Rethinking Newton’s Principia
نویسنده
چکیده
It is widely accepted that the notion of inertial frame is central to Newtonian mechanics, and that the correct space-time structure underlying Newton’s methods in Principia is neo-Newtonian or Galilean space-time. I argue to the contrary that inertial frames are not needed in Newton’s theory of motion, and that the right space-time structure for Newton’s Principia requires the notion of parallelism of spatial directions at different times, and nothing more.
منابع مشابه
Mathematical Models in Newton’s Principia: A New View of the “Newtonian Style”
In this essay I argue against Bernard I. Cohen’s influential account of Newton’s methodology in the Principia: the “Newtonian Style”. The crux of Cohen’s account is the successive adaptation of “mental constructs” through comparisons with nature. In Cohen’s view there is a direct dynamics between the mental constructs and physical systems. I argue that his account is essentially hypothetical-de...
متن کاملThe Newtonian Myth
We contrast the contents of Newton’s Principia with a variety of accounts of his inductive methods, particularly by Karl Popper. We demonstrate that many statements made by philosophers about the Principia have been factually incorrect, and that Newton’s actual methods were much more flexible than admitted even by him. We argue that his use of induction was methodologically sound, or at least i...
متن کاملKepler ’ s Area Law in the Principia : Filling in some details in Newton ’ s proof of Prop . 1 .
During the past 25 years there has been a controversy regarding the adequacy of Newton’s proof of Prop. 1 in Book 1 of the Principia. This proposition is of central importance because its proof of Kepler’s area law allowed Newton to introduce a geometric measure for time to solve problems in orbital dynamics in the Principia. It is shown here that the critics of Prop. 1 have misunderstood Newto...
متن کاملSome Reflections on Newton’s ‘Principia’
We examine the text of Principia to discover the extent to which Newton’s claims about his own contribution to it were justified. We argue that the general Scholium, written twenty six years after the first edition, substantially misrepresents the main body of the text for polemical reasons. We discuss papers of Wallis, Wren and Huygens that use the third law of motion, as stated by Newton in B...
متن کاملThe Concept of Causation in Newton’s Mechanical and Optical Work
In this essay the authors explore the nature of efficient causal explanation in Newton’s Principia and The Opticks. It is argued that: (1) In the dynamical explanations of the Principia, Newton treats the phenomena under study as cases of Hall’s second kind of atypical causation. The underlying concept of causation is therefore a purely interventionist one. (2) In the descriptions of his optica...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
عنوان ژورنال:
دوره شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2012