The System of the World: Hooke and Universal Gravitation, the Inverse-square Law, and Planetary Orbits

2009 ◽  
pp. 165-202
Keyword(s):  
Universal Gravitation ◽  
Inverse Square Law ◽  
Planetary Orbits ◽  
The World

Translating Newton's Principia : The Marquise du Châtelet's revisions and additions for a French audience

2001 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. P. Zinsser
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Solutions ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Universal Gravitation ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World

In the 1740s, the Marquise du Châtelet translated Newton's Principia (1731, third edition) into French. Her's remains the standard translation. In addition, she wrote an extensive commentary in which she gave her own description of the System of the World , and analytical solutions to key disputed aspects of Newton's theory of universal gravitation. She also included summaries of two mathematical essays that clarified and confirmed Newton's application of his theory to observed phenomena: Aléxis–Claude Clairaut's on the shape of the Earth and Daniel Bernoulli's on the effects of the Sun and Moon on the tides.

On the Genius and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton

2018 ◽  
pp. 73-86
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Universal Gravitation ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
The World ◽  
The Law

This chapter presents George Boole's lecture on the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton. The first subject of importance that engaged Newton's attention was the phenomena of prismatic colors. The results of his inquiries were communicated to the Royal Society in the year 1675, and afterwards published with most important additions in 1704. The production was entitled “Optics; or, a Treatise on the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light.” It is considered one of the most elaborate and original of his works, and carries on every page the traces of a powerful and comprehensive mind. Newton also discovered universal gravitation, which was announced to the world in 1687 through the publication of the “Principia, or Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.” The object of the “Principia” is twofold: to demonstrate the law of planetary influence, and to apply that law to the purposes of calculation.

scholarly journals A new approach to the derivation of the law of universal gravitation from Kepler’s laws

2021 ◽  
Vol 2081 (1) ◽  
pp. 012012
Author(s):  
P N Antonyuk
Keyword(s):  
Universal Gravitation ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Inverse Square Law ◽  
Kepler's Laws ◽  
Third Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
Kepler’S Laws

Abstract Everyone knows that the inverse square law follows from Kepler’s third law. Let us prove more: the law of universal gravitation follows from Kepler’s third law.

Universal Gravity: was Newton Right?

1990 ◽  
Vol 8 (04) ◽  
pp. 334-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan E. Wright ◽  
M. J. Disney ◽  
R. C. Thomson
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Simulations ◽  
Observational Data ◽  
Linear Relation ◽  
Universal Gravitation ◽  
Galaxy Interactions ◽  
Inverse Square Law

Abstract We question Newton’s inverse square law of universal gravitation in the light of recent, alternative formulations. In addition, we present numerical simulations of galaxy interactions which were used in an attempt to distinguish between an inverse square law and an inverse linear law. We conclude that an inverse linear relation is as compatible with the observational data on interacting galaxy systems as the inverse square law.

scholarly journals Speculations on Possible Physical and Cosmical Phenomena in Reference to the Past Conditions of Our Earth

The Geologist ◽  
1863 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 178-183
Author(s):  
S. J. Mackie
Keyword(s):  
Planetary System ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Planetary Orbits ◽  
The World ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Past Conditions

Whenever we begin to think about the formation of the universe we get at once into the realms of speculation, and the only value of our thoughts rests in their probability. In everything unknown we must first form an idea—that is, speculate; then, by partial gatherings of facts, or by positive reasoning, we may theorize. Ultimately, by the accumulation of evidence, we may prove that which, in the first place, we only imagined. When first men observed the sun, they regarded the earth as a flat plain, over which the sun passed in his heavenly course, and below which, at eve, he retired to rest. It was not until many ages had elapsed that the world came to be regarded as round, and even then it was long before the sun was considered as a fixed centre of the planetary system revolving round him.By no nation of ancient times has astronomy been more advanced than the Greeks. Not that the Greeks ever worked out much to a proved result, but they were an imaginative people, and they invented notions. If one theory or speculation was disproved, they invented another; and, hit or miss, they always seemed to have fresh ideas in reserve. In some things astronomical, as in many other things that the world believes in, we may be heretics, and we admit we do not adhere to all the cosmical, physical, geological, and spiritual tenets of the popular faiths. We may not entirely believe in the perfect stability of the universe; we may doubt the eternal endurance of the sun's bright rays; and we may not quite acquiesce in the unchangeable permanence of tne planetary orbits: in short, we do not believe in the permanence of anything whatever in creation. All ever has been change, and changeful all things ever will be. Diversity and change are visible in the first created things of which any relics have been left us.

scholarly journals II. On the empirical laws of the tides in the port of London; with some reflexions on the theory

