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325 Years of Newtons Principia ARTICLE 325 YEARS OF NEWTON’S PRINCIPIA PRADIP K. DATTA* Newton’s Principia Mathematica was published 325 years ago. The Principia provided a physical and mathematical basis for how basic elements of the universe work and how celestial bodies move and interact with each other and laid the foundation of modern science. In this article we have discussed briefly the contents of the Principia, its publication and the socio-economic background of Newton’s emergence. It has been discussed that the social necessity at that time was responsible for Newton’s emergence and the Principia. Introduction celestial bodies move and interact with each other. In it he showed how his principle of universal gravitation provided ne of the most important works in the history of an explanation both of falling bodies on the earth and of science, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia the motions of planets, comets, and other bodies in the Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural O heavens. The first part of the Principia is devoted to Philosophy), often called simply as the Principia, was first dynamics and includes Newton’s three famous laws published 325 years ago on 5 July 1687. (After annotating of motion, forming the foundation of classical mechanics, and correcting the first edition, Newton also published two also Newton’s law of universal gravitation, and a derivation further editions, in 1713 and 1726.) This is one of the of Kepler’s laws of planetary motion (which Kepler first greatest milestones in the history of science and one of obtained empirically). The second part is devoted to fluid the world’s most important scientific treatises. It quickly motion and other topics; and the third part to the system vaulted him to the elite ranks of scientific theorists. Widely of the world, i.e., the unification of terrestrial and celestial regarded as one of the most important works in both mechanics under the principle of gravitation .According to the science of physics and applied mathematics during the French mathematical physicist Alexis Clairaut, “The the Scientific revolution, the work underlies much of the famous book of Mathematical Principles of natural technological and scientific advances from the Industrial Philosophy marked the epoch of a great revolution in Revolution (usually dated from 1750) which its tools helped physics. The method followed by its illustrious author Sir to create. It united two competing strands of natural Newton ... spread the light of mathematics on a science philosophy—experimental induction and mathematical which up to then had remained in the darkness of deduction—into the scientific method of the modern era. conjectures and hypotheses”. His emphasis on experimental observation and mathematical analysis changed the scope and possibilities The Principia of science. Viewed retrospectively, no work was more seminal The Principia provided a physical and mathematical in the development of modern physics and astronomy than basis for how basic elements of the universe work and how Newton’s Principia. The ‘Principia’ deals primarily with massive bodies in motion, initially under a variety of * Kalpana Chawla Centre for Space and Nano Sciences, Retired Reader and Head, Department of Physics, Presidency conditions and hypothetical laws of force in both non- College, Kolkata-73, e-mail : [email protected], resisting and resisting media. It attempts to cover [email protected] hypothetical or possible motions both of celestial bodies 72 SCIENCE AND CULTURE, MARCH-APRIL, 2014 and of terrestrial projectiles. It explores difficult problems astronomy. It builds upon the propositions of the previous of motions perturbed by multiple attractive forces. Its third books, and applies them with further specificity than in and final book deals with the interpretation of observations Book 1 to the motions observed in the solar system. Several about the movements of planets and their satellites. It shows of the features and irregularities of the orbital motion of how astronomical observations prove the inverse square the Moon. Newton lists the astronomical observations on law of gravitation (to an accuracy that was high by the which he relies and establishes in a stepwise manner that standards of Newton’s time); offers estimates of relative the inverse square law of mutual gravitation applies to solar masses for the known giant planets and for the Earth and system bodies and is universal. He also gives the theory the Sun; defines the very slow motion of the Sun relative of the motions of comets based on the data obtained to the solar-system barycenter; shows how the theory of from John Flamsteed and from Edmond Halley, and gravity can account for irregularities in the motion of the accounts for the tides, attempting quantitative estimates of Moon; identifies the oblateness of the figure of the Earth; the contributions of the Sun and Moon to the tidal motions; accounts approximately for marine tides including and offers the