The connection between Anti-Science and Anti-Education views.

@livinglava,

When Galileo, in his dialogs "Two New Sciences" was trying to explain Physics to the "Simpleton" (he literally named the guy in his book "Simpleton") he used mathematics. Galileo developed his science based on Euclid's geometry, using conics to define a parabola very precisely.

Then Galileo goes and calculates tables of numbers for the guy he calls "Simpleton". You are taking one "principle" out of context and missing the mathematical precision that was the genius of Galileo. You can not understand Galileo on any real level without mathematics.

http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/109N/projecgl.gif

Galileo wrote:

Draw the line be along the plane ba to represent the flow, or measure, of time; divide this line into a number of segments, bc, cd, de, representing equal intervals of time; from the points b, c, d, e, let fall lines which are parallel to the perpendicular bn. On the first of these lay off any distance ci, on the second a distance four times as long, df; on the third, one nine times as long, eh; and so on, in proportion to the squares of cb, db, eb, or, we may say, in the squared ratio of these same lines. Accordingly we see that while the body moves from b to c with uniform speed, it also falls perpendicularly through the distance ci, and at the end of the time-interval bc finds itself at the point i. In like manner at the end of the time-interval bd, which is the double of bc, the vertical fall will be four times the first distance ci; for it has been shown in a previous discussion that the distance traversed by a freely falling body varies as the square of the time; in like manner the space eh traversed during the time be will be nine times ci; thus it is evident that the distances eh, df, cl will be to one another as the squares of the lines be, bd, bc. Now from the points i, f, h draw the straight lines io, fg, hl parallel to be; these lines hl, fg, io are equal to eb, db and cb, respectively; so also are the lines bo, bg, bl respectively equal to ci, df, and eh. The square of hl is to that of fg as the line lb is to bg; and the square of fg is to that of io as gb is to bo; therefore the points i, f, h, lie on one and the same parabola. In like manner it may be shown that, if we take equal time-intervals of any size whatever, and if we imagine the particle to be carried by a similar compound motion, the positions of this particle, at the ends of these time-intervals, will lie on one and the same parabola. Q. E. D.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Nonsense. You can't even talk about the real Galileo.

You don't care about science. What you care about is finding a way to use science, through the math or whatever, to compete with people for prestige and rewards.

You don't understand that the purpose of science is to understand nature/reality/the universe. When you go off on esoteric theoretical formulations done by people who have the capacity to do a lot of mental work, so they use their time and energy to write a lot and do a lot of math, that doesn't necessarily help anyone understand science/nature/reality/the universe any better.

It is just a way for smart people to put their minds to work writing a lot and doing a lot of math and other intellectual exercises. There is nothing wrong with doing that per se, but there is something wrong when you make it your objective to engage in competition for status/prestige/rewards with other people instead of using your mental power to do something positive, whether that is applying your mind to productive/constructive goals or teaching/helping/communication with others in a way that supports the life and development of minds to play a constructive role in life.

It is irritating to discuss 'science' (what you think is science) with you because you don't work toward clarity but rather toward esoteric complexification of concepts for no other reason than to claim that you understand something complex that someone else doesn't or can't. You're serving no purpose in doing that other than building up status hierarchy and elitism. It is not the purpose of science.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

When Galileo, in his dialogs "Two New Sciences" was trying to explain Physics to the "Simpleton" (he literally named the guy in his book "Simpleton") he used mathematics. Galileo developed his science based on Euclid's geometry, using conics to define a parabola very precisely.

Then Galileo goes and calculates tables of numbers for the guy he calls "Simpleton". You are taking one "principle" out of context and missing the mathematical precision that was the genius of Galileo. You can not understand Galileo on any real level without mathematics.

