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We certainly do not study Newtonian physics based on Newton's writing, and any physics teacher who would use Newton's original argument and Newton's notation wo

We certainly do not study Newtonian physics based on Newton's writing, and any physics teacher who would use Newton's original argument and Newton's notation would be considered a very bad teacher simply because we have developed far better ways to express the same thing, the original argument is needlessly convoluted and original notation is horribly awkward - future work has improved on that. This is not because "they had no idea about the concepts we have found recently?" - relativity and other non-Newtonian phyics is a different issue - it's about having the best, most accurate represenation of the same concept, and it is very unlikely that the very first attempt in defining a concept is the best result possible. We can make (and have made) much better summaries of Newtonian physics than Newton did, better definitions of Newton's principles than those which he wrote, when we teach Newton's laws of motion, we never use the original wording but an improved paraphrase of them. The original has no value for the learner (other than a historical curiosity) because the revised versions are simply better expressions of the same thing. Why don't we require the same thing from philosophy?

prego_xo 4y ago
I'm not saying we should use those kinds of old practices as a basis for our modern ones, but rather that it's more healthy for new and developing [scientists/artists/philosophers/etc] to study the history and learn about the steps it took to get to our modern understanding. We can't expect to advance further without knowing the foundation on which our understanding is built. Learning about what it took to advance in the past is how we create a mindset that lets us advance now; we can't begin to think critically without knowing our wrongs and our rights in tandem.
denton-scratch 4y ago
> simply because we have developed far better ways to express the same thing To be fair, the main reason we don't study Newton's ideas in their original form is that he wrote in Latin. The second is that he went to rather extreme lengths to make his writing obscure; he was very possessive of his ideas, and didn't want other philosophers pinching them. Read the Newton Leibniz correspondence.
billfruit 4y ago
At the same time there is value in reading the Principa, much of it is said to be very elegant and it is instructive to see some of the geometric reasoning that Newton uses. Similarly in another field, Economics, I hear undergraduates are still urged to read Wealth of Nations.
davidivadavid 4y ago
"The original has no value for the learner (other than a historical curiosity) because the revised versions are simply better expressions of the same thing." I mean, how would we decide that? Do modern learners understand Newtonian physics better than Newton did? By what metric?
- drdeca 4y ago
  There are people who understand the implications of Newtonian mechanics better than Newton did, yes. We can tell because they can make predictions within that framework which he could not.
  - davidivadavid 4y ago
    Making predictions within a framework, however extrapolated from the beginning, and coming up with a framework is precisely the qualitative difference that separates them and that is not being taught when people ask for recipes instead of understanding.
    - drdeca 4y ago
      By “framework” I don’t mean “sequence of steps”, but overall structure of the theory. Newton did not know e.g. the formulation of stuff in terms of Hamiltonians, even though it is still in a sense in the same framework. I don’t think studying the Latin is helpful in coming up with reformulations of physics things.
      - davidivadavid 4y ago
        You're proving my point for me: "At age ten, he stumbled across a Latin copy of Euclid; and at twelve he studied Newton's Arithmetica Universalis. He moved on to read the Principia, and by age 16 he had covered much of it, as well as some more recent works on analytic geometry and the differential calculus." (from the Wikipedia article about Hamilton).
ogurechny 4y ago
This explanation is just a deliberately wrong textbook simplification everyone is expected to simply believe (while also repeating mantras about empiricism and believing nothing). It is as vulgar as, say, the belief that human sacrifice will calm down some Forest God (so please don't ever look down on all those stupid “uneducated” people, everyone is in the same boat). Newton most certainly did not mean the “same thing” we mean. His context, his models, his metaphysical and spiritual ground were all different from ours. All of that is simply ignored. A student today is presented with appropriated thoroughly mutated cuts, is told that those are Newton's contribution to the glorious building of Science, and never questions that afterwards.

prego_xo 4y ago

I'm not saying we should use those kinds of old practices as a basis for our modern ones, but rather that it's more healthy for new and developing [scientists/artists/philosophers/etc] to study the history and learn about the steps it took to get to our modern understanding. We can't expect to advance further without knowing the foundation on which our understanding is built. Learning about what it took to advance in the past is how we create a mindset that lets us advance now; we can't begin to think critically without knowing our wrongs and our rights in tandem.

denton-scratch 4y ago

> simply because we have developed far better ways to express the same thing To be fair, the main reason we don't study Newton's ideas in their original form is that he wrote in Latin. The second is that he went to rather extreme lengths to make his writing obscure; he was very possessive of his ideas, and didn't want other philosophers pinching them. Read the Newton Leibniz correspondence.

billfruit 4y ago

At the same time there is value in reading the Principa, much of it is said to be very elegant and it is instructive to see some of the geometric reasoning that Newton uses. Similarly in another field, Economics, I hear undergraduates are still urged to read Wealth of Nations.

davidivadavid 4y ago

"The original has no value for the learner (other than a historical curiosity) because the revised versions are simply better expressions of the same thing." I mean, how would we decide that? Do modern learners understand Newtonian physics better than Newton did? By what metric?

drdeca 4y ago
There are people who understand the implications of Newtonian mechanics better than Newton did, yes. We can tell because they can make predictions within that framework which he could not.
- davidivadavid 4y ago
  Making predictions within a framework, however extrapolated from the beginning, and coming up with a framework is precisely the qualitative difference that separates them and that is not being taught when people ask for recipes instead of understanding.
  - drdeca 4y ago
    By “framework” I don’t mean “sequence of steps”, but overall structure of the theory. Newton did not know e.g. the formulation of stuff in terms of Hamiltonians, even though it is still in a sense in the same framework. I don’t think studying the Latin is helpful in coming up with reformulations of physics things.
    - davidivadavid 4y ago
      You're proving my point for me: "At age ten, he stumbled across a Latin copy of Euclid; and at twelve he studied Newton's Arithmetica Universalis. He moved on to read the Principia, and by age 16 he had covered much of it, as well as some more recent works on analytic geometry and the differential calculus." (from the Wikipedia article about Hamilton).

ogurechny 4y ago

This explanation is just a deliberately wrong textbook simplification everyone is expected to simply believe (while also repeating mantras about empiricism and believing nothing). It is as vulgar as, say, the belief that human sacrifice will calm down some Forest God (so please don't ever look down on all those stupid “uneducated” people, everyone is in the same boat). Newton most certainly did not mean the “same thing” we mean. His context, his models, his metaphysical and spiritual ground were all different from ours. All of that is simply ignored. A student today is presented with appropriated thoroughly mutated cuts, is told that those are Newton's contribution to the glorious building of Science, and never questions that afterwards.