Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Newton and Heliocentrism
Even though Newton's Principia was published over fifty years after Galileo's trial, I find it interesting that he apparently received little to no censure from the Church (although he does say that God organized the world according to the physics he articulates). My question then is more factual than theoretical, as I simply wonder what the final straw was that broke the Church's back and convinced it to stop condemning and punishing those who accepted heliocentrism. Did Newton publish his ideas in a world that had already accepted heliocentrism, or was it his demonstrations that finally led to the Church and the laity in general to change their stance on how the universe was organized?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I was wondering about the same thing. I'm guessing it could be a variety of issues. Perhaps first, as you have mentioned, more scientific evidence was supporting the heliocentric system. Second, Newton himself was not a Catholic; he was a Protestant living in England, so the Church would have little influence on the publication of his works in England. Third, although Newton provides a new mathematics when he develops the calculus, he chooses to proceed in the Principia from the background of geometry. Geometric proofs are absolute in the way that deductive Aristotelian philosophy is true. He fuses the traditional with the modern.
Post a Comment