Galileo wrote:
Draw the line be along the plane ba to represent the flow, or measure, of time; divide this line into a number of segments, bc, cd, de, representing equal intervals of time; from the points b, c, d, e, let fall lines which are parallel to the perpendicular bn. On the first of these lay off any distance ci, on the second a distance four times as long, df; on the third, one nine times as long, eh; and so on, in proportion to the squares of cb, db, eb, or, we may say, in the squared ratio of these same lines. Accordingly we see that while the body moves from b to c with uniform speed, it also falls perpendicularly through the distance ci, and at the end of the time-interval bc finds itself at the point i. In like manner at the end of the time-interval bd, which is the double of bc, the vertical fall will be four times the first distance ci; for it has been shown in a previous discussion that the distance traversed by a freely falling body varies as the square of the time; in like manner the space eh traversed during the time be will be nine times ci; thus it is evident that the distances eh, df, cl will be to one another as the squares of the lines be, bd, bc. Now from the points i, f, h draw the straight lines io, fg, hl parallel to be; these lines hl, fg, io are equal to eb, db and cb, respectively; so also are the lines bo, bg, bl respectively equal to ci, df, and eh. The square of hl is to that of fg as the line lb is to bg; and the square of fg is to that of io as gb is to bo; therefore the points i, f, h, lie on one and the same parabola. In like manner it may be shown that, if we take equal time-intervals of any size whatever, and if we imagine the particle to be carried by a similar compound motion, the positions of this particle, at the ends of these time-intervals, will lie on one and the same parabola. Q. E. D.

Yes, I understand that he is using the graph to depict a falling object as gaining more distance per second the longer it falls. He's explaining how things fall at an increasing speed the longer they fall; i.e. they are accelerating. I understand the equation of all the physics quantities such as speed, momentum, acceleration, force, work, power, energy, torque, etc.

I can even appreciate how these people tried explaining mathematics in different ways, for example here graphically or in calculus by showing the relationship between the area under a curve, or the slope of a tangent line to a curve, as representing related values and changes, such as distance covered by an accelerating object in motion or the speed of the object at any point in time during uniform acceleration, etc.

I have never said that the math is worthless or that there's anything wrong with doing math in this way. All I have tried to explain over and over is that math is just one part of science, it's not the most important or most elucidating part of science, and that it is over-emphasized because it is hard to do and very precise in order to grade what a student has done in their work.

It's much harder to grade a student for a written explanation than it is to grade their math work. You can clearly see where a mistake was made if someone shows their steps in math than if they explain something in a vague or somewhat perverted way that is correct in one sense but wrong in another. Students will argue that what you say they were wrong about is actually what they meant and they will cite their own words as proof that they communicated what you didn't get from reading what they wrote.

The potential for miscommunication is the reason people favor math over other language-based forms of analysis and description, but math cannot ultimately substitute for qualitative understanding or explanation. Quantitative reasoning can only go so far. It can do a lot in terms of accuracy, but in terms of analyzing/modeling how the mechanics of causation in systems work, math is useless. It can measure how fast something accelerates and/or how much distance it covered, etc. but it cannot tell you why/how the thing accelerated, where the energy came from, where it's going, and/or what else it does in the process; or how it's all related to anything else.

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Quote:

but math cannot ultimately substitute for qualitative understanding or explanation. Quantitative reasoning can only go so far. It can do a lot in terms of accuracy, but in terms of analyzing/modeling how the mechanics of causation in systems work, math is useless.

This is the most interesting way you are wrong. Qualitative Reasoning is not real science. Science it the ability to make measurements and predictions about how the Universe works. Worse this "qualitative reasoning" can often make it more difficult to understand real science.

Your "Qualitative reasoning" leads to you being wrong. How do I know you are wrong? Because science is testable. When you claim that "all forces are frictional forces" or that "inertia is passive propulsion" I can prove that they wrong by showing mathematical or experimental contradictions.

Critical thinking is the ability to question your own beliefs and to see the flaws in your own understanding. Once you have learned enough mathematics you will see that your ideas are self contradictory. The problem is that you are so attached to your own ideas that you won't let that happen.

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@livinglava,

I don't know if you can explain, in a scientifically valid way, why two objects fall at the same rate of acceleration regardless of their mass.

Isaac Newton did explain this. Newton was triumphant because he proved his theory of gravity mathematically. It was quite a feat. Only later were his theories truly proven experimentally.

There is an interesting story here.

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Richard Feynman wrote:

...To summarize, I would use the words of Jeans, who said that "the Great Architect seems to be a mathematician". To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature. C.P. Snow talked about two cultures. I really think that those two cultures separate people who have and people who have not had this experience of understanding mathematics well enough to appreciate nature once.

It is too bad that it has to be mathematics, and that mathematics is hard for some people. It is reputed - I do not know if it is true - that when one of the kings was trying to learn geometry from Euclid he complained that it was difficult. And Euclid said, "There is no royal road to geometry". And there is no royal road. Physicists cannot make a conversion to any other language. If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in. She offers her information only in one form; we are not so unhumble as to demand that she change before we pay any attention.

