{"id":1139,"date":"2011-05-16T09:00:24","date_gmt":"2011-05-15T21:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/?p=1139"},"modified":"2012-09-25T02:04:54","modified_gmt":"2012-09-24T14:04:54","slug":"keith-hutchison-on-de-gravitatione-and-newton%e2%80%99s-mathematical-method","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/keith-hutchison-on-de-gravitatione-and-newton%e2%80%99s-mathematical-method\/","title":{"rendered":"Keith Hutchison on ‘De Gravitatione’ and Newton\u2019s Mathematical Method"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keith Hutchison writes…<\/strong><\/p>\n

The core of Kirsten Walsh\u2019s paper<\/a> is a defence of her proposal that Newton\u2019s De Gravitatione<\/em><\/a> was composed after the publication of the new theory of colours (in 1672-3).\u00a0 Kirsten compares the methodology of the optical writings with that of De Grav.<\/em> and notes that despite the similarity there are significant differences. Yet the methodology of De Grav.<\/em> is effectively identical to that of the Principia<\/em><\/a>, so is plausibly interpreted as the one preferred by Newton.\u00a0 So Newton would have displayed this methodology in the optical writings, Kirsten concludes, had De Grav<\/em>. already been composed.<\/p>\n

\"Isaac

Isaac Newton, 1642-1727<\/p><\/div>\n

Though I am (tentatively) happy with Kirsten\u2019s observation that it is uncontroversial to see Newton\u2019s Principia<\/em> as deploying the methodology of De Grav<\/em>., part of the reason for this is surely the fact that the discussion of methodology in De Grav.<\/em> is so brief, and hardly exemplified in the actual science that Newton so fleetingly displays in his text.\u00a0 The little that we find in De Grav<\/em>. does indeed seem concordant with much that happens in the Principia<\/em>, but it is easy \u2013 too easy \u2013 to find agreement between a pair of texts if one of them is vague enough.\u00a0 Given that the identity between the two methodologies is so important to Kirsten\u2019s case, she needs to find some way of sharpening this step of the argument.<\/p>\n

She could, for instance, identify far more thoroughly the small differences between the methodology of the optical writings and that of De Grav<\/em>.\u00a0 If each of these differences could be consistently found in the Principia<\/em> as well, Kirsten would have a much better case, as long as there were not something about the optical investigations that required the alternative approach.\u00a0 Kirsten notes indeed, that Cohen has suggested that the Principia <\/em>is primarily a mathematical investigation, but the optical work is overwhelmingly experimental.\u00a0 Cohen seems to be significantly wrong here, for investigations of the context of Newton\u2019s treatment of chromatic aberration show that Newton originally dreamt of creating a mathematical science of colours \u2013 until he found that refraction was puzzlingly idiosyncratic, and so unlike the extremely orderly gravitational interaction that provided much of the mathematics of the Principia<\/em>.\u00a0 But it remains true that the optical work is saturated with experiment, and it could be this that allows an earlier (?) De Grav<\/em>. to seem more like the Principia.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keith Hutchison writes… The core of Kirsten Walsh\u2019s paper is a defence of her proposal that Newton\u2019s De Gravitatione was composed after the publication of the new theory of colours (in 1672-3).\u00a0 Kirsten compares the methodology of the optical writings […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4582,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[227,224,348],"class_list":["post-1139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideas","tag-history-of-science","tag-newton","tag-optics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4582"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}