Hop_David
Member
My first thread on Tyson's bad history is already becoming unwieldy. So I am posting Tyson's claims on Isaac Newton in a separate thread.
Newton could have easily done Laplace's n-body work but he had God on the brain.
Tyson tells us Newton could have easily done Laplace's n-body mechanics in an afternoon. After all, Newton invented calculus on a dare! in two months! Before he turned 26!
But Newton had God on the brain. And he was satisfied with the explanation that God intervened occasionally to keep the multi-body solar system stable. So he didn't bother trying to build n-body models and perturbation theory..
Tyson's claim is demonstrably false from the get go. Newton invested considerable time and effort trying to model the 3-body system of the earth moon and sun. From William Harper's book on Isaac Newton:
(I added the emphasis)
See also Michael Nauenberg's piece on Newton's effort to model 3 body systems.
After Newton tried Leonhard Euler took a crack at modeling n-body systems. Euler is widely regarded as the greatest mathematician that ever lived. Laplace held that opinion.
And after Euler, Joseph Lagrange worked on the problem. Perhaps you've heard of the 5 Lagrange points. They should actually be called Euler-Lagrange points since Euler discovered L1, L2 and L3. Lagrange discovered L4 and L5, the Lagrange points trailing and leading the orbiting body by 60º.
More than 100 years after Newton Laplace built a better n-body model. But he built on the efforts of Newton, Euler and Lagrange.
It took 4 of mankind's greatest mathematicians (including Newton) more than a 100 years to build perturbation theory. Tyson shouts that we know Newton could have done this in an afternoon. We know no such thing. It is a horribly clueless claim.
Newton invented calculus on a Dare.
What is the dare Tyson is talking about? Tyson goes into more detail in the Big Think video My Man, Sir Isaac Newton:
It was in Principia that Newton explained why planets follow Kepler's laws and move in elliptical orbits. And it was Edmund Halley's famous question that prompted Newton to write Principia.
So Tyson is telling us that Newton also wrote Principia on this dare. *And* invented calculus on the same dare. In two months! Before he turned 26!
So much to unpack here.
Tyson gets the question wrong. He gets Newton's answer wrong. And he gets the time frame completely wrong. Edmund Halley asked his famous question in 1684. Newton was in his early 40s at the time. Newton came back 18 months later with a rough draft of Principia. See Did Newton answer Halley's Question?
It is thought that Newton worked on his fluxions in 1666. Though obviously not because of Halley's "dare" made in 1684. So what prompted Newton to think about calculus? Maybe it was Newton's older Cambridge colleague Isaac Barrow. Barrow, Fermat, Descartes, Gregory, Cavalieri and others had laid the foundation for modern calculus in the generation before Newton and Leibniz. See History of the Differential from the 17th Century as well as History of the Integral from the 17th Century.
Thony Christie argues that building the branch of mathematics we call calculus was the collaborative effort of many people over many years. See his piece The Wrong Question. Also see Christie disembowel Tyson's history on Newton.
Newton did not single handedly invent calculus in two months time. Nor did he invent it on Halley's dare.
Like most (if not all) Tyson's rants on the evils of religion, his Newton God of the Gaps story is based on invented history.
Newton could have easily done Laplace's n-body work but he had God on the brain.
Tyson tells us Newton could have easily done Laplace's n-body mechanics in an afternoon. After all, Newton invented calculus on a dare! in two months! Before he turned 26!
But Newton had God on the brain. And he was satisfied with the explanation that God intervened occasionally to keep the multi-body solar system stable. So he didn't bother trying to build n-body models and perturbation theory..
Tyson's claim is demonstrably false from the get go. Newton invested considerable time and effort trying to model the 3-body system of the earth moon and sun. From William Harper's book on Isaac Newton:
(I added the emphasis)
See also Michael Nauenberg's piece on Newton's effort to model 3 body systems.
After Newton tried Leonhard Euler took a crack at modeling n-body systems. Euler is widely regarded as the greatest mathematician that ever lived. Laplace held that opinion.
And after Euler, Joseph Lagrange worked on the problem. Perhaps you've heard of the 5 Lagrange points. They should actually be called Euler-Lagrange points since Euler discovered L1, L2 and L3. Lagrange discovered L4 and L5, the Lagrange points trailing and leading the orbiting body by 60º.
More than 100 years after Newton Laplace built a better n-body model. But he built on the efforts of Newton, Euler and Lagrange.
It took 4 of mankind's greatest mathematicians (including Newton) more than a 100 years to build perturbation theory. Tyson shouts that we know Newton could have done this in an afternoon. We know no such thing. It is a horribly clueless claim.
Newton invented calculus on a Dare.
What is the dare Tyson is talking about? Tyson goes into more detail in the Big Think video My Man, Sir Isaac Newton:
It was in Principia that Newton explained why planets follow Kepler's laws and move in elliptical orbits. And it was Edmund Halley's famous question that prompted Newton to write Principia.
So Tyson is telling us that Newton also wrote Principia on this dare. *And* invented calculus on the same dare. In two months! Before he turned 26!
So much to unpack here.
Tyson gets the question wrong. He gets Newton's answer wrong. And he gets the time frame completely wrong. Edmund Halley asked his famous question in 1684. Newton was in his early 40s at the time. Newton came back 18 months later with a rough draft of Principia. See Did Newton answer Halley's Question?
It is thought that Newton worked on his fluxions in 1666. Though obviously not because of Halley's "dare" made in 1684. So what prompted Newton to think about calculus? Maybe it was Newton's older Cambridge colleague Isaac Barrow. Barrow, Fermat, Descartes, Gregory, Cavalieri and others had laid the foundation for modern calculus in the generation before Newton and Leibniz. See History of the Differential from the 17th Century as well as History of the Integral from the 17th Century.
Thony Christie argues that building the branch of mathematics we call calculus was the collaborative effort of many people over many years. See his piece The Wrong Question. Also see Christie disembowel Tyson's history on Newton.
Newton did not single handedly invent calculus in two months time. Nor did he invent it on Halley's dare.
Like most (if not all) Tyson's rants on the evils of religion, his Newton God of the Gaps story is based on invented history.
