I didn't consider it controversial, more an unacquaintance with Newton's law of gravity. 😉
Science is a continuum, a building upon of ideas.
Newton himself said "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."
Robert Hooke claimed that it was he who had given Newton the notion that led him to the law of universal gravitation, but there is evidence that he used his position of 'Curator of Experiments' at the Royal Society of London to appropriate ideas that were not his own.
Had it not been debatable, Hooke's claim would have strengthened your observation that "history is based on the victors, never the ones who lost". 😎
Hooke, the Genius Whose Big Mistake Was Confronting Newton | OpenMind
Wouldn't a change in ligature location give more strength with lesser muscle mass? It would also reduce fine motor control though, maybe stunting brain development of greater control.
I also remember reading a Larry Niven novel about Pak Protectors, and the greater leverage and strength gained from modified larger human joints.
Not sure if the author researched this or had some provided for him though. It's fuzzy anyways, it was at least 3 or 4 decades since I read it. I was thinking maybe dinosaurs were stronger simply because of their ligature attachment locations providing more leverage in larger animals.
It's why planets wobble their stars, while orbiting the much larger stars. Sometimes I wonder how much more Sol wobbles when many of the planets are linearly aligned with one another.
More that the science of that time was quite literally lower hanging fruit compared to these days, it was actually possible to think that stuff through without a vast budget, large staff of scientists, a hadron collider and a server park. Not to mention that he does come off as a bit privileged.
A couple of weeks! That's not what I've heard! I checked, all sources say the launch is scheduled for October (of this year, 2021), of course still subject to delays of one type or another. I forget what year it was, 10+ years ago, it was late then and Congress was discussing cancelling it.
If I were NASA I would have sent out a small probe to investigate the density and whatnot of the stuff there at L2.
I hadn't really thought about Lagrangian points being places where dust and rocks collect, especially in relation to the JWST, but clearly there's junk there. I know I read decades ago about telescope-visible debris at Jupiter's L4 and L5 points , in Jupiter's orbit 60 degrees ahead of and behind it.
How will they deal with that junk for the JWST? Surely they've thought about and discussed it, yet another rabbit hole I hesitate to Google about and get drawn into. I'm not a space scientist/engineer and I have some "real work" to do ...
I wonder if you or I, had we lived in the 17th century, would have been able to emulate the following achievements of Newton?
- His discovery of the composition of light which laid the foundation for modern optics.
- His paper on the production of colour in thin films and the discovery of Newton's rings.
- His construction of the first ever reflecting telescope.
- His three laws of motion which culminated in his universal law of gravitation.
- His discovery of the binomial theorem and the theory of infintesimal calculus in mathematics.
- His 'Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy', one of the most important works in the history of modern science.
Don't knock my hero! 😀
From 2018: Dust clouds that orbit Earth may finally have had their existence confirmed after more than a half-century of controversy.
Signs of Earth's Weird, Elusive 'Dust Moons' Finally Spotted | Space
I wonder if we can expect a confirming update?
For those interested in where the James Webb space telescope will be positioned, here's an approachable article from NASA:
NASA -
'L2' Will be the James Webb Space Telescope's Home in Space
The advantages of positioning the telescope at Lagrange point L2 are made clear.
NASA -
'L2' Will be the James Webb Space Telescope's Home in Space
The advantages of positioning the telescope at Lagrange point L2 are made clear.
Attachments
Further research shows that, unlike the other Lagrange points, L4 and L5 are resistant to gravitational perturbations. Because of this stability, objects such as dust and asteroids tend to accumulate at these points.
From this I conclude that space debris does NOT accumulate at L2, so the James Webb telescope will be in the clear.
ESA - What are Lagrange points?
From this I conclude that space debris does NOT accumulate at L2, so the James Webb telescope will be in the clear.
ESA - What are Lagrange points?
The telescope needs very low temperature for it's infra red imager.
Two unwanted sources of heat will be the Moon and the Earth.
I guess the most troublesome heating will be from the Moon when seen as full Moon from L2. This is light from the Sun reflected by the Moon.
Heat from the Earth dark side is infra red radiation, a albedo story.
Two unwanted sources of heat will be the Moon and the Earth.
I guess the most troublesome heating will be from the Moon when seen as full Moon from L2. This is light from the Sun reflected by the Moon.
Heat from the Earth dark side is infra red radiation, a albedo story.
I'm not saying I would be able to do anything like that, and after reading the article you posted about Hooke I am having some doubts if Newton wasn't more into power play or "politicking" than anything else. I am not ruthless enough, and it's impossible to get into the position he held unless you are born in the right social sphere or standing.
Robert Hooke - Wikipedia
Not intentionally knocking your hero, merely open for the possibility that it's quite common to glorify certain individuals.
He's only my hero in relation to his scientific discoveries.
In personality terms, he was a 'mixed up kid' who exhibited pronounced psychotic tendencies.
The circumstances of his early life (see link) gave him an acute sense of insecurity that rendered him obsessively anxious when his work was published and irrationally violent in defending it.
Isaac Newton | Biography, Facts, Discoveries, Laws, & Inventions | Britannica
Well, aren't we all a bit "mixed up" one way or another.
Myself, I exhibit an extrinsic distrust of most authoritative figures. Constantly questioning motivations and viewpoints forming the basis of any conclusions. Not much interest in theory, but very interested in the "why" of it all.
Myself, I exhibit an extrinsic distrust of most authoritative figures. Constantly questioning motivations and viewpoints forming the basis of any conclusions. Not much interest in theory, but very interested in the "why" of it all.
I was aware of his bad temper, which is unlike true brilliant men who mostly are humble people whith no arrogance.
"Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody"
-Mark Twain
Newton was a seriously cleve4 man. You have to see these people in context. He existed in a sea i of ignorance and misinformation, ordinary life dominated by fairy stories about how the cosmos worked (other than Kepler and Galileo). Within that environment he parties Principia and the other stuff @Galu mentioned.
For these reasons, I wouldn’t class his stuff as low hanging fruit. You can’t have Relativity without Maxwell and Newton first, just as you can’t have Dirac’s QM before Planck, Einstein and Bohr. None of these precursor discoveries would be classed as low hanging fruit.
For these reasons, I wouldn’t class his stuff as low hanging fruit. You can’t have Relativity without Maxwell and Newton first, just as you can’t have Dirac’s QM before Planck, Einstein and Bohr. None of these precursor discoveries would be classed as low hanging fruit.
Yes, perhaps it would be more accurate to say "comparatively easier than today's science". He's certainly been part of an extremely important development, though I was not aware of the contributions allegedly from Hooke which does hint towards varying degrees of exploitative behaviour on Newton's part.
I wasn't there, but it makes me a bit suspicious when he sought to eradicate not only portraits of Hooke, but also fought to discredit him and deliberately delayed the publication of "Opticks" in order to avoid further charges.
There's always more than one side to a story.
I wasn't there, but it makes me a bit suspicious when he sought to eradicate not only portraits of Hooke, but also fought to discredit him and deliberately delayed the publication of "Opticks" in order to avoid further charges.
There's always more than one side to a story.
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