Freedom of Science

George Gamow wrote¹ that Henry Cavendish

demonstrated the proof [of the existence of the Newtonian force] beyond argument.

What kind of evidence does Gamow have to declare so authoritatively that Cavendish proved the existence of the Newtonian force “beyond argument?”

Just like Feynman, Gamow’s source is physics textbooks. We know that physics textbooks are canonized physics mythology.

What I found interesting in Gamow’s description of the Cavendish experiment is this quote:

Cavendish used very delicate equipment that in his day represented the height of experimental skill but which can be found today in most physics lecture rooms to impress Newton’s law of gravity on the minds of freshmen.

I am sure that Gamow did not mean to sound like as if he is saying that physics education uses the Cavendish experiment as a Newtonian miracle to indoctrinate “the minds of freshmen” in order to turn them into unquestioning believers into Newtonism like himself.

Yet this is a fact. Physics education based on Newtonian indoctrination produced both Feynman and Gamow.

Gamow goes on to state that Cavendish found

the numerical value of the coefficient G in Newton’s formula…

Newton did not write F=GMm/RR that physicists love to attribute to Newton. Cavendish did not know the existence of this Newtonian logo and he never heard of G.

Only in an unregulated professional industry practicing professionals would present mythology as true history.

1. Gravity, p. 44 [↩]

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