[X] My Assistant

[djellison]

Not every day you get to do this - I'm posting from an outhouse of Newton's birthplace - Woolsthorpe Manor in Lincolnshire. Yes - it has an apple orchard, and yes, it has his bedroom where he used a south facing window to split light into its spectrum. Sadly, you can't take pictures in the house, but I've got some nice ones from outside that I'll post when we get home in a few hours!


Doug

[ljk4-1]

Next on NOVA: "Newton's Dark Secrets"

http://www.pbs.org/nova/newton

Broadcast: June 20, 2006 (Repeat)

(NOVA airs Tuesdays on PBS at 8 p.m. Check your local listings as
dates and times may vary.)

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

Next on NOVA: "Newton's Dark Secrets"

http://www.pbs.org/nova/newton

Broadcast: June 20, 2006 (Repeat)

(NOVA airs Tuesdays on PBS at 8 p.m. Check your local listings as
dates and times may vary.)

I just saw that, it was very interesting. We do love to drag out people's dirty laundry, but there is no denying that Newton was also an astounding genius. I read the first 50 pages of Principia once, and found his proofs about Kepler's laws and about gravity from spherical bodies to be elegant and clear. Then I skimmed around and could not believe how advanced his thinking was. I was a graduate student in physics at the time, having read Goldstein's book on Classical Mechanics. The last problem in Newton's book is a calculation of the obliqueness of the Earth from perturbations in the orbit of the Moon. That is a very sophisticated problem. And then remember that Newton was not building on a long history of classical mechanics, he was starting from scratch with F=ma on page 1 (er, whatever page)!

It is a very rare thinker who can originate so much, and not just make small improvements on previous ideas. He said he was standing on the shoulders of giants, but most scientists only stand on the toes of giants.

Another show that impressed me was the Cosmos episode about Kepler. Kepler had a very magical theory about the orbits of the planets, and their relationship to platonic solids. He spent years trying to fit Tycho's measurements to this theory, but it wouldn't work. He finally realized that the orbits were elliptical, which seemed very imperfect to him, but he checked it over and over, and finally published that result.

Now there is another rare lesson in human nature, someone who gives up a cherished theory and accepts the facts. Kepler is the very opposite of the scientific Crank, who would invent one fantastic and improbable excuse on top of another to prove that he is right. I have huge respect for Kepler.

Forcing something to be true reminds me of a Soviet joke: an intelligence test was given to army soldiers, involving the fitting of pegs of various shapes into holes of various shapes. The conclusion was that Russian soldiers are either very dumb or very strong.

[ljk4-1]

At least Newton's "dirty laundry" is something of signifgance to our
understanding of the man and his work, rather than the usual trash
regarding some transient "celebrity".

BTW, maybe we should start planning to be off Earth and maybe
even out of the solar system before 2060 - just in case.

Right on the money about Kepler, made all the more amazing by the
fact that he was operating in an era where sticking to one's dogma despite
the evidence was the norm. He even once had a correspondence with
Galileo about whether there was life on the Moon or not. Kepler thought
there was, but Galileo didn't. Kepler eventually came around to agree
with Galileo. Oddly enough, Kepler did not think there were planets
around other stars with life.

Regarding the Russian joke, there was something similar on one of the
original Jetsons cartoon episodes. George and his boss were drafted
into the military, where they were examined and tested along a conveyor
belt by a series of robots and computers. One big, dumb guy in the line
with them had to do the round peg in the square hole test. When he got
angry at being unable to put a round peg in a square hole, he smashed
the test with his fists to make it work. The computer immediately
responded with "Officer material! Officer material!" and promotes
the guy on the spot.