Questions tagged [newton]
For questions about Isaac Newton (1643-1727), mathematician and physicist, and his works
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Did Newton know about non-inertial frames?
When answering a Physics.SE question, I made a claim that Newton realized that $F=ma$ worked in some frames, which are called "inertial frames." Nowadays, we know that there are non-...
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Did Newton say: "If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been due more to patient attention, than to any other talent"?
I came across the above quote, and found it quite interesting. However, I struggled to find an actual source. Did Newton truly say this?
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Fatio de Dullier's Theory of Gravity -- Why ridiculed in 17th/18th century?
I read in Newton and the Counterfeiter about the young mathematician who was friends with Sir Isaac and competent enough to have detected an error in Principia.
He offered a theory of gravity, I ...
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Did Newton's leap to understanding gravity involve cannonball thought experiments on a smooth Earth?
Could it be Newton had some ideas with respect to the cannonball thought experiments prior to the famous apple story?
The thought experiment goes like you shoot an ordinary cannonball tangential to ...
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Who made the first (recorded) axiomatic model of nature?
Neil Degrasse Tyson has claimed that, via his Principia, Isaac Newton was the first person (on record) to make a "modern" theory of physics, in the sense that Newton made an axiomatic ...
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Reconstruction of Newton's axioms
Hilbert reconstructed Euclid's axioms. Is there an equivalent restructuring of Newton's axioms, or are they considered consistent?
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Where can I find the Royal Society report on the controversy over the invention of differential calculus?
Where can I find the report on the Leibniz–Newton calculus controversy mentioned in this article?
In 1712 the Royal Society in England wrote a report purporting to settle the matter — except, the ...
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Was Isaac Newton left handed?
I started to see lists of left-handed scientists and Newton is included in all of them. I checked Westfall but could not find the answer. Are there any proofs that he was left handed? I've seen ...
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How the concept of Momentum was discovered?
As we already know that the concept of Momentum was discovered before Newton discovered his laws of motion, but my question is $\rightarrow$ How they discovered the relationship p=mv without knowing ...
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When did derivative mean not only "slope of tangent" but also "instantaneous rate of change"?
When did derivative mean not only "slope of tangent" but also "instantaneous rate of change"?
Fermat was interested in minima and maxima, and realized these occur when the tangent ...
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How was the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus discovered?
How was the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus discovered?
The FTC is at once simple enough that Math.SE is full of questions asking "why is it such a big deal" and yet avoided discovery for ...
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How did Newton, Lagrange, Hamilton and others ideate their mechanical formulations?
What exactly did Lagrange do, historically? This is very relevant but the accepted answer just does similar speculations based on contextual details that I have done. It was mentioned that part of ...
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What physical problems required the invention of the derivative?
I know that Fermat had a method of adequality in order to solve certain optimization. One such problem was: "Suppose that you have a rectangle of material and need to cut corners into it such ...
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How did Isaac Newton write the integral symbol?
Isaac Newton is known as the discoverer of the FTC (Fundamental Theorem of Calculus), so maybe he wrote the integral symbol and derivative symbol. I know he wrote the derivative symbol as $\dot y$ but ...
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Did Jean Picard discovery of mercurial phosphorescence lead to Newton's studies of light's visible spectrum?
We read in Wikipedia: "Jean Picard discovery of mercurial phosphorescence upon his observance of the faint glowing of a barometer, led to Newton's studies of light's visible spectrum." Is ...
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What are the various manuscripts/transmissions of Newton's book "The Method of Fluxions"?
I am looking for which manuscripts and if available, through what chains of transmission copies of Newton's book "TheMethod of Fluxions" have reached us today
So far I could not find ...
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Does Galilean/Newtonian mechanics reject both consequences of Aristotle's dynamical pseudo-law : $ V = F/m$, or only consequence (1)?
Note : my question is not as to whether consequence (2) is correctly derived from Arstotle's "law" ( I think it is the case) but as to whether this consequence is still true in Newtonian ...
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Which physical quantities were used or introduced by Newton?
I have never read his original works, but I would say that he must have used length, volume, time, velocity, acceleration, momentum or force, and maybe (kinetic) energy. Which quantities appeared in ...
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Inscriptions on Newton's tomb
Whiteside in "The Mathematical Principles underlying Newton's
Principia Mathematica" wrote
.. if we can give credence to an account in The Postboy of 12 April 1731, his tomb in Westminster ...
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Before Einstein did people realize about a falling man not feeling weight?
I understand that Einstein was able to draw remarkable conclusions and was set on the path of General relativity when he realized that a falling observer not feeling his own weight.
But is it believed ...
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Why was Principia Proposition 43, Theorem 22 not published?
Why was Proposition 43, Theorem 22, of Newton's Principia not printed?
Weinberg, To Explain the World (2015) describes this proposition:
In an unpublished “Proposition 43” that did not make it into ...
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Principia Mathematica and Law of Gravitation
Could anyone, please, point the exact place in "Principia Mathematica" where Newton explicitly stated the expression for the gravitational force between two particles? I mean the fact that ...
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Third law of motion before Newton?
Are there any traces of the third law of motion before Newton's Principia?
wiki says
Newton arrived at his set of three laws incrementally. In a 1684
manuscript written to Huygens, he listed four ...
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What is the difference between Newton's definitions and axioms?
What is the difference between definition and axiom? For instance, Newton's Definition 1 reads: (Cohen p. 403)
Quantity of matter is a measure of matter that arises from its density and volume ...
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Online resources for 19th century physics textbooks
I remember seeing Newton's force equation written in a 19th century textbook as $F=(M+m)/R^2$ (instead of $Mm$). I don't remember if they used $G$. Do you know a collection of 19th century physics ...