All the intellectual arguments that you can make will not communicate to deaf ears what the experience of music really is. In the same way all the intellectual arguments in the world will not convey an understanding of nature to those of "the other culture". Philosophers may try to teach you by telling you qualitatively about nature. I am trying to describe her. But it is not getting across because it is impossible.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

This is the most interesting way you are wrong. Qualitative Reasoning is not real science. Science it the ability to make measurements and predictions about how the Universe works. Worse this "qualitative reasoning" can often make it more difficult to understand real science.

You don't even understand your own math well enough to see that math is completely meaningless without some connection to qualitative understanding. If I tell you that x + y = z, it means nothing until you have some description of what the variables represent and why/how they are related mathematically as they are.

Quote:

Your "Qualitative reasoning" leads to you being wrong. How do I know you are wrong? Because science is testable. When you claim that "all forces are frictional forces" or that "inertia is passive propulsion" I can prove that they wrong by showing mathematical or experimental contradictions.

You are lost in your own flawed logic. You can't prove anything wrong, and even if you could you would have to use qualitative reasoning on some level. Why don't you try and see what the ratio of math to English is in your post?

Quote:

Critical thinking is the ability to question your own beliefs and to see the flaws in your own understanding. Once you have learned enough mathematics you will see that your ideas are self contradictory. The problem is that you are so attached to your own ideas that you won't let that happen.

Critical thinking has nothing to do with questioning "your own beliefs." It is questioning any piece of information to learn more about it and/or connect it with other knowledge to deepen understanding.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I don't know if you can explain, in a scientifically valid way, why two objects fall at the same rate of acceleration regardless of their mass.

Isaac Newton did explain this. Newton was triumphant because he proved his theory of gravity mathematically. It was quite a feat. Only later were his theories truly proven experimentally.

There is an interesting story here.

Well, I sometimes hesitate when I mention Galileo's experiment with two cannonballs with different masses, because if you look at Newton's equation, the mass of the heavier cannonball and the Earth are going to cause a slightly greater force than with the less massive cannonball, but it's going to be extremely slight and not detectable by dropping them both from the tower of Pisa.

That aside, it is interesting to think about how/why gravity works and why/how it might be related to other forces causally. We know that the nucleons are responsible for most of the atom's mass and we know how nuclear forces work and their relationship to energy, as well as how ions and free electrons move through each others charge fields, etc.

But science isn't even ultimately about thinking critically about the relationship between fundamental forces and structures of nature, but rather the purpose of teaching science is so that people can have an understanding of the material world that is grounded in sensible analysis and not in superstitious beliefs that are not grounded in reasoning.

Think about the popular approach to economics that makes it so wasteful and bad for the environment and sustainability. Science lets us figure out how to do something more efficiently and thus conserve resources, yet we don't want to conserve resources because we generate more economic activity by selling more and selling more human labor time.

Science can help us see why/how resources are limited and how to change the way we use them so they become less limited relative to our usage of them, but people want to believe that there is magic that ensures that the Earth will always fix anything we do to it and no matter how systematically we change the way the biosphere works, it won't have any influence on longer term geological/climate patterns.

Just like a person who doesn't understand how a machine works thinks in magical ways about gremlins in the machine causing it to make strange noises and shutter as it breaks down, people who don't study and understand science are unable to critically think about things they see, hear about, or experience because they are stuck at the superficial level of consciousness and whatever their mind does with that information in the absence of accurate causal reasoning and mechanical analysis.

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@livinglava,

Quote:

math is completely meaningless without some connection to qualitative understanding. If I tell you that x + y = z, it means nothing until you have some description of what the variables represent and why/how they are related mathematically as they are.

I am not arguing this point.... you are correct (at least in term of Physics). Let's take an example.

This is the function from Sir Isaac Newton. It is used calculate the displacement traveled for a given time under constant acceleration (for the sake of this discussion you can think of "displacement" as "distance").

Code:f(t) = V0* t + (1/2) *a*t^2/

This function precisely described the law of Nature. You are absolutely correct; we do need to describe how to measure "displacement" and "time" in order to use this function to make predictions.

