Talk:Isaac Newton

Regarding "Newton was a devout Christian who said his discoveries were inspired by God"

I am not changing anything yet, but my (christian) science book says that Newton had a firm belief in God, but denied the Trinity, and the Deity of Christ. Not exactly the beliefs of a "devout Christian" --TimSvendsen 20:41, 6 March 2007 (EST)

That's a big surprise to me. My understanding is that Newton was a Christian who relied on the Bible daily.--Aschlafly 21:05, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Relied on the Bible daily? yes. Accepted the Trinity? Definitely not. Whether that makes him a "devout Christian" is presumably therefore very much a defintional issue of how you define Christian. JoshuaZ 21:08, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Well, we don't need to take sides on that matter. We can just report his beliefs and leave it at that; readers can decide for themselves whether he's Christian by their own standards. Tsumetai 21:11, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Newton and Falsification

I’ve added the following paragraph (or a version of it) at the end of this article a number of times:

Newton’s Laws stood as “laws” for years after his death, but in 1816 the discovery of Mercury’s anomalous perihelion provided evidence that Newton’s laws did not always correctly predict behavior in the observed, external, world. It was not until 1919, however, that a series of experiments designed to test General Relativity provided the scientific community with enough evidence to replace those laws. Once a theory could better predict the external world than Newton’s Laws, they were fully falsified and replaced as the dominant theory in physics.

The first time it was deleted because I had not sourced it correctly, which is fine. So I sourced it properly and it stood for awhile. Then part of it was deleted because it was to quote the editing comment “Heresy” and “unintelligible”. Since I figured heresy was a bad reason to delete information, especially when properly sourced, I tried to make my comments more intelligible and replaced them. Then part of it was deleted—I am informed because the 1919 experiments have been discredited. But, after researching the matter, I can find no evidence to support this claim (That, of course, doesn’t mean that the evidence doesn’t exist—just that I can’t find it). Even if, however, the 1919 experiments have been discredited that is not, especially relevant to this article, as the 1919 experiments are only important as a turning point in scientific opinion about Newton’s Laws—in particular it marks the date a theory was better able to predict new information than Newton’s Laws could—since then numerous experiments have supported general relativity (though if past is prologue it will soon be on the way out in favor of a better theory itself) but here the only important thing is that it seems to predict better than Newton’s Laws predict and I think it belongs here. However, before I could post this discussion a third contributor deleted the remainder of my paragraph, with only the comment “1816 observation did not falsify Newton”. I’ve linked to two reputable sources for this point, including Dr. Hilary Putnam—second only to Popper himself in the field of philosophy of science—on this point. Whereas the person who deleted the 1816 claim did not provide any evidence to support this deletion—nor can I find any (again, it may be out there, but I can’t find it).

For those reasons, I believe this information belongs in the article—but since it has been repeatedly deleted I’ve chosen to put it on the talk page for now. Can anyone cite a reason to believe this paragraph is false, or explain why it does not belong here? Or can anyone cite to more reputable sources to bolster this paragraph? Or can anyone offer suggested changes that would make it palatable to all parties to this debate?

I do think that it is pretty absurd to say that some 1816 observation of Mercury falsified Newton. It is true that there was no good explanation for Mercury’s anomalous perihelion, but there were possible explanations that did not involve changing Newton's law of gravity.

I also don't think that a 20th century philosopher is a reliable source on this point. If an 1816 observation really falsified Newton, then there should have been physicists in 1817 saying that the observation proves that they should all stop relying on Newton's laws. There weren't then, and there aren't now. Newton's laws are still useful and have not been "fully falsified".

Yes, General Relativity has superceded Newtonian gravitation, but the 1919 observations did not provide the necessary evidence. The 1919 observation was sold as proof to the public at the time, but was actually inconclusive.

On another topic, why is Newton called "Sir"? I wouldn't think that a conservative American encyclopedia would respect some silly British nobility title. RSchlafly 16:21, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

If you read the Putnam (who I find to be an incredibly reliable source when it comes to the history of science, as his job is to study the history of science and draw well reasoned conclusions based on that history, and as he is highly regarded in his field –which he would not be if he made basic errors)article you will see that you are making the exact same point he is—only he draws a different, and, I think, better grounded conclusion. Science is not a monolithic beast, and it does not move quickly. That is why, though the 1816 observations falsified Newton’s Laws (and remember one wrong prediction means the whole theory is falsified and a new theory must be sought to replace it), science was slow to react. Further, Newton’s Laws still were better predictors than any other theory (until relativity hit the scene in 1919) so they were still used—and in fact are still used as they generate the right result for the objects big enough to see on the surface of the earth moving at a speed we can see them—but that does not mean that the laws were not falsified, just that they are still useful.

Of course if you have a better date for when relativity superseded Newton’s laws that is what you ought to add to the article rather than deleting information and replacing it with nothing (For if Newton’s laws were superseded, then they were falsified, and that information belongs in the article). I still have seen no evidence, however, offered that the 1919 experiments were flawed (again, I’m open to the idea that they may be flawed, but would like some evidence of that—especially since I have evidence to the contrary).--Reginod 22:40, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

Putnam is entitled to his opinions, but I just don't see how an 1816 anomaly could have falsified Newtonian gravity. There were other possible explanations for that anomaly, such as an unknown asteroid or an oblateness of the Sun. Those explanations might not have required any change to Newtonian gravity.

Here is a good account of the 1919 eclipse. [4] It says of Eddington's announcement:

The reaction from scientists at this special meeting was ambivalent. Some questioned the reliability of statistical evidence from such a small number of stars. This skepticism seems in retrospect to be entirely justified. Although the results from Sobral were consistent with Einstein’s prediction, Eddington had been careful to remove from the analysis all measurements taken with the main equipment, the astrographic telescope and used only the results from the 4-inch. As I have explained, there were good grounds for this because of problems with the focus of the larger instrument. On the other hand, these plates yielded a value for the deflection of 0.93 seconds of arc, very close to the Newtonian prediction. Some suspected Eddington of cooking the books by leaving these measurements out.

At any rate, this is an article on Newton, not relativity or philosophy. The exact date in which physicists became convinced of a non-Newtonian explanation for Mercury's precession doesn't seem very relevant to me. RSchlafly 02:34, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

Thank you for the link, it is most informative (I've not had a chance to read it fully but so far quite informative) but your second point is, I think spot on, I hadn't really realized that that was your objection. I thought the objection was to the claim that Newton's laws had been falsified, not that the exact date was off.--Reginod 11:21, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

Inspired Kant

The article says:

Newton is often seen as one of the greatest scientists of all time due to his contributions, which inspired Kant to create the philosophical concepts of the categorical imperative and the synthetic a priori.

Is this a joke? What does Kant have to do with anything? Newton inspired some great science -- who cares about whatever mediocre philosophy he might have inspired? RSchlafly 02:26, 15 March 2007 (EDT)