Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

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1. closewithMay 2025
   Marx permeates economics like Newton permeates physics.

   If this seems like an absurd comparison, I would suggest reading both Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica and Das Kapital.

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2. ronald_raygunNov 2018
   Euclid's Elements was a pretty foundational text. Also Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
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3. kurthrMay 2025
   Trying to learn Newtonian Mechanics from Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica is kinda dumb though.

   I certainly noticed that it was ineffective in discussing implications with the students. I found Boyle's observations far more effective in teaching science.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophi%C3%A6_Naturalis_Pri...

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4. jihadjihadMay 2025
   > Trying to learn Newtonian Mechanics from Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica is kinda dumb though.

   It'd be like wanting to improve your cardio health so you try to climb K2. The edition I have has 150+ pages of just introduction. You have to wade through all of that just to be able to figure out how to read the rest of the tome. It is cool, though!

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5. GoblinSlayerNov 2023
   In 1687 Isaac Newton wrote a book "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica", where he describes laws of motion and gravitation.
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6. tzsFeb 2020
   Doesn't that make what is or is not science somewhat up to chance?

   Suppose you develop a theory in order to explain the known results of experiments K1, K2, and K3. You have tuned any tunable parameters to make sure you theory is right for K1, K2, and K3.

   Then you calculate what results you would expect from your theory in other situations, S1 and S2. S1 and S2 were not taken into consideration when you developed the theory.

   It seems strange to me for whether or not your theory is "science" to depend on whether or not someone happens to have already looked at S1 and S2.

   Suppose on Earth the correct results for S1 and S2 were already known when you developed your theory. Then we discover there is intelligent life on Mars and their scientists have developed the same theory at about the same time, but no one had ever looked into S1 and S2 there until after the theory called attention to them.

   So the theory is not science on Earth but it is science on Mars? Does it cease to be science on Mars when we inform them that we knew the correct results for S1 and S2 before anyone on Earth or Mars developed the theory?

   If someone had come up with General Relativity in 1680, a few years before Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica was published in 1687, would Newtonian gravity have not been science? (I'm assuming that at the time the small differences between Newtonian gravity and GR would be below what they could detect experimentally).

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