So how do we represent this function in English? You can make a bunch of statements about this function. You can note that when "a" is 0, that the "distance" increases linearly (but that is a mathematical truth)

When you ask "why" this function is correct, there is an answer. The answer is that this is the definite integral of V = V0 + aT. This is a function that was understood by Galileo. Newton expanded the understanding of mathematics and Physics by figuring out how to calculate the integral.

This function, and the mathematics behind it, is absolutely necessary to calculate trajectories, or orbits or reach understanding of how objects will behave under constant acceleration.

Whether you can describe this in English in a way that doesn't either misstate or lose information... I will leave to you.

1 Reply

@livinglava,

Quote:

Well, I sometimes hesitate when I mention Galileo's experiment with two cannonballs with different masses, because if you look at Newton's equation, the mass of the heavier cannonball and the Earth are going to cause a slightly greater force than with the less massive cannonball, but it's going to be extremely slight and not detectable by dropping them both from the tower of Pisa.

You are completely wrong. There is no "slightly greater force"....

A 10kg cannon ball is pulled toward the Earth with twice the force as a 5kg cannon ball. You can test this pretty easily. Get a 5kg weight in one hand and a 10kg weight in the other.

This is a clear contradiction in your thinking. Would you like to hear Newton's understanding of this? Newton solved this (rather simply) with mathematics.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Quote:
math is completely meaningless without some connection to qualitative understanding. If I tell you that x + y = z, it means nothing until you have some description of what the variables represent and why/how they are related mathematically as they are.

I am not arguing this point.... you are correct (at least in term of Physics). Let's take an example.

This is the function from Sir Isaac Newton. It is used calculate the displacement traveled for a given time under constant acceleration (for the sake of this discussion you can think of "displacement" as "distance").

Code:f(t) = V0* t + (1/2) *a*t^2/

This function precisely described the law of Nature. You are absolutely correct; we do need to describe how to measure "displacement" and "time" in order to use this function to make predictions.

You just told me you're not arguing my point and then you turn around and use 'describe' to refer to measurement and quantification.

What requires description is what all those letters and numbers mean to non-mathematicians. Like I said before, if you write "f(t)" and someone can't decode what that means, you're talking to them in a foreign language. If you use the variables "t" and "a" without explaining what they stand for and what they mean, it's the same.

Quote:

So how do we represent this function in English? You can make a bunch of statements about this function. You can note that when "a" is 0, that the "distance" increases linearly (but that is a mathematical truth)

Using English, you can't just describe "a" as "a." You have to use a word and the word has to be explicable to someone who doesn't immediately understand it and why you're talking about it.

Quote:

When you ask "why" this function is correct, there is an answer. The answer is that this is the definite integral of V = V0 + aT. This is a function that was understood by Galileo. Newton expanded the understanding of mathematics and Physics by figuring out how to calculate the integral.

The function is just a description of something happening in reality, the same way a painting describes whatever the painter is painting. If you paint a still-life of a fruit bowl and someone asks why the apple is bruised and your response is to describe the paint used and the technique to make it appear bruised, you're not answering how an apple gets bruised in reality and what's going on at the cellular and chemical levels to cause the bruise to change shape, texture, and color. Explaining the reality of bruised fruit requires science beyond explaining the mathematics or other representational technique used to depict/model the system.

Quote:

This function, and the mathematics behind it, is absolutely necessary to calculate trajectories, or orbits or reach understanding of how objects will behave under constant acceleration.

Maybe, but none of that is science. Science is the process of theorizing why the math will accurately describe something and then figuring out how to test it and/or explain how it works. It's not that the math isn't important and useful in various ways; it's that math is just part of science, a small part that mathematicians are too proud to admit is not the essence.

Quote:

Whether you can describe this in English in a way that doesn't either misstate or lose information... I will leave to you.

If you take a digital photo, what you have really done is record 100mb of numbers that encode the color and position of each pixel the camera generated from the light reaching the sensor. Now you could use a hugely complex equation to describe all those numbers and their relationship with each other to generate an image on a screen the looks like what you photographed. Such math is exactly how digital cameras and computers and internet make, manipulate, and display images in various ways.

But a digital photo, as mathematically accurate it is in describing the thing being photographed, is not the same thing as a theoretical explanation of the thing. You can google images of apples all day and never understand how they grow, how their cells work, what their nutritional values are, why they have a certain color, texture, or flavor, etc. etc.

