Freedom of Science

Unapologetic mathematician wrote that

Newtonian mechanics is a useful mathematical model…

Is this why physicists still keep “Newtonian mechanics?” Or is this what they pretend? Physicists say Newtonian mechanics has been supplanted by Einstein’s General Relativity. Then the same physicists fail to compute orbits with Einstein General Relativity so they fake it by saying

in the Newtonian limit General Relativity predicts….

Newtonian limit is the Newtonian mechanics not Einsteinian non-mechanics.¹ But physicists are master polemicists who enjoy hereditary authority to philosophize. Therefore, their authority is immutable and their Newtonian polemics cannot be challenged.

Newtonian mechanics is not a mathematical model because Newton stole Kepler’s rule and called it Newton’s laws. Newton’s contribution was to define two permutations of Kepler’s rule as force.

Newtonian contribution to astronomy, namely, force, is not used in astronomy. Physicists cancel force terms they write down and do their orbit computations with Kepler’s rule. Since they are bound by Newton’s sacred authority they must call Kepler’s rule Newton’s laws simply because Newton ordered them so. Physicists use Kepler’s rule and praise Newton.

See also my answer to Apologetic Mathematician for more details.

1. Both Newtonian mechanics and General Relativity do their calculations by using Kepler’s rule. Both Newtonian mechanics and General Relativity are philosophical frameworks which have no predictive power. All computations are done with Kepler’s rule. [↩]

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