Hooke's and Newton's Contributions to the Early Development of Orbital Dynamics and the Theory of Universal Gravitation

Nauenberg, Michael

doi:10.1163/157338205774661861

Cited by 30 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Hooke also found such a divergence with his own choice of initial conditions (see Fig. 6 panel B), and presumably became discouraged from pursuing his graphical constructions further [8], [32].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visiting Newton's Atelier before the Principia, 1679-1684

Nauenberg¹

2018

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The manuscripts that presumably contained Newton's early development of the fundamental concepts that led to his Principia have been lost. A plausible reconstruction of this development is presented based on Newton's exchange of letters with Robert Hooke in 1679, with Edmund Halley in 1686, and on some clues in the diagram associated with Proposition1 in Book1 of the Principia that have been ignored in the past. The graphical method associated with this proposition leads to a rapidly convergent method to obtain orbital curves for central forces, and elucidates how Newton may have have been led to formulate some of his other propositions in the Principia. .

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visiting Newton's Atelier before the Principia, 1679-1684

Nauenberg¹

2018

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As Nauenberg noted further, in Newton's correspondence from 1686 with Halley, he rejected allegations that he learned about the inverse square dependence from Hooke, noting that "Mr. Hook without knowing what I have found since his letters to me, can know no more than the proportion was duplicate quam proxime [approximately] at great distances from the center, 8 only guessed it to be so accurately, & guess amiss in extending that proportion down to the very center.." (Newton 1960) Newton used the word "guess" to indicate that Hooke did not provide any mathematical evidence for his assumption that "attraction always is in a duplicate proportion to the distance from the center reciprocally," as Hooke had written. (Nauenberg 2005) In a letter to Halley, Newton stressed that in this sense "Theory I am plainly before Mr Hook. For he, about a year after [1673], in his Attempt to prove the Motion of the Earth, declared expressely that the degrees by which gravity decreased he had not then experimentally verified, that is he knew not how to gather it from phenomena, 8c therefore he there recomends it to the prosecution of others."…”

Section: The Controversy In the Opinion Of Other Contemporary Scientistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Guicciardini 2005) (Bechler 1974) Due to Pugliese's works and the interpretations offered by Michael Nauenberg, Hooke has now been re-evaluated as a good mathematician. (Pugliese 1989) (Nauenberg 2005) Hooke can be understood, as Gal pointed out, only by placing his work on planetary theory in the broad context of his multiple interests. (Bennett 1986) Schopenhauer noted that in Michaud's Biographie universelle, the article "Newton" contains the representation of the universe according to the law of gravitation, literally and in extenso, according to An Attempt to Prove the Motion of the Earth from Observations of Robert Hooke.…”

Section: What the Supporters Of Robert Hooke Saymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But, according to Edmond Halley, Hooke agreed that "the demonstration of the curves generated by it" belongs entirely to Newton. (Nauenberg 2005) Thus, the question arises as to the extent to which Isaac Newton was "inspired" by Robert Hooke's previous works, and to whom the priority of universal gravity law should be given. Some historians of science highlight Newton's mathematical genius without which the law of gravity would never be finalized, while others noted the contribution of the "mechanical genius" (Hooke) to whom the Westminster Abbey place was denied by a puritan tyrant (Newton).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Isaac Newton vs. Robert Hooke on the law of universal gravitation

Sfetcu¹

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

One of the most disputed controversy over the priority of scientific discoveries is that of the law of universal gravitation, between Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke. Hooke accused Newton of plagiarism, of taking over his ideas expressed in previous works. In this paper I try to show, on the basis of previous analysis, that both scientists were wrong: Robert Hooke because his theory was basically only ideas that would never have materialized without Isaac Newton's mathematical support; and the latter was wrong by not recognizing Hooke's ideas in drawing up the theory of gravity. Moreover, after Hooke's death and taking over the Royal Society presidency, Newton removed from the institution any trace of the former president Robert Hooke. For this, I detail the accusations and arguments of each of the parts, and how this dispute was perceived by the contemporaries of the two scientists. I finish the paper with the conclusions drawn from the contents.

show abstract

“…In 1685, when Newton sent the first draft of his Principia entitled De Motu Corporum Gyrum to the Royal Society, Robert Hooke who was its secretary at the time, recognized that Newton's geometrical construction in Theorem 1 could be applied as a graphical method to calculate orbits [7], [8]. He then proceeded to draw such an orbit for a periodic sequence of impacts that depended linearly on the distance from the center of force, and obtained a discrete polygon with the vertices located on an ellipse [9].…”

Section: Appendixmentioning

confidence: 99%