Science goes far beyond math. I don't know why you refuse to admit it, but it gets tedious debating with you because you are just a person who wants to play devil's advocate and never concede a point. I have conceded many times that math is not useless and it has its place, but that's not enough for you because all you want to do is go on and on trying to elevate its status over qualitative description/theory/understanding/reasoning/etc.

What's funny is that you reason incessantly about how reasoning is fruitless and then you back up your claim by reasoning badly.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Quote:
Well, I sometimes hesitate when I mention Galileo's experiment with two cannonballs with different masses, because if you look at Newton's equation, the mass of the heavier cannonball and the Earth are going to cause a slightly greater force than with the less massive cannonball, but it's going to be extremely slight and not detectable by dropping them both from the tower of Pisa.

You are completely wrong. There is no "slightly greater force"....

A 10kg cannon ball is pulled toward the Earth with twice the force as a 5kg cannon ball. You can test this pretty easily. Get a 5kg weight in one hand and a 10kg weight in the other.

Ok, you are playing word games with 'force,' because, yes, the force is proportional to the mass, but the acceleration rate of gravity is supposedly the same for both cannonballs.

In the equation, though, the mass of the Earth has to be multiplied by the mass of the cannonball and the gravitational constant before being divided by the square of the radius or distance between the bodies.

So technically by multiplying the mass of the Earth by the slightly greater mass of the heavier cannonball, you get a slightly higher force than between the lighter cannonball and the Earth at the same height.

The difference is not enough to be observable, but according to Newton's equation, it must exist.

Now none of this means there's not a mechanical explanation/theory of gravity that could explain the behavior of the cannoballs either in agreement with Newton's formula or despite it. The formula might just be a useful equation for predicting everything from the rate objects falls on different planets to how fast objects orbit other objects. As I recall, Einstein is famous for explaining the precession in Mercury's orbit, for example.

Anyway, the point is that science is about seeking explanations for why and how things work as they do, not just modeling them mathematically, though there is nothing wrong with mathematical modeling, and it can certainly be used scientifically; it's just not science itself any more than cinematography is equivalent to movie-making or writing is equivalent to making a story.

Quote:

This is a clear contradiction in your thinking. Would you like to hear Newton's understanding of this? Newton solved this (rather simply) with mathematics.

You can post whatever you want, but you're not conceding that math isn't sufficient for any point you're trying to make. You want so badly for math to be the dominant language of science, but it can't. 2+2=4 only becomes an explanation of reality when you know what you're counting, e.g. apples. Yes, 2+2=4 is true in and of itself by virtue of the fundamental nature of counting, but as a scientific explanation of why you had two packs of twix and now after opening them you have four twix, you have to describe what twix are, that they come in packs of two, and how they went from being two packs of two to four altogether. Reality is qualitative, even though quantification, calculation, and quantitative analysis can bring a lot to bear on qualitative understanding/theory.

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@livinglava,

I say that a 10kg cannon ball has double the force of gravity than a 5kg cannon ball (and I am correct).

You say that "double" means "slightly".

One of us is being silly.

1 Reply

@livinglava,

Quote:

Now none of this means there's not a mechanical explanation/theory of gravity that could explain the behavior of the cannoballs either in agreement with Newton's formula or despite it.

Newton understood mathematics, and he did what you are suggesting himself. In fact this was the the way he proved mathematically that his theory of gravitation fit experimental data. It is pretty simple (although he generalized it which was an impressive accomplishment)

Code:

1) F = ma (Newton's second law).



2)  F = GMm/(r^2) (Newton's laws of gravitation.)



3)  ma = GMm(r^2) and a = GM/(r^2)  (algebra)

That is an easy to show mathematically how Newton's laws work together to describe nature. Of course this mathematical truth is the same truth that Galileo found, Newton's genius was building on the work that Galileo had done to expand the mathematical understanding.

In two mathematical laws, and a bit of Algebra, Newton not only showed that two objects of different masses fall at the same rate, he also defined how gravity works in a way that worked not only on Earth, but anywhere in the Universe..

This mathematical statement is pretty powerful. Do you understand it?

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I say that a 10kg cannon ball has double the force of gravity than a 5kg cannon ball (and I am correct).

You say that "double" means "slightly".

One of us is being silly.

F=MA and F=Gm1m2/r^2

In the first equation, two times the mass doubles the force; while in the second equation, the mass of the Earth and the distance from it remains constant while the slightly heavier cannonball results in a slightly higher gravitational force.

