Related papers: Newton On Absolute Space: A Commentary
This paper forms part of a wider campaign: to deny pointillisme. That is the doctrine that a physical theory's fundamental quantities are defined at points of space or of spacetime, and represent intrinsic properties of such points or…
This work deals with the questions of absolute space and relativity. In particular, an alternative derivation of the effects described by special relativity is provided, which is based on a description that assumes a privileged reference…
This paper explores the status of some notions which are usually associated to time, like datations, chronology, durations, causality, cosmic time and time functions in the Einsteinian relativistic theories. It shows how, even if some of…
Based on the kinetic energy theorem, as one of the fundamental theorems from the classical mechanics, throughout the first part of the article an attempt has been made to derive the mathematical model of a material point motion in the…
The centuries-long practice of the teaching turned mechanics into an academic construct detached from its underlying science, the physics of macroscopic bodies. In particular, the regularities that delineate the scope of validity of…
I discuss the ontological assumptions and implications of General Relativity. I maintain that General Relativity is a theory about gravitational fields, not about space-time. The latter is a more basic ontological category, that emerges…
It is a quite common view among people, that are not aware of the developments in modern physics, that it is part of human nature to substitute religious faith in places where there is no knowledge. Therefore, an increase in knowledge would…
Despite its apparent simplicity, Newtonian Mechanics contains conceptual subtleties that may cause some confusion to the deep-thinking student. These subtleties concern fundamental issues such as, e.g., the number of independent laws needed…
In the cosmos, any two bodies share a gravitational attraction. When in proximity to one another in empty space, their motions can be modeled by Newtonian gravity. Newton found their orbits when the two bodies are infinitely small, the…
The space-time length R between a moving source and the observation point is calculated in order to substitute with it the spatial distance D, normally used in the Newton's law of gravitation, as well as in any inverse-square-law.…
We study influence of gravitational field on the mass-energy equivalence relation by incorporating gravitation in the physical situation considered by Einstein (Ann. Physik, 17, 1905, English translation in ref. [1]) for his first…
This work shows that, Newton's Proposition 1 in the {\it Principia}, is an {\it exact} graphical representation of a canonical transformation, a first-order symplectic integrator generated at a finite time-step by the Hamiltonian. A…
Using post-Newtonian equations of motion for fluid bodies valid to the second post-Newtonian order, we derive the equations of motion for binary systems with finite-sized, non-spinning but arbitrarily shaped bodies. In particular we study…
General relativity describes the gravitational field geometrically and in a self-interacting way because it couples to all forms of energy, including its own. Both features make finding a quantum theory difficult, yet it is important in the…
The notions of time in the theories of Newton and Einstein are reviewed so that certain of their assumptions are clarified. These assumptions will be seen as the causes of the incompatibility between the two different ways of understanding…
An approach is developed to find approximate solutions to the classical Newtonian problem of N bodies. Sets of N gravitating bodies having spherically symmetric mass distributions, small angular velocities (< 1 rad/s) and bounded position…
The concept of a physical space, which actualizes Euclidean geometry, is not confined to the statics of solids but extensible to the phenomena where Newtonian mechanics is valid, defining its concept of time. The laws of propagation of…
General relativity and quantum mechanics have both revealed the relativity of certain notions that were previously thought to be absolute. I clarify the precise sense in which these theories are relational, and I argue that the various…
In this paper I argue that the fundamental aspect of our notion of time is that it defines an order relation, be it a total order relation between configurations of the world or just a partial order relation between events. This position is…
Relative motion in space with multifractal time (fractional dimension of time close to integer $d_{t}=1+\epsilon (r,t), \epsilon \ll 1$) for "almost" inertial frames of reference (time is almost homogeneous and almost isotropic) is…