While in quarantine from the Plague, Newton transformed the way we calculate pi

_{Denyse O'Leary

March 23, 2021

Intelligent Design, Mathematics}

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He also developed calculus, and studied optics and gravity then:

When the Great Plague of London ravaged through the British city beginning in 1665, Issac Newton was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge. As described in Gale Christianson’s Isaac Newton, a few months after acquiring his undergraduate degree in the spring of that year, the 23-year-old retreated to his family farm of Woolsthorpe Manor, some 60 miles northwest of Cambridge. Along with being located a safe distance from the carriers of the horrific disease that was wiping out the population of the city, Woolsthorpe provided the sort of quiet, serene environment that allowed a mind like Newton’s to journey, uninterrupted, to the farthest reaches of the imagination. This period is now known as annus mirabilis – the “year of wonders.”
Tim Ott, “Isaac Newton Changed the World While in Quarantine From the Plague” at Biography

And what were you doing during the COVID-19 lockdowns? 😉

Hat tip: Philip Cunningham

Comments

Seversky claims "If it’s (energy has) always existed (then) it didn’t come from anywhere." Yet, via Big Bang cosmology, we now know that energy, (along with matter, space and time), has NOT always existed,
Big Bang Theory – An Overview of the main evidence Excerpt: Steven Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose turned their attention to the Theory of Relativity and its implications regarding our notions of time. In 1968 and 1970, they published papers in which they extended Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity to include measurements of time and space.1, 2 According to their calculations, time and space had a finite beginning that corresponded to the origin of matter and energy.”3 Steven W. Hawking, George F.R. Ellis, “The Cosmic Black-Body Radiation and the Existence of Singularities in our Universe,” Astrophysical Journal, 152, (1968) pp. 25-36. Steven W. Hawking, Roger Penrose, “The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, series A, 314 (1970) pp. 529-548. http://www.big-bang-theory.com/ “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.” – Cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University in Boston – in paper delivered at atheist Stephen Hawking’s 70th birthday party (Characterized as ‘Worst Birthday Present Ever’) – January 2012 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/vilenkins-verdict-all-the-evidence-we-have-says-that-the-universe-had-a-beginning/
Shoot, to add insult to injury, Quantum Mechanics came along and said that photons and atoms, (i.e. energy and matter), do not really even exist until we look at them. First, in regards to photons, and via Leggett’s inequality, we find that “Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.”
Quantum physics says goodbye to reality – Apr 20, 2007 Excerpt: Many realizations of the thought experiment have indeed verified the violation of Bell’s inequality. These have ruled out all hidden-variables theories based on joint assumptions of realism, meaning that reality exists when we are not observing it; and locality, meaning that separated events cannot influence one another instantaneously. But a violation of Bell’s inequality does not tell specifically which assumption – realism, locality or both – is discordant with quantum mechanics. Markus Aspelmeyer, Anton Zeilinger and colleagues from the University of Vienna, however, have now shown that realism is more of a problem than locality in the quantum world. They devised an experiment that violates a different inequality proposed by physicist Anthony Leggett in 2003 that relies only on realism, and relaxes the reliance on locality. To do this, rather than taking measurements along just one plane of polarization, the Austrian team took measurements in additional, perpendicular planes to check for elliptical polarization. They found that, just as in the realizations of Bell’s thought experiment, Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it. “Our study shows that ‘just’ giving up the concept of locality would not be enough to obtain a more complete description of quantum mechanics,” Aspelmeyer told Physics Web. “You would also have to give up certain intuitive features of realism.” http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27640
Secondly, in regards to atoms, and via Wheeler’s Delayed Choice experiment, we find that ““It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,”
New Mind-blowing Experiment Confirms That Reality Doesn’t Exist If You Are Not Looking at It – June 3, 2015 Excerpt: Some particles, such as photons or electrons, can behave both as particles and as waves. Here comes a question of what exactly makes a photon or an electron act either as a particle or a wave. This is what Wheeler’s experiment asks: at what point does an object ‘decide’? The results of the Australian scientists’ experiment, which were published in the journal Nature Physics, show that this choice is determined by the way the object is measured, which is in accordance with what quantum theory predicts. “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” said lead researcher Dr. Andrew Truscott in a press release.,,, “The atoms did not travel from A to B. It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behavior was brought into existence,” he said. Thus, this experiment adds to the validity of the quantum theory and provides new evidence to the idea that reality doesn’t exist without an observer. http://themindunleashed.org/2015/06/new-mind-blowing-experiment-confirms-that-reality-doesnt-exist-if-you-are-not-looking-at-it.html
As Anton Zeilinger himself commented, "it is not just us (we ourselves) that don’t know where the particle is, the particle itself does not know where it is. This “nonexistence” is an objective feature of reality…"
Quantum Physicist: The Particle Itself Does Not Know Where It Is - video - December 1, 2018 (Zeilinger) - 40 sec: Every object has to be in a definite place is not true anymore… The thought that a particle can be at two places at the same time is (also) not good language. The good language it that there are situations where it is completely undefined where the particle is. (and it is not just us (we ourselves) that don’t know where the particle is, the particle itself does not know where it is). This “nonexistence” is an objective feature of reality… 5:10 min:… superposition is not limited to small systems… https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/quantum-physicist-the-particle-itself-does-not-know-where-it-is/
