Sir Isaac Newton

[xelasnave]

I think this man would have to be the smartest person to have ever walked the planet followed closely by Tesla.

Sir Issac Newton gave us the reflecting telescope and hence we call it a Newtonian Telescope...for that alone he deserves the top shelf but his gravity guides our space craft today...and I get very upset when you get the occassional relativist making out he was wrong and I have even seen stuff where they make fun of him...very uncalled for.

It is a pity that he spent so much of his life involved with religion as who knows what he could have produced if he had not wasted so much time with religious pursuits.

He certainly seems to be our very first scientist.
He invented calculus as if it were a mere sideline.

How clever and how dedicated to learning for learning sake.

He also sorted out the money which is an extrodinary achievement in itself and off the top of my head I think invented the gold standard...mmm I must look into that because I dont know where I got that or even what is meant by gold standard...further research.

If you have never read about this man may I suggest to take the time and learn all about his most extrodinary life and his unrivalled mind.

Who knows his fathers name?
Alex

[Wavytone]

More importantly he gave us calculus and non-relativistic mechanics. The real significance of Halley’s Comet IMHO is that its recovery was the final demonstration of the validity of all of Newton’s mathematics.

I have a copy of Principia and it is an amazing read and even now very few students could perform the exercises without electronic aids.

[julianh72]

He was also an alchemist, which seems bizarre from a 21st Century perspective - but don't forget that when Newton was working, the search for all knowledge was considered to be "Philosophy", and seeking a formula to turn iron into gold, or developing a theory of Gravity and Optics (and developing the mathematical tools to do it) were all seen as equally valid ways of "knowing the mind of God".

[JA]

Maybe it was just that: faith, that illuminated and drove him.

Best
JA

[speach]

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz must also be credited with the discovery of calculus

[xelasnave]

Yes I can understand why you could think that and certainly his belief in the bible was apparent.

His belief did change however.

But I think faith probably is something Newton would have rejected simply because faith means the support of an idea without evidence ..if you have evidence you do not require faith is the way it goes.

I think when he really got stuck into researching the bible he changed his views somewhat...anyways I wont spoil that part of his story for you and suggest you read about his journey.
He did not believe the concept of the Trinity which he had to keep to himself given where he was employed ...some place including the words " holy trinity"...but seriously read up on him if you havent as his life and ideas are extrodinary.
Alex

[drylander]

His fathers name was Mr Newton. I don't think the title (Sir)was passed on.
Pete

[Wavytone]

No.

Any well-educated man in that era had to have acquired religious credentials as well in the high church - this was the accepted convention even here in Australia until the 1970s.

It was necessary both to demonstrate you a high standing according to the social conventions of the period and essential from the perspective of the social connections it brought.

If in the other hand you were catholic, that brought a different set of connections.

However in Principia, Newton makes it quite clear he is able to put all the biblical stuff aside and execute the science objectively with a remarkably clear insight in the scientific method. Religion has no part in it.

[JA]

Perhaps we should now start discussing Global warming, Politics or many of the other socially and culturally potentially divisive topics :D
Peace out.


Best
JA

[xelasnave]

I tried to fix the name but it is beyond me☺.

As to the calculus I have the impression he showed he was the man not that German chap.

As to the religion side lets leave it at the point where the times were much different to these days and we perhaps have no way of knowing how it was for folk...I doubt you could survive as an atheist for example.
And I do recall him when asked about gravity his answer was " the force of God" ...As I understand it he was mates with a chap who like me thought gravity was a pushing force or universal pressure but it serms the church did not like that idea as they hunted down that guy and killed him...I think that is correct and if correct one could understand why his reply to the question was God.

He did spend a great deal of time trying to give dates to biblical events which I certainly see as a waste of time irrespective if you believe the bible or not not much is served and his time could have been better spent on other things...he may have come up with general relativity for example.

But different times and in many respects given the power of the church it is a miracle he was able to present his ideas at all...the chuch did not and still does not welcome change.

Who else comes close to Newton?
His is an impossible act to follow.
Alex

He spent a great deal of time trying to replicate the temple as set out in the good book as he thought the lay out was important.
Alex

[Mamba]

Who else could come close to Newton?

According to Robert Hooke a man called Robert Hooke.
Mamba

[croweater]

Hi Alex. I agree about Newton. He is my favourite. But I think Darwin and Galileo come pretty close. Cheers Richard :)

[raymo]

Leonardo da Vinci; apart from being a wonderful painter, he came up with,
and made detailed drawings of, a number of mechanical things that they
didn't have the technology to turn into reality at that time.
raymo

[xelasnave]

There is of course Tesla.
That man seized the future and handed it to us on a plate.

He made the mistake of going head to head with Einstein and has received bad press ever since.
But who has done more for the modern world than him.
It was cruel that a generation of kids were taught that Marconi ivented the radio when it was Tesla.
But the records now state it was Tesla not Narconi.

Tesla understood that there is indeed an eather and understood how it played in the role of electricity and I am rather convinced that his ideas on how gravity worked matched my own and the ideas of one of the first men to propose gravity as a pushing force or pressure that man being Le Sage in around 1745.

