Albert Einstein may have made the discoveries that led to nuclear and solar power, lasers and even a physical description of space and time, but Sir Isaac Newton had a greater impact on science and mankind, according to a poll published Wednesday.
Posted on 11/23/2005 6:04:12 PM PST by PatrickHenry
Newton, the 17th-century English scientist most famous for describing the laws of gravity and motion, beat Einstein in two polls conducted by eminent London-based scientific academy, the Royal Society.
More than 1,300 members of the public and 345 Royal Society scientists were asked separately which famous scientist made a bigger overall contribution to science, given the state of knowledge during his time, and which made a bigger positive contribution to humankind.
Newton was the winner on all counts, though he beat the German-born Einstein by only 0.2 of a percentage point (50.1 percent to 49.9 percent) in the public poll on who made the bigger contribution to mankind.
The margin was greater among scientists: 60.9 percent for Newton and 39.1 percent for Einstein.
The results were announced ahead of the "Einstein vs. Newton" debate, a public lecture at the Royal Society on Wednesday evening.
"Many people would say that comparing Newton and Einstein is like comparing apples and oranges, but what really matters is that people are appreciating the huge amount that both these physicists achieved, and that their impact on the world stretched far beyond the laboratory and the equation," said Royal Society president Lord Peter May.
Pro-Newton scientists argue he led the transition from an era of superstition and dogma to the modern scientific method.
His greatest work, the "Principia Mathematica", showed that gravity was a universal force that applied to all objects in the universe, finally ruling out the belief that the laws of motion were different for objects on Earth and in the heavens.
Einstein's supporters point out that his celebrated theory of relativity disproved Newton's beliefs on space and time and led to theories about the creation of the universe, black holes and parallel universes.
He also proved mathematically that atoms exist and that light is made of particles called photons, setting the theoretical foundations for nuclear bombs and solar power.
All other things equal, in a vacuum over a uniformly dense perfectly spherical body, the shot would land after the drop. The body is curved, so the shot has further "down" to fall. If fired fast enough the shot won't ever land.
Hint: It has to do with the curvature of the earth.
Christ was downgraded, because it was a team effort with St. Paul, who was ranked 4th I think (the message plus the messenger). Neither would have had much influence without the other is the theory. Mohammed was ranked first because he was a twofer. He rewrote the map in a secular sense as a conquerer, as well as single handedly found the second most influential religion on the planet. You will never guess who was ranked fifth, assuming my recollection is correct. :)
I have. It's not so inaccurate to say that Newton was "searching for God". As a religious man, that's how he would see the goal of his intellectual pursuits. I'm not taking issue with that part.
But the ludicrous part is the implication that if he hadn't been religious, he'd have just spent his life as a fisherman or somethin and there would have been, in your worsd, "no science out of Newton". That's ridiculous. Newton had an incredibly inquisitive mind, always racing ahead of his peers in his obsession to understand how things worked and why, even back home on his parents' farm as a young man. Furthermore, he was surrounded by Hooke, Wallis, Huygens, and a whole raft of other brilliant investigators of the rising fields of science and mathematics, and lived in one of the most intellectually stimulating and challenging times in history, the rise of the Enlightenment.
It's just incredible to try to claim that in this environment, with his mind and inclinations, Newton would not have dove head-first into science even lacking his religious beliefs. He just would have called his quest something other than "searching for God", like "questing for knowledge", or "searching for Truth" or something.
There's nothing about Newton's religious faith specifically that uniquely triggered his life's path. His mind was always racing and investigating, out of an innate driving inquisitiveness and the sheer ability of his mind to race where most others could only slowly stumble.
To expand on my answer, motion in the vertical direction does not depend upon motion in the horizontal direction. Both balls fall with the same acceleration but they can still do that while having different speeds in the horizontal direction. If the cannon is tilted slightly up or down, the vertical accelerations will still be the same, but the ball will now take a longer or shorter time to hit.
In the monkey gun experiment, you can drop the two from different heights and, if you aim the barrel at the monkey, you will still hit the monkey. Neglecting air resistance, of course.
Yes, Galileo was earlier, but this problem would have also been solved easily by Newton, too.
Drop it from a skyscraper and see what happens.
I've heard that a penny can kill someone if you drop it from the top of the Empire State Bldg.
I meant to add you to my post above.
It has to do with the curvature of the earth. That's why they land at the same time (theoretically).
Not true. The terminal velocity of a penny is not high enough and its mass is pretty small.
Why is not Nicolai Tesla considered?
Science, mathematics, electricity, lightening....
If you get the book, just so you get hooked in, skip ahead and start with chapter 6 about Caradano and solution of the cubic - good story about that one!
Einstein received a Nobel prize for the photoelectric effect which is used in a tremendous amount of todays technology. His advocacy for the atomic bomb project in WWII makes him a very formidable scientist. The world would be very different if he hadn't been born but apples would still fall if Newton had been aborted.
Whew! Thanks! When I took a tour of the Empire State bldg as a kid, our guide said not to do that, and I did anyway! Glad to know I never killed any body! I've felt guilty about that all these years! LOL!
Who was ranked 5th?
I want to give antiguv a crack at it first. Cheers.
You can put a coin on the edge of a table and slide another coin into it so they both fall off. If you hit it just right, one will go out a few feet, the other will fall nearly straight down. They will hit at the same time. Over that short range, the curvature of the earth is not important. Over a large distance, the fact that the gravitational field lines are radial is important.
However, if you could make a gravitational field whose lines of force were parallel, this problem would still work. It also works with charged particles in a parallel electric field made by flat parallel charged plates.
Newton gave us the most important equation ever in Physics F = m x a. Much more important in our daily applications than Einstein E= m x c^2.
Based on things I see people do almost everyday, there's still a lot of filtering down into the real world left to be done.
Good point: Naive Theories of Motion. It's a really fascinating article about how through everyday experience with moving objects, people often form remarkably incorrect mental "models" of how physics actually works.
A passage from the article:
Further, we argue that the assumptions of the naive theories are quite consistent across individuals. In fact, the theories developed by different individuals are best described as different forms of the same basic theory. Although this basic theory appears to be a reasonable outcome of experience with real-world motion, it is strikingly inconsistent with the fundamental principles of classical physics. In fact, the naive theory is remarkably similar to a pre-Newtonian physical theory popular in the 14th through 16th centuries.A short summary might be, "'common sense' is seldom common nor sensible."
Buddha
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