first theory of the precession of the phenomena of spring and neap tides by the perturbing (and equinoxes. Book 3 also considers the harmonic oscillator in varying) gravitational attractions of the Sun and Moon on three dimensions, and motion in arbitrary force laws. In the Earth’s waters; explains the precession of the equinoxes Book 3 Newton also made clear his heliocentric view of as an effect of the gravitational attraction of the Moon on the solar system, recognized the “deviation of the Sun” the Earth’s equatorial bulge; and gives theoretical basis for from the centre of gravity of the solar system and estimated numerous phenomena about comets and their elongated, the mass ratios Sun: Jupiter and Sun: Saturn. near-parabolic orbits. General Scholium The opening sections of the ‘Principia’ contain, in revised and extended form, nearly all of the content of The General Scholium is a concluding essay added to Newton’s “De motu corporum in gyrum” (On the motion the second edition, 1713 (and amended in the third edition, of bodies in an orbit) which summarises the topics and 1726). It is best known for the “Hypotheses non fingo” (“I indicates where they reappear in the ‘Principia’. do not frame hypotheses”) expression, which Newton used as a response to some of the criticism received after the The ‘Principia ‘begins with ’Definitions’ and ’Axioms release of the first edition (1687). In the essay Newton not or Laws of Motion’ and continues in three books: only counters the natural philosophy of René Descartes Book 1, subtitled ”De motu corporum in gyrum”, and Gottfried Leibniz, but also addresses scientific concerns motion in the absence of any resisting medium. methodology, theological and metaphysical issues. It opens with a mathematical exposition of “the method of Newton’s gravitational attraction, an invisible force able to first and last ratios,” a geometrical form of infinitesimal act over vast distances, had led to criticism that he had calculus. It contains proof of Kepler’s second law, and introduced “occult agencies” into science. Newton firmly relationships between centripetal forces varying as the rejected such criticisms and wrote that it was enough that inverse-square of the distance to the center and orbits of the phenomena implied gravitational attraction, as they did; conic-section form, etc. but the phenomena did not so far indicate the cause of this gravity, and it was both unnecessary and improper to Book 2 largely concerns motion through resisting frame hypotheses of things not implied by the phenomena: media and also hydrostatics and the properties of such hypotheses “have no place in experimental compressible fluids, the effects of air resistance on philosophy”, in contrast to the proper way in which pendulums along with Newton’s account of experiments “particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena that he carried out, to try to find out some characteristics and afterwards rendered general by induction”. of air resistance in reality by observing the motions of pendulums under different conditions. Newton compares Contrary to the deductive approach of Descartes and the resistance offered by a medium against motions of Leibniz, Newton holds an inductive approach to scientific bodies of different shapes, attempts to derive the speed of inquiry. Phenomena should first be observed, and then sound, and gives accounts of experimental tests of the general rules should be searched for, and not vice versa. It result. is this approach, states Newton, that has led to the discovery of “the laws of motion and gravitation”. Book 3, subtitled “De mundi systemate” (On the system of the world) is an exposition of many consequences Newton also underlined his criticism of the vortex of universal gravitation, especially its consequences for theory of planetary motions, of Descartes, pointing to its VOL. 80, NOS. 3–4 73 incompatibility with the highly eccentric orbits of comets, and the other two books somewhat later. The complete which carry them “through all parts of the heavens work, published by Halley at his own financial indifferently”. risk, appeared in July 1687. Newton’s religious views are found in the General Social and Economic Background of Newton’s Scholium. It has been claimed that the text implies that Emergence Newton was an anti-Trinitarianist heretic. With no comments explicitly addressing the subject of the Holy Trinity, several Let us now discuss where is the source of Newton’s parts of the text seem to raise anti-Trinitarianist positions creative genius? What determined the content and the indirectly, most notably. direction of his work? It is to be remembered that human thoughts and ideas are conditioned by the limits of time, Publication space and the social environment. However great a genius man may be his power of thinking can by no means Early in his career, Newton was reluctant to publish supersede the limits of objective condition. his work. The publication of The Principia was the result of Halley’s visit to Newton in 1684.
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