LONG TERM IMPACT OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA ON THE SEARCH FOR SCIENTIFIC TRUTH

Long Term Impact of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica on the Search for Scientific Truth

Long Term Impact of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica on the Search for Scientific Truth

Outline

Newton rules of scientific reasoning have proven very durable. His first rule is now commonly called principle of parsimony, and states that simplest explanation is usually most probable. second rule essentially means that special interpretations of data should not be used if the reasonable explanation exists. third rule indicates that explanations of phenomena determined through scientific research should be applied to all instances of that phenomenon.

Sir Isaac Newton was the major contributor to Scientific Revolution. Newton believed that scientific theory must be accompanied by rigorous experimentation, and published four rules of scientific reasoning in Principia Mathematica (1686) as part of modern approaches of science:

1. admit no more causes of natural things that are true and sufficient to explain their appearances,

2. for natural effect, assigning same causes,

3. qualities of bodies found to belong to all bodies within experiments, universal esteem, and

4. propositions contained in observation of phenomena should be considered accurate or almost certain to run counter to other phenomena.

In other letters written in 1685 and 1686, Flamsteed asks for information on orbits of moons of Jupiter and Saturn, rise and fall of spring and neap tides at solstices and equinoxes, on flattening Jupiter at poles (which, if true, he says, leading both to indicate reasons for precession of equinoxes), and universal application of Kepler's third law. " information on Jupiter and Saturn has given me more of scruples. I was apt to suspect that there may be some cause or other unknown to me which might disturb proportion sesquialtera. For influences of planets on one another did not seem ...