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    P350 PP1 Newton

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    1) Isaac Newton was born in 1642 in Woolsthorpe, England and became a professor at Cambridge University at a young age, where he developed his theories of optics, mechanics, and gravitation. 2) In his 1687 work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Newton formulated three laws of motion and established that the force of gravity follows an inverse-square law. 3) Newton's work revolutionized science and established the principles of classical mechanics, though some of his assumptions about space and time were later amended by Einstein's theory of relativity.

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    P350 PP1 Newton

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    1) Isaac Newton was born in 1642 in Woolsthorpe, England and became a professor at Cambridge University at a young age, where he developed his theories of optics, mechanics, and gravitation. 2) In his 1687 work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Newton formulated three laws of motion and established that the force of gravity follows an inverse-square law. 3) Newton's work revolutionized science and established the principles of classical mechanics, though some of his assumptions about space and time were later amended by Einstein's theory of relativity.

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    1) Isaac Newton was born in 1642 in Woolsthorpe, England and became a professor at Cambridge University at a young age, where he developed his theories of optics, mechanics, and gravitation. 2) In his 1687 work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Newton formulated three laws of motion and established that the force of gravity follows an inverse-square law. 3) Newton's work revolutionized science and established the principles of classical mechanics, though some of his assumptions about space and time were later amended by Einstein's theory of relativity.

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    P350 PP1 Newton

    Uploaded by

    nikesh_prasad
    1) Isaac Newton was born in 1642 in Woolsthorpe, England and became a professor at Cambridge University at a young age, where he developed his theories of optics, mechanics, and gravitation. 2) In his 1687 work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Newton formulated three laws of motion and established that the force of gravity follows an inverse-square law. 3) Newton's work revolutionized science and established the principles of classical mechanics, though some of his assumptions about space and time were later amended by Einstein's theory of relativity.

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    SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

    PCES 1.1

    Born in the small village


    of Woolsthorpe, Newton
    quickly made an
    impression as a student
    at Cambridge- he was
    appointed full Prof. there
    The young Newton
    in 1669, at the age of 27!
    He remained there until
    1696, when he moved to London to work at
    the Royal Mint, where he worked for 30 yrs,
    and reformed the British monetary system.

    Trinity College in Cambridge (refectory at left)

    High Table inside the refectory, with Henry VIII

    NEWTONIAN DYNAMICS (I)


    Although Newton published his complete theory
    in 1686, some of the important ideas in it date
    back to the period 1666-68, when he left
    Cambridge to spend the period of the plague at
    his mothers home, Woolsthorpe Manor in
    Lincolnshire (see right). His reasons for delaying
    have interested historians ever since (see course
    notes).
    In 3 volumes the Principia set forth the basic
    ideas and rules of Newtonian dynamics, and the
    law of gravitation, followed by a detailed analysis of their
    consequences. This involved a derivation of the dynamics
    of planets and comets, showing their motion would be that
    of a conic section (ellipse, parabola, hyperbola). Then there
    was a lengthy analysis of fluid and gas mechanics, & of the
    rotation of the earth, its shape, tides, and atmosphere. This
    hardly exhausts the material in a book of over 500 pages,
    with in parts very involved mathematical derivations.
    Apart from the mathematical formulation of the dynamics,
    Newton also introduced a number of assumptions about the
    structure of space, time, and matter. Chief amongst these:
    (i) In complete contrast to all prevailing ideas, he
    supposed space was empty and absolute (as was time).
    (ii) the gravitational force acted at a distance, through
    empty space.

    PCES 1.2

    PCES 1.3

    NEWTONIAN DYNAMICS (II)


    As everyone learns in high school, Newton came up with his laws of dynamics and his
    law of gravitation, and this changed the world. The basic results were summed up as
    follows:
    (A) The laws of dynamics were
    (1) Every body continues in a state of uniform (ie., unaccelerated) motion unless acted
    upon by a force.
    (2) The force F and acceleration a of a body with mass m are related by F = ma
    (3) For every force acting on a body, there will be an equal and opposite reactive force
    acting somewhere.
    (B) The universal law of Gravitation: that between any mass m1 and another mass
    separated by a distance r, there will be an attractive force

    m2

    ___

    F = G m1m2
    r2

    where

    G is a constant (now called the constant of gravitation).