1834 ◽  
Vol 124 ◽  
pp. 15-45 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Private Property ◽  
Single Port ◽  
Universal Gravitation ◽  
Real Condition ◽  
The Real ◽  
The World ◽  
Common Opinion ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Real State

The present state of our knowledge of the tides is remarkably at variance with the complete and scientific character which Physical Astronomy is, in common opinion, supposed to have attained. We may, perhaps, most easily figure to ourselves the real condition of this subject, by imagining what the condition of other branches of astronomy would be, if some great natural or moral convulsion should sweep away our existing science, and replunge us in the ignorance of the dark ages, leaving extant only a few general notions concerning the theories which are at present established. In such a state of things, we may suppose that some tradition of the doctrine of universal gravitation would survive the change, and that learned men would still go on asserting that the various astronomical phenomena of the universe were owing to that cause; but the resources of mathematical art being, for the time, lost, they would be unable to prove the truth of such assertions: and, both the collected stores of observation, and the habit and apparatus of observing, being, in such a case, supposed to be annihilated, it would be long before there would arise persons able and willing to supply such deficiency; the more so as those who might make such collections would have still to seek for the mode of turning them to any use. If, in this state of things, a few persons should, by their own sagacity and labour, or by the aid of some traditionary secret, attain to the power of predicting phenomena with tolerable correctness, we may imagine that they would use their peculiar skill for purposes of gain, and that they would not readily admit the world at large to the knowledge of the secret which gave them a superiority over the rest of their countrymen. Our knowledge of the tides, at the present time, exactly realizes this imaginary condition which we have supposed for astronomy in general. Our philosophers assert, without hesitation, that this phenomenon is the result of the law of the universal gravitation of matter; yet no one has hitherto deduced, from this law, the laws by which the phenomena are actually regulated with regard to time and place. Analysis has been largely used; but it has been employed only to deduce the consequences of certain assumed suppositions, which suppositions are acknowledged to be utterly different from the real state of the case: and where is the immediate advantage, for the purposes of sound philosophy, of analysis which does not solve the problem proposed, over no analysis at all? Some observations of the tides have no doubt been made, and more are now making; but it is not too much to say, that these are only a commencement of the collections which the subject will require, to place it on a par with the other provinces of physical astronomy. The laws which connect the course of the observed tides with the motions and distances of the sun and moon are not known for any single port; and the tables, which in every other province of physics are the result of the knowledge which our men of science have accumulated for us, are, in this department, published by persons possessing and professing no theoretical views on the subject; and the methods by which they are calculated are not only not a portion of our published knowledge, but are guarded as secrets, and handed down as private property from one generation to another.

scholarly journals XI. Essay towards a first approximation to a map of cotidal lines

1833 ◽  
Vol 123 ◽  
pp. 147-236 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Sun ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Lunar Tide ◽  
Universal Gravitation ◽  
Newtonian Theory ◽  
First Approximation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
General Explanation ◽  
Different Parts

Ever since the time of Newton, his explanation of the general phenomena of the tides by means of the action of the moon and the sun has been assented to by all philosophers who have given their attention to the subject. But even up to the present day this general explanation has not been pursued into its results in detail, so as to show its bearing on the special phenomena of particular places,—to connect the actual tides of all the different parts of the world,—and to account for their varieties and seeming anomalies. With regard to this alone, of all the consequences of the law of universal gravitation, the task of bringing the developed theory into comparison with multiplied and extensive observations is still incomplete; we might almost say, is still to be begun. Daniel Bernoulli, in his Prize Dissertation of 1740, deduced from the Newtonian theory certain methods for the construction of tide tables, which agree with the methods still commonly used. More recently Laplace turned his attention to this subject; and by treating the tides as a problem of the oscillations rather than of the equilibrium of fluids, undoubtedly introduced the correct view of the real operation of the forces; but it does not appear that in this way he has obtained any consequences to which Newton’s mode of considering the subject did not lead with equal certainty and greater simplicity; moreover by confounding, in the course of his calculations, the quantities which he designates by λ and λ', the epochs of the solar and lunar tide (Méc. Cél. vol. ii. p. 232. 291.), he has thrown an obscurity on the most important differences of the tides of different places, as Mr. Lubbock has pointed out.

A pragmatist philosophy of psychological science and its implications for replication

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Gantman ◽  
Robin Gomila ◽  
Joel E. Martinez ◽  
J. Nathan Matias ◽  
Elizabeth Levy Paluck ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
William James ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Behavioral Measurement ◽  
The World ◽  
Pragmatist Philosophy

AbstractA pragmatist philosophy of psychological science offers to the direct replication debate concrete recommendations and novel benefits that are not discussed in Zwaan et al. This philosophy guides our work as field experimentalists interested in behavioral measurement. Furthermore, all psychologists can relate to its ultimate aim set out by William James: to study mental processes that provide explanations for why people behave as they do in the world.

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