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Don't you think reading the Principia will help the physicists? The study of its beautiful geometric reasoning ought to be of benefit to the physics student. S
by billfruit 8y ago
Don't you think reading the Principia will help the physicists? The study of its beautiful geometric reasoning ought to be of benefit to the physics student.
Similarly the learning how the treatment of electrodynamics and thermodynamics has evolved in the last 150~200 years, in terms of the formalisms and mathematical tools used could be educative.
- whatshisface 8y agoPrincipa is almost impossible to read by modern standards, and the information it contains is explained far better elsewhere (after all there has been a lot of time for improvements in our understanding.) Studying historical physics texts is educative in the sense that it literally teaches you facts ("this person believed this thing on this date") but it's not the best way to learn the physics. Like I said, history of physics is usually taken up as a pastime by physicists who already know the physics. It is an enjoyable thing that is valuable on its own. Every physics professor knows about Principa, and they know where to find Maxwell's original papers, and so on, and there's a good reason why that's not how they teach.