Of course if you suggest an eather these days you are howled down and labled a rat bag by relativists which is extrodinary given the stuff leading up to General Relativity...but as General Relativity requires no eather folk think it is not there.

They site Mickelson and Morleys experiment as proof of its none existence but I say well what do we call the billions of trillions of nutrinos rushing everywhere and that need not include any other particles that must be rushing everywhere in space at C or is that c...at the speed of light to be exact...
Heck how could Mand M find something that today they cant readily find...think of underground tank and cleaning fluid☺.


And it makes my blood boil when folk say Newton was wrong presumably to elevate General Relativity ...well why use Newtonian Gravity to guide every space craft that has left the surface of this planet.

To me the greatest question that remains is how does gravity work.

Of course I know☺ it took me years to work it out only to find Le Sage had come up with the idea in 1745.

But asking for a mechanical explaination of gravity is like waving a red flag at a bull for relativists.

But without an answer we are dombed not to progress ...
General Relativity is a co ordinate system and does not need an answer to how does gravity work but not knowing means we are halted in our attempts to undetstand everything...yes everything.

But that question must be answered because until it is we can not understand the way the universe works...I of course know and have worked it all out but I cant present it as a scientific model because..well because I am not a scientist☺ there we go more ammunition for those who would call me a rat bag...go ahead U dont care you see☺.

But when you see this pressure that I easily imagine you can see (understand) how so many things work...a lens for example in my universe works by glass shielding this eather such that light follows a path consistent with such shielding...the upper atmosphere electrical activity via sprites and elves is no more than this flow backing up as it encounters resistance of clouds and atmosphere...I only wish I could build a computer program to simulate this universal flow and test various things in it...I bet for a start dark matter would not be needed.

Everything changes when you realise there can be no force of attraction...anyways thats enough to convince everyone I am crazy.

But think of how things must behave in an ocean of something where everything rushes from one end of the universe to the other such that there is no point that does not have something from the extremes of the universe rushing past.

Hold up your finger and realise that nutrinos from every part of the universe rush thru that point...and every other point in the universe.

It is hard to get your head around and I dont know how you could deal with it from a math point of view ....

But the greatest contentment I got from this was not needing to prove my point yet content my observations would reliably support my conclusions.
All good...
Alex



Yes a person I greatly admire.
Alex

[mynameiscd]

Well without Newton I'd be going outside to a hollow tube siting on my mount and scratching my head looking up and then going inside and not being able to read my books about the apollo space program which wouldn't exist.

Cheers
Andy

[Zuts]

I doubt NASA uses Newtonian physics to determine orbital insertions for their spacecraft. Yes, Newton was a great man but his actual knowledge about gravity was incomplete. If we used his equations without taking into account relativistic effects our GPS 's would be useless and our spacecraft would miss their targets. Honor him for his achievements but please don't discount 400 years of scientific endeavor since his time.

I don't think you understand gravity and yes you are welcome to your theories, however if you are again going to start a years old discussion of your personal beliefs regards push gravity then go ahead, however I don't think you should do it in a thread about Newton who at least had scientific method and the limited imperfect tools of his time to gather actual evidence to support his theory.

As for neutrinos streaming out of the sun, which we can barely measure, what has that got to do with the aether?

[raymo]

Everyone's knowledge of gravity is incomplete.
raymo

[speach]

aren't we forgetting Einstein, he made a contribution. Also Hooke, who Newton hated and tried to wipe from history and almost succeed.

[xelasnave]

Hi Simon

Thanks for your interest.

I dont know how we can resolve what NASA uses to guide space craft but I have heard on many occassions that Newtonian gravity is what they use.

But that is heresay and neither of us seem to actually know so hopefully someone can come forward and clear the matter up.

I believe you are correct re GPS in so far as I think both Special Relativity and General Relativity are used for positioning for Earth locations...but again I have read neither are used for space flight but unfortunately I cant provide authority and that I must do given I have made the claim I must back it up.

I will see what I can do. ..email NASA I guess☺

I must pull you up in one aspect...You are entitled to believe that I dont understand gravity (which I reject as you assume that I have no understanding of General Relativity which although limited is sufficient for me to say I understand it better than most laymen) but please do not say I have a theory for I have never ever claimed my ideas about gravity was a theory because ideas are not a theory they are mere ideas fit for no more than a chat at the pub I recognise that about my ideas and I want you to understand that...you must know the meaning of the word theory...you may as well substitue the words "established fact representing our current scientific position that rules supreme unless a better theory or model is presented, tested and its predictions observed" and that "theory" is not applicable to my ramblings.

But you are right about going on about push gravity and all I can say is I dont know what came over me...I have not thought about it for years.

