3 ms·

Glory or Gravity? John Hutchinson and Isaac Newton

23 points by Petiver 4y ago

mach1ne 4y ago
One of the greatest achievements of the scientific method was to move research further away from the impreciseness and fallacies embedded in language.
whatshisface 4y ago
Those Newtonians must have been "bad Newtonians" if they didn't understand his views on the metaphysical claims about gravity (that bodies were imbued with an attractive potency, or that there was an unobservable fluid filling space and transmitting it), which he called "hypotheses." (No relation to the present meaning of the word.) Newton understood that science concerns itself with relating observations with each other, and making predictions about them. He was also aware that the way to evaluate a theory concerning the motion of celestial bodies was to check it against astronomical observations, not to ask if a force crossing the void in space "made sense," or whether it "lead straight to atheism." Unfortunately, he was far ahead of his time, and that attitude didn't become the norm until perhaps the 20th century.
- adastra22 4y ago
  Wasn't Newton the proponent of instantaneous action at a distance, not force being transmitted through fluids?
  - whatshisface 4y ago
    He had the position that the action at a distance (interpreting the words literally, that there were two objects, attracting each other at a distance) was what we observed, not that there was a metaphysical thing called an action reaching out across a distance.
    - adastra22 4y ago
      Interesting. I know that in the 150 years or so that followed the people who called themselves Newtonians did believe in instantaneous action at a distance, and that this was the dominant understanding of mechanics until Faraday and Maxwell. But it would not surprise me if Newton's own views were more complicated.
      - whatshisface 4y ago
        English's faculties for speaking without metaphysical implications are poor, but Newton believed that he saw instantaneous action at a distance, and since they didn't have sufficiently accurate measurements to observe any delay in gravity, I would say he was right that they saw that.

23 points by Petiver 4y ago

One of the greatest achievements of the scientific method was to move research further away from the impreciseness and fallacies embedded in language.

whatshisface 4y ago

Those Newtonians must have been "bad Newtonians" if they didn't understand his views on the metaphysical claims about gravity (that bodies were imbued with an attractive potency, or that there was an unobservable fluid filling space and transmitting it), which he called "hypotheses." (No relation to the present meaning of the word.) Newton understood that science concerns itself with relating observations with each other, and making predictions about them. He was also aware that the way to evaluate a theory concerning the motion of celestial bodies was to check it against astronomical observations, not to ask if a force crossing the void in space "made sense," or whether it "lead straight to atheism." Unfortunately, he was far ahead of his time, and that attitude didn't become the norm until perhaps the 20th century.

adastra22 4y ago
Wasn't Newton the proponent of instantaneous action at a distance, not force being transmitted through fluids?
- whatshisface 4y ago
  He had the position that the action at a distance (interpreting the words literally, that there were two objects, attracting each other at a distance) was what we observed, not that there was a metaphysical thing called an action reaching out across a distance.
  - adastra22 4y ago
    Interesting. I know that in the 150 years or so that followed the people who called themselves Newtonians did believe in instantaneous action at a distance, and that this was the dominant understanding of mechanics until Faraday and Maxwell. But it would not surprise me if Newton's own views were more complicated.
    - whatshisface 4y ago
      English's faculties for speaking without metaphysical implications are poor, but Newton believed that he saw instantaneous action at a distance, and since they didn't have sufficiently accurate measurements to observe any delay in gravity, I would say he was right that they saw that.