You love math, so why don't you acknowledge that both equations are descriptions of force and explain the difference.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

This mathematical statement is pretty powerful. Do you understand it?

Yes I can understand it, but it wrong every time you imply mathematical fluency equates to scientific understanding. They are not the same thing.

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@livinglava,

Quote:

hile in the second equation, the mass of the Earth and the distance from it remains constant while the slightly heavier cannonball results in a slightly higher gravitational force.

You are completely wrong. In the second equation doubling the value of m2 will double the amount of force.

Try it with real numbers if you don't believe me.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Quote:
hile in the second equation, the mass of the Earth and the distance from it remains constant while the slightly heavier cannonball results in a slightly higher gravitational force.

You are completely wrong. In the second equation doubling the value of m2 will double the amount of force.

Try it with real numbers if you don't believe me.

Ok, so your point is I'm reading Newton's formula wrong by thinking that increasing one of the mass quantities will increase the force and thus the acceleration rate of one falling object compared with another of different mass.

Fine, but then why does Earth have stronger gravity than the moon or Mars or other bodies? If the moon had twice the mass and orbited at the same distance, wouldn't it have to orbit faster due to greater gravitational force?

If you dropped the moon from the tower of Pisa, wouldn't it have to fall faster because of its own gravity combining with the Earth's gravity being stronger than the combined gravity of a cannonball and the Earth?

Don't you see that the mass of the falling object has to make a difference? Or am I crazy and should a neutron star dropped from the tower of Pisa accelerate toward center of the Earth at the same rate as a cannonball? (actually, wouldn't the Earth fall/collapse into the neutron star in that case, and at a much faster acceleration rate than 10m/s^2?)

1 Reply

@livinglava,

Quote:

Don't you see that the mass of the falling object has to make a difference?

Your intuition is wrong. Newton's laws apply. Do the math. The phrase "has to make a difference" isn't scientific. You can calculate the acceleration of the moon toward the Earth without knowing the mass of the Moon. This is mathematically proven... and it was proven by experiment multiple times.

There is an interesting story here. Newton published Principae, and used his laws to calculate the orbits of the planets. This was an impressive accomplishment in itself, and it did show to the scientific community that his ideas had merit (his laws could predict the known orbits of all of the planet). But of course... he already knew the right answer before he started the calculation.

The real triumph of the Newton's laws came with comets. Halley, and others, used Newton's laws to predict the orbits and appearance of comets without anyone knowing beforehand when they would appear. This was all done without knowing the mass of the comets.

The fact that Newton's mathematical laws predicted how objects behaved in "the heavens" proved their worth. They are not only beautiful mathematically, they can explain the mechanics of the astronomical objects in a way that no one could have imagined.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Your intuition is wrong. Newton's laws apply. Do the math. The phrase "has to make a difference" isn't scientific. You can calculate the acceleration of the moon toward the Earth without knowing the mass of the Moon. This is mathematically proven... and it was proven by experiment multiple times.

I'm not going by intuition. Look up the force of gravity for different planets. Mars has around 1/3 Earth's gravity. Venus is also less but not as low as Mars. Jupiter and Saturn have greater gravity. The gravity is related to the mass.

I may have interpreted Newton's formula wrong in assuming that the inclusion of two mass numbers in the numerator accounts for different acceleration rates in different gravitational fields, but now I am looking for an explanation for different gravity on different planets. You just proved mathematically that the explanation isn't in Newton's equation, so where is it?

Quote:

There is an interesting story here. Newton published Principae, and used his laws to calculate the orbits of the planets. This was an impressive accomplishment in itself, and it did show to the scientific community that his ideas had merit (his laws could predict the known orbits of all of the planet). But of course... he already knew the right answer before he started the calculation.

The real triumph of the Newton's laws came with comets. Halley, and others, used Newton's laws to predict the orbits and appearance of comets without anyone knowing beforehand when they would appear.

The fact that Newton's mathematical laws predicted how objects behaved in "the heavens" proved their worth. They are not only beautiful mathematically, they can explain the mechanics of the astronomical objects in a way that no one could have imagined.

You don't explain anything. You say that Newton's math worked and it helped predict comets, but you don't say how.

Your flowery language about science and math are a smokescreen that distract from the lack of explanation in what you are saying.

1 Reply

The connection between Anti-Science and Anti-Education views.

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