Re aether..
We both know there is no aether or ether in physics but to me that paints a picture that is probably different to the reality which I believe must be that space is full of stuff flying about and I mention nutrinos to indicate but one particle that we could assume there would be sufficient to call an eather and you could make a list to add I expect...my point is I suppose there is no doubt enough stuff flying about to label it as an ether.. ..certainly not the lum ether but enough something to fit a loose term ether.
And you can say that is unscientific and unsupported but I have not claimed it is.
Or lets approach it another way..take a cubic foot of space in the remotest part of space you can think of and consider what passes thru it...if you think about it you find it is less than empty and I feel calling the stuff we find in there an ether not hard to do.
Empty space is far from empty so what will we call whats in it...I choose ether.
It is true that we can barely measure nuetrinos but I think it is accepted they are somewhat plentiful although I can not defend the statements I have tead that there abillions of them passing thru our body as we speak.
I dont know what their life span is and frankly I have not thought about that until now and their life span is entirely relevant to my ether call in temote space as I have up till now assumed they would reach such remote places...well if they have a long life space will be full of them...if they gave a short life the question becomes into what form do they decay.
Again thank you for your interest and thought provoking comments.
I will think about how we can resolve the issue of the use or no use of Relativity in space flight...you would think they must use GPS in at least landing craft on Earth...
Alex

From the little research I have done so far a general statement could be...Newtoian gravity is used in most situations as it does the job but General Relativity is used to fine tune.
So it seems you would plpt your course to the edge of the Solar System using Newtoian gravity but perhaps employ General Relativity to manage a booster rocket firing.

Anyways rather than put too fine a point upon the matter it is clear that Newtonian Gravity works well and although General Relativity is now the best model it takes little away from the usefulness of Newtonian gravity which is simply a recognition of the brilliance of Newton.
But it would be great if someone could provide more information as to exactly how they plan a route for a space craft...
Alex

Neutrinos as Dark Matter. This decay has a mean life of 887 seconds or a half life of 10.25 minutes. ... Thus a 1 MeV neutrino could travel through about 35 light years of water before interacting.
Sorry I need to give a link and acknowledge the site but I must go...does this mean a nutrino can travell 35 light years?
Back later.
Alex

Credit to
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/neutrinos.html
And that site reminded me that we observe nutrinos from supernova which means there must be plenty flying around not only from supernova but from each and every star.
Alex

[julianh72]

There's a nice quote in one of the replies in this thread:
"How did NASA Conclude that the General Theory of Relativity was not Needed for Earth-Moon Flight Path Computation?"
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/8494/how-did-nasa-conclude-that-the-general-theory-of-relativity-was-not-needed-for-e

"Despite the name, getting people to the Moon is not rocket science - it's rocket engineering."

"A simple back of the envelope calculation with the Schwarzschild metric shows that the order of magnitude deviation between corresponding points Earth-Moon transfer trajectories calculated with Newtonian and GTR physics is of the order of 0.1 meters"

"Engineers know that effects that are orders of magnitude smaller than the sensitivity of their systems are essentially non-effects. General relativity is a non-effect. A memo to that effect was not needed.
...
Venus and Jupiter both have a greater perturbative impact on the trajectories of vehicles in the Earth-Moon system than does general relativity, and yet they weren't modeled."

[xelasnave]

Hi Julian
Thanks for your interest and your important contribution to the thread.
Given that I wonder why Genreal Relativity and Special Relativity are apparently employed in GPS.
More reading.
Thanks again.
Alex

[julianh72]

Two fundamental reasons:

a) The whole GPS system is about measuring location, so it is vital that the system knows the locations of all of the satellites to the highest possible precision. Missing your "target" on the Moon by 100 mm may be of no real consequence for the Apollo program, but relativistic errors will add up over time for an orbiting satellite.

b) More importantly, the system works by measuring the time lag for very accurately timed signals from the satellites to reach your receiver, so it is essential that the clocks on the GPS satellites are accurately synchronised. Time dilation effects definitely matter when you are keeping track of time to pico-second accuracy on a whole constellation of satellites, all of which are moving in their own orbits, within the Earth's "gravity well".

Every nanosecond of error would correspond to about 300 mm of error in calculated position, which would be catastrophic for a system which can measure location to centimetre-precision or better (when using survey-grade differential GPS equipment), so the time-keeping system has to allow for relativistic effects.

[xelasnave]

Thanks Julian.
I read up on it earlier and realised I knew about it but forgot some of it..as you do when you get to my age and try to cramb too much in...
I was going to explain it but already have to think again about the roles each of Special Relativity and General Relativity play...Special has to do with speed and General to do with space time being less bent☺ you have too add one subtract the other and carry the 4...☺
Part is complex but there is an interesting part the receiver plays which I have already forgoten but I am sure some one will mention it.

Maybe I should read it all again☺

I had intended to cut and paste and link and maybe I will do so but a little busy at the moment.

Thanks again for your contribution and I am sure this will be very helpful to members I certainly found it helpful.

I was thinking today about a system without satellites simply using mobile phones all over the world and their relationship to transmitters...but then I saw a butterfly and thought how interesting they are...it was a display...sad but interesting.
Alex

Here is a link for folk who would like a relatively☺ simple explanation which has links to Relativity lectures and to something on the engineering.

http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html