    In addition to these laws (which he did not really formulate in this way), Newton also
    gave arguments for the existence of what he called Absolute space & Absolute time.
    These assumptions caused debate even at that time (particularly with Leibniz) and turned
    out to be inessential to the theory- however the points raised are very important (see notes,
    and also Newtons scholium, reprinted in the supplementary notes).

    NEWTONIAN DYNAMICS (III)

    PCES 1.4

    To unpack Newtonian dynamics means looking at the assumptions


    which underlie their formulation- in particular, the meaning attached
    to lengths, times, masses, and forces, and how they were supposed to
    defined in the real world. These assumptions raise a number of subtle
    Questions, particularly when one is dealing with non-inertial (ie.,
    accelerated) frames of reference.
    Edmund Halley
    (1646-1742)

    Just as important is knowing how to use these laws to understand


    the motion of objects, of fluid & gas mechanics, etc This is part of the education of, eg.,
    a modern engineer. Naturally the first applications by Newton and later by others was to
    simple problems like planetary and comet motion, the shape of the earth, etc. As an
    example, consider the dynamics of comets, which in those days were considered to be
    rather mysterious. Extensive observations of these had been accumulated since Tycho,
    and the English Astronomer Royal Flamsteed was one of the authorities on cometary
    movements- his picture of their orbits is shown below. This nicely illustrates the huge
    gap in understanding that was bridged by
    Newtons work- a by-product of his law of
    Gravitation was that the comets must follow
    conic section orbits (ellipses, parabolae,
    hyperbolae), with calculable deviations coming
    from their interactions with the planets. The
    picture of Newtons is from a letter he wrote to
    Flamsteed. Using Newtons ideas his friend
    Halley predicted the return of the famous comet
    Flamsteeds picture
    Newtons picture
    in 76 yrs.

    NEWTON: OPTICAL RESEARCH

    PCES 1.5

    Newton began his optical work


    very early- already in 1670 he
    had presented his reflecting
    telescope to the Royal Societythese use a mirror to gather
    light instead of a lens. Such
    nd
    Newtons 2 reflector
    telescopes would later
    Refraction of white light by a prism
    (1671)
    revolutionize 20th century
    astronomy. However at the time
    his most noted result was the demonstration of the composition of light spectra, using
    multiple prisms. By recombining light of different colours, (as shown below) he was able
    to understand a great deal about the nature of colour perception. For Newton this was a
    classical example of the experimental philosophy in action.
    Newton believed that light was made up of tiny particles (light corpuscles) which
    obeyed the same dynamics as ordinary matter. His ideas on this are a little obscure- for
    more details see the notes. Certain facts about light propagation had to be explained in any
    reasonable theory- the laws of reflection and
    refraction (including the way in which the
    amplitudes of these varied with angle of
    incidence on a boundary between 2 media),
    the difference in these angles for different
    colours, and the nature of the colours. As we
    saw previously, there was also a competing
    theory- the wave theory of Huyghens.

    NEWTONS LEGACY

    PCES 1.6

    Only 2 of Newtons contemporaries


    were really able to understand the full
    implications of his work. Leibniz was
    not only one of the most important
    mathematicians of all time, but also a
    central figure in the development of
    rationalist philosophy (see course
    notes). His relations with Newton were
    very bad, because of the dispute over
    G.W. Leibniz
    (1646-1716)
    priority in the invention of the calculus.
    I. Newton, around 1700
    Of more interest to us now was their debate
    over the existence of absolute space and action at a
    distance, conducted between Leibniz & Newtons proxy Clarke. The problems raised by
    Leibniz would not be fully solved until Einsteins general theory of relativity (1916).
    In the same way the points raised by Huyghens, concerning both the question of action
    at a distance, and the nature of light, would not be solved until the
    20th century. These questions are central to the whole of physics.
    Nevertheless the change wrought by Newtons work was colossal.
    Quite apart from the formulation of what is now called Classical
    Mechanics (whose subsequent application changed the course of
    history), Newtons work wrought a huge change in the way we
    thought about the world and our relation to it.

    C, Huyghens (1629-95)

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