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Deflection of the pendulum arm in Cavendish experiment
I'm trying to find how Cavendish calculated the deflection of the arm due to the gravitational attractions of the weights.
He gives for the deflection B=6.18 divisions. "Motion of the arm on ...
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Newton's Corollary #1 to the Laws of Motion (Principia)
I'm currently working through selected portions of Newton's Principia, but I'm already stuck in trying to understand his explanation for the first corollary (i.e., Corollary I) to the laws of motion. ...
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Is Newton's Gravitational Constant G a force?
The Constant of Gravitation $G$ was first defined by Boys in 1894:
Employing the C.G.S system of measurement, the Newtonian Constant is equal to the force of attraction in dynes between two balls ...
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Question from Whiteside V. 1 - what did Newton mean by a:b :: c:d notation?
I'm reading volume 1 of Whiteside's 'Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton,' and on pp. 383-384, Newton reaches a conclusion on his "Example 1st" in the statement "55:-54 :: p:q..." -...
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Did Newton know the chain rule?
I heard someone say recently that Newton didn't know the chain rule. Is that true?
I know Newton didn't share our current conception of functions, the real line, limits, etc., so if he did use ...
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Did the concept of mass exist before Newton?
I have been learning Newton's laws, and I am confused about the different formulations of the laws, the definitions of the quantities in the modern version, and the definitions of the quantities ...
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Are there any direct comments by Isaac Newton on Leibniz's living force / vis-viva?
The living force or the vis-viva is a quantity usually attributed to Leibniz (although there were a few other people who identified it as a conserved quantity in certain collisions earlier). Many ...
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Ideas about the speed of light between Galileo and Romer?
I know that the great Galileo made no real progress measuring the speed of light -- he disappointingly suggested that it might be infinite. I read that he concluded (based on his attempts to measure ...
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Identification of Rare Newton Statue
I'm not sure where else to post this. No matter how inventive my Google searches, I am unable to locate an active webpage containing this rare statue of Isaac Newton that I stored on my computer a ...
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How to understand Poincaré's interpretation of Newton's anagram "aaaaabbbeeeeii"
In Science and Method, page 37, Poincaré (as translated by Francis Maitland) states,
The story goes that Newton once communicated to Leibnitz an anagram somewhat like the following: aaaaabbbeeeeii, ...
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What led to the formula $W=\vec{F} \cdot \overrightarrow{d s}$? [closed]
For me the concept of energy in physics is the least intuitive one as in all the books on Physics that I have read so far. The concept of energy have been the least intuitive one as I cannot ...
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In which units did Sir Isaac Newton define force at that time as SI system didn't existed then? [duplicate]
Sir Isaac Newton led the foundation of his famous laws of motion during the 17th Century but at that time SI system hadn't existed. So in which units did he define force? Did he define it in some ...
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In Newton's cannon image, where do the shapes drawn into the sphere come from?
I find quite interesting the choice for the shapes drawn into the sphere that resembles continents.
Was this choice arbitrary or do we know if there is some justification behind it?
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About Newton's apple
I read:
Suddenly – boink! -an apple hits him on the head. “Aha!” he shouts, or perhaps, “Eureka!” In a flash he understands that the very same force that brought the apple crashing toward the ground ...
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When did the word "Real number" begin to be used as an official terminology to refer to both rational and irrational numbers?
I am really curious about and struggling with finding when the word "Real number" began to be used as an official terminology to refer to both rational and irrational numbers.
In Wiki, it ...
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Did Newton ever use filtered or prism-dispersed colored light to view "Newton's rings" or other thin-film interference effects?
First please enjoy this wonderful answer to How did Newton explain his interference rings without wave optics? which describes the story behind what we now call Newton's rings.
Below I show an example ...
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History of interpolation methods - Newton
I'm interested in reading more about how Newton developed his method of interpolation and also the proofs he developed to this topic. I'm currently reading "Analysis by its history" which ...
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Was Kants theory of space and time inspired by that of colour?
Kants theory of space, time and causality is that they are the very forms of experience and ground all the other phenomena that we can experience. He called them the forms of sensibility.
Kant studied ...
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How did Newton originally formulate the Law of Cooling?
I am searching for Newton's original formulation of the Law of Cooling. In his article (p.140-143), Newton said:
"For the heat which the hot iron communicates in a given time to cold bodies ...
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Who was buying prisms in 1665?
In his recollections Newton describes how he made his greatest discovery:
In August 1665, Sir I., who was not then not 24 brought at Sturbridge fair a Prism to try some experiments
upon Descartes's ...
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How did the idea of a formal derivation emerge?
Infinitesimal calculus and the introduction of derivatives is often linked to Newton and Leibniz.
I was wondering, when and why the idea of studying formal derivatives (e.g., of a formal polynomial) ...
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Did Newton discuss and/or use the principle of moments?
This question comes from a point of view of a student in current times. The general curriculum for a physics student presents that a static analysis of a simple system requires that the forces in each ...
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What was Newton's statement of the universal law of gravitation?
Newton explained the inverse square law in Principia. On looking through an English translation, though, I'm having difficulty pulling out a single quote that is Newton's clearest statement of the ...
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Is there an English translation of Newton’s De Analysi?
I’m looking for an English translation of Newton’s De analysi. (Alas, my Latin is weak.) I’m rather dismayed by the fact that I can’t appear to find one. How is it possible that one of the most ...
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Can anyone find Newton's calculation error in Principia, Book III, Proposition XIX?
Musing about the historical evolution of the notation for the gravitational constant ($f$, $G$, $\kappa$, $\kappa^2$), I found myself digging for the first time in my life into Newton's Principia, ...
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