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History 181B: Modern Physics

Class 2 (1/24/03)
Natural philosophy and mechanical explanation


 
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Outline Prehistory
    Defining disciplines: natural philosophy
    The scientific revolution: mathematical astronomy, terrestrial mechanics, gravity and celestial mechanics
    A terminological detour: mechanics

The significance of Newton
    The Principia
    The Opticks
    The mechanical philosophy
    Philosophy?
    Framing hypotheses
    Newton's complications
Names and terms
Primary Secondary
natural philosophy
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
mechanics, kinematics, dynamics
Philosophia Naturalis Principia Philosophia (1687)
perturbation theory
Opticks (1704)
mechanical (corpuscular) philosophy
ontology, epistemology, methodology
Immanuel Kant, a priori
"I frame no hypotheses"
aether (or ether)		 natural history
orrery
3-body problem
René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke
Assignment None.
Copyright © Cathryn Carson 2003