| | After his death and burial, Newton was exhumed so he could be buried in a more prominent location in [[Westminster Abby]]. During this exhumation process, it was discovered that Newton had large amounts of mercury in his body, probably as a direct result of his [[alchemy|alchemical]] experiments. These large amounts of mercury may explain Newton’s eccentricity in his latter years, as well as his cause of death. <ref>Newton Biography[http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Newton.html]</ref> | | After his death and burial, Newton was exhumed so he could be buried in a more prominent location in [[Westminster Abby]]. During this exhumation process, it was discovered that Newton had large amounts of mercury in his body, probably as a direct result of his [[alchemy|alchemical]] experiments. These large amounts of mercury may explain Newton’s eccentricity in his latter years, as well as his cause of death. <ref>Newton Biography[http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Newton.html]</ref> |
| − | 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. <ref>Newton’s Laws Falsified 1816[http://www.galilean-library.org/lakatos.html]</ref> 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. <ref>Newton’s Laws in 1919 [http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/falsify.html]</ref> 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. <ref>Putnam, Dr. Hilary. Mathematics, Matter, and Method. Cambridge University Press. 1980. Page 257 [http://books.google.com/books?id=oEXw5dsrY64C&pg=RA2-PA257&lpg=RA2-PA257&dq=newton+falsify+mercury&source=web&ots=r1RiPYytw2&sig=3f-OYsTqprSmMxgmSgePqsjoXWo]</ref> | + | 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. <ref>Newton’s Laws Falsified 1816[http://www.galilean-library.org/lakatos.html]</ref> <ref>Putnam, Dr. Hilary. Mathematics, Matter, and Method. Cambridge University Press. 1980. Page 257 [http://books.google.com/books?id=oEXw5dsrY64C&pg=RA2-PA257&lpg=RA2-PA257&dq=newton+falsify+mercury&source=web&ots=r1RiPYytw2&sig=3f-OYsTqprSmMxgmSgePqsjoXWo]</ref> |