The Key to Newton's Dynamics: The Kepler Problem and the Principia

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 330 pages
• Published by: University of California Press February 29, 1996
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0520202171
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0520202177
• Book Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Weighs: 15.2 ounces

Product Description
While much has been written on the ramifications of Newton's dynamics, until now the details of Newton's solution were available only to the physics expert. The Key to Newton's Dynamics clearly explains the surprisingly simple analytical structure that underlies the determination of the force necessary to maintain ideal planetary motion. J. Bruce Brackenridge sets the problem in historical and conceptual perspective, showing the physicist's debt to the works of both Descartes and Galileo. He tracks Newton's work on the Kepler problem from its early stages at Cambridge before 1669, through the revival of his interest ten years later, to its fruition in the first three sections of the first edition of the Principia.

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Latin --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Reader Reviews
Part 1 gives historical background and discussion of some general features of Newtonian dynamics. Part 2 is the heart of the book: Newton's proofs of Kepler's laws, and of course especially the theorem that planets move in ellipses around the sun. Brackenridge goes through Newton's proofs step by step in great detail. It is quite hopeless for a modern reader to follow these proofs in the Principia, but, as one would expect, with a guide like this it is easy to see the general strategy and follow the steps. But Newton's proofs use a few nontrivial theorems from classical geometry. These were surely known to Newton's readers, but they certainly are not today. Brackenridge doesn't prove these theorems, so if we really want to understand Newton's proof of the law of ellipses (which is "the goal of the book"; p. vii), then we are forced to go look up serious theorems in Euclid and Apollonius. Part 3 discusses Newton's published and unpublished alternative approaches to the problems of planetary motion. Brackenridge argues that the first edition of the Principia is the clearest (in the later editions insights are "hidden in a labyrinth"; p. 209); a translation of the relevant parts is given here as an appendix. It was only in the later editions that Newton added the curvaturesque arguments leading to the "the same otherwise" alternative proofs that we find in the common third edition.