation applied exactly or should have explained the discrepancy between the implication of the simple Newton's law of gravitation (circular orbits) and actual observation (non circular or 'elliptic') orbits, with sound logical consistency and validity. Discrepancies between a theory and actual observation should never be tolerated or given ad hoc explanations and carried forward. The discrepancy between Newton's law of gravitation and actual observation turned out to be of fundamental importance as presented in my previous paper: " 'Elliptic' Orbits and Mercury Perihelion Advance as Evidence for Absolute Motion " Newton hypothesized: 'Accelerating the sun will disturb the orbit, both a circular and non circular orbit.' 'If the acceleration continued, the orbit changes continuously." ' If acceleration ceases, the orbit will settle in a stable shape.'
Epistemology of Newtonian Gravity
The first edition of Newton's Principia contains only two additional comments on the methodology: the notification that the purpose of the paper is to explain "how to determine the true motions from their causes, effects, and apparent differences, and, conversely, how to determine from motions, whether true or apparent, their causes and effects"; and, in the Scholium at the end of Book 1, Section 11, Newton asserts that his distinctive approach makes possible a safer argumentation in natural philosophy. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.35946.88003
2012
Newton's development of an ontology of force, along with a mathematical treatment of natural phenomena, had vexed both historians and philosophers of science for decades. In dealing with such a dilemma, philosophers of science and Whig historians more often than not adopt a positivist stance which stresses Newton's agnosticism towards the causation of force, and highlight some sort of positivism in his natural philosophy, thus downplaying his ontological commitments to the conundrum of causation of force. On the other hand, contextualist historians tackle that puzzle by making use whether of Newton's alchemical studies or his metaphysics of nature founded upon a voluntaristic theology, in order to assert Newton's involvement in harmonizing his mathematical physics and natural philosophy within the framework of British natural philosophy. Notwithstanding this, Newton's philosophy of mathematics, and especially his ontology of mathematical entities, remains outside the sphere of interests for both historians and philosophers of science. The aim of this thesis is to rehearse an approach to the problem of Newton's ontology of force by analyzing his ontology of mathematical entities, as deployed in the Principia, within the framework of Newton's voluntarist theology. The purpose is that of showing that within Newton's own mathematical practice we are not required to mingle levels of his epistemological discourse with his ontological assumptions as it happens in the above-mentioned approaches. By means of this analysis, it is expected, additionally, to advance our understanding of Newton's acceptance of action at a distance based upon his notion of gravity force as a superadded quality.