Related papers: Had the planet mars not existed: Kepler's equant m…
The hodograph, i.e. the path traced by a body in velocity space, was introduced by Hamilton in 1846 as an alternative for studying certain dynamical problems. The hodograph of the Kepler problem was then investigated and shown to be a…
As shown by Johannes Kepler in 1609, in the two-body problem, the shape of the orbit, a given ellipse, and a given non-vanishing constant angular momentum determines the motion of the planet completely. Even in the three-body problem, in…
This article describes use of Mathcad mathematical package to solve problem of the motion of two, three and four material points under the influence of gravitational forces on the planar motion and in three-dimensional space. The limits of…
Newton famously showed that a gravitational force inversely proportional to the square of the distance, $F \sim 1/r^2$, formally explains Kepler's three laws of planetary motion. But what happens to the familiar elliptical orbits if the…
We derive Copernicus's epicycles from Newton's gravitational force law by assuming that a planet's orbit is a perturbed circular orbit, with the perturbation defined to be co-rotating with the said orbit. We substitute this orbit expression…
The hodograph of the Kepler-Coulomb problem, that is, the path traced by its velocity vector, is shown to be a circle and then it is used to investigate other properties of the motion. We obtain the configuration space orbits of the problem…
Gravitation might make a preferred frame appear, and with it a clear space/time separation--the latter being, a priori, needed by quantum mechanics (QM) in curved space-time. Several models of gravitation with an ether are discussed: they…
Kepler's orbits with corrections due to Special Relativity are explored using the Lagrangian formalism. A very simple model includes only relativistic kinetic energy by defining a Lagrangian that is consistent with both the relativistic…
The true and eccentric anomaly parametrizations of the Kepler motion are generalized to quasiperiodic orbits, by considering perturbations of the radial part of the kinetic energy in a form of a series of negative powers of the orbital…
The hodograph of a non-relativistic particle motion in Euclidean space is the curve described by its momentum vector. For a general central orbit problem the hodograph is the inverse of the pedal curve of the orbit, (i.e. its polar…
An elementary derivation of the Newton "inverse square law" from the three Kepler laws is proposed. Our proof, thought essentially for first-year undergraduates, basically rests on Euclidean geometry. It could then be offered even to…
The motion of Mercury using numerical methods in the framework of a model including only the non-relativistic Newtonian gravitational interactions of the solar system, 9 planets in translation (including Pluto) around the sun has been…
Can a machine or algorithm discover or learn Kepler's first law from astronomical sightings alone? We emulate Johannes Kepler's discovery of the equation of the orbit of Mars with the Rudolphine tables using AI Feynman, a physics-inspired…
While Kepler was still working in Graz during 1598, some letters to his mentor Michael Maestlin demonstrate his interest in astronomical clocks and machines. The first letter, dated January 6, 1598 contains a detailed description of a…
The Kepler map was derived by Petrosky (1986) and Chirikov and Vecheslavov (1986) as a tool for description of the long-term chaotic orbital behaviour of the comets in nearly parabolic motion. It is a two-dimensional area-preserving map,…
We have developed a model for the Earth rotation that gives a good account (data) of the Earth astronomical parameters. These data can be compared with the ones obtained using space-base telescopes. The expansion of the universe has an…
The motion of astronomical bodies and the centre of mass of the system is not always well perceived by students. One of the struggles is the conceptual change of reference frame, which is the same that held back the acceptance of the…
Proceeding like Newton with a discrete time approach of motion and a geometrical representation of velocity and acceleration, we obtain Kepler's laws without solving differential equations. The difficult part of Newton's work, when it calls…
If the presence of a gravitational field breaks the Lorentz symmetry valid for special relativity, an "absolute motion" might be detectable. We summarize a scalar theory of gravity with a such "ether", which starts from a tentative…
The motivations for investigating a theory of gravitation based on a concept of "ether" are discussed-- a crucial point is the existence of an alternative interpretation of special relativity, named the Lorentz-Poincar\'e ether theory. The…