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Title page of Isaac Newton's Opticks. Newtonianism is a philosophical and scientific doctrine inspired by the beliefs and methods of natural philosopher Isaac Newton.While Newton's influential contributions were primarily in physics and mathematics, his broad conception of the universe as being governed by rational and understandable laws laid the foundation for many strands of Enlightenment ...
The universe is believed to still be homogeneous enough that the theory is a good approximation on the largest scales, but on smaller scales more involved techniques, such as N-body simulations, must be used. When deciding whether to use general relativity for perturbation theory, note that Newtonian physics is only applicable in some cases ...
Even within the context of Newtonian mechanics, the modern view is that absolute space is unnecessary. Instead, the notion of inertial frame of reference has taken precedence, that is, a preferred set of frames of reference that move uniformly with respect to one another.
The clockwork universe is a concept which compares the universe to a mechanical clock. It continues ticking along, as a perfect machine, with its gears governed by the laws of physics , making every aspect of the machine predictable.
Newton's corpuscular theory was an elaboration of his view of reality as interactions of material points through forces. Note Albert Einstein's description of Newton's conception of physical reality: [Newton's] physical reality is characterised by concepts of space, time, the material point and force (interaction between material points).
The Newtonian arguments of this theory, particularly those concerned with the ontological status of space and time, had been related to the existence of God through the concepts of absolute space and absolute time. [3] It was proposed that the universe was finite in extent and was said to have begun in time. [3]
Newtonian telescope, a type of reflecting telescope; Newtonian cosmology; Newtonian dynamics; Newtonianism, the philosophical principle of applying Newton's methods in a variety of fields; Newtonian fluid, a fluid that flows like water—its shear stress is linearly proportional to the velocity gradient in the direction perpendicular to the ...
Today it is known that an infinite universe uniformly filled with gravitating matter, if it originated in a static configuration, would indeed collapse. This conclusion originally arose from the general theory of relativity, [3] but it is also predicted by Newtonian gravity with the use of mathematical tools that were not available to Newton ...