The Theistic implications of all this are fairly obvious, as Scott Aaronson of MIT stated, “Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists who think the world sprang into existence,,, But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!”
Lecture 11: Decoherence and Hidden Variables – Scott Aaronson Excerpt: “Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists who think the world sprang into existence on October 23, 4004 BC at 9AM (presumably Babylonian time), with the fossils already in the ground, light from distant stars heading toward us, etc. But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!” http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec11.html
bornagain77_{March 24, 2021
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From the post by The Renaissance Mathematicus
All in all the developments that the young Newton achieved in mathematics and physics in the 1660s were actually spread out over a period of six years. They were also not as extensive or revolutionary as implied in Neil deGrasse Tyson brief tweeted claim. In fact a period of six intensive years of study would be quite normal for a talented student to acquire the basics of mathematics and physics. And I think we can all agree that Newton was very talented. His achievements were remarkable but not sensational. It is justified to ask where then does the myth of the Annus Mirabilis actually come from? The answer is Newton himself. In later life he claimed that he had done all these things in that one-year, the fictional ones rather than the real achievements. So why did he claim this? One reason, a charitable interpretation, is that of an old man just telescoping the memories of his youth. However, there is a less charitable but probably more truthful explanation. Newton became in his life embroiled in several priority disputes with other natural philosophers over his discoveries, with Leibniz over the calculus, with Hooke over gravity and with Hook and Huygens over optics. By pushing back into the distant past some of his major discoveries he can, at least to his own satisfaction, firmly establish his priority
Seversky_{March 24, 2021
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Bob O'H takes issues with the claims that NEWS made:
While In quarantine From The Plague, Newton developed calculus, and studied optics and gravity, and also, (by the way), transformed the way we calculate Pi:
Specifically, Bob O'H claims that the claims made in NEWS's linked article have been debunked. Yet the specific claims made in the linked article are, relatively speaking, quite modest and are devoid of any of the hyperbole that is usually associated with myth making, The specific claims in the linked article are, "Newton helped develop calculus,,, He analyzed color, light and the spectrum,, Newton studied gravity, which aided in the creation of his laws of motion,,"
Isaac Newton Changed the World While in Quarantine From the Plague Isolated during the Great Plague of London, the philosopher engaged in the groundbreaking discoveries that marked his "year of wonders." TIM OTT - MAR 25, 2020 When the Great Plague of London ravaged through the British city beginning in 1665, Issac Newton was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge. As described in Gale Christianson’s Isaac Newton, a few months after acquiring his undergraduate degree in the spring of that year, the 23-year-old retreated to his family farm of Woolsthorpe Manor, some 60 miles northwest of Cambridge. Along with being located a safe distance from the carriers of the horrific disease that was wiping out the population of the city, Woolsthorpe provided the sort of quiet, serene environment that allowed a mind like Newton’s to journey, uninterrupted, to the farthest reaches of the imagination. This period is now known as annus mirabilis – the “year of wonders.”,,, Newton helped develop calculus First, he continued the work on mathematics that had engaged his mental acuities until being shut out of Trinity. The issue at hand was determining universal equations involving fluctuating quantities, an issue that had been tackled, on a limited scale, by the French mathematicians René Descartes and Pierre de Fermat. By the end of 1666, Newton had effectively solved this problem with a series of papers on the rules of "fluxions," now known as calculus. He analyzed color, light and the spectrum Newton also turned his attention to the study of optics, and the prevailing wisdom that every color on the spectrum was a mix of dark and white light. He conducted an experiment in which he drilled a tiny hole in the shutter of his bedroom window, intercepted the ensuing light beam with a prism, and then placed a second prism in the path of those refracted beams. The resulting panorama allowed Newton to calculate the angle of each refracted color. More importantly, it revealed the stream of colors as unchanged – proof that colors were not modifications of white light, but that white light is comprised of all components of the spectrum. Newton studied gravity, which aided in the creation of his laws of motion Finally, this was the period that birthed the Newtonian legend of the falling apple and the thump on the head that led to the deduction of gravity. Things didn't exactly unfold in that manner, but Newton did get to thinking about the principles of inertia and how an airborne apple, or any object, is prevented from flying off the rotating Earth into space. The force that pulls the apple down must be the same one that pulls the moon to the Earth, he decided. Furthermore, the moon must also apply that same attracting force toward the Earth, albeit on a lesser scale. This led to the law of universal gravitation, which holds that those forces are proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. https://www.biography.com/news/isaac-newton-quarantine-plague-discoveries
Moreover, Bob O'H's linked article does not contradict any of these 'modest' claims that were made in NEWS's linked article, In fact, Bob's article admits that,
"Freed by the scholarship, Newton now discovered his love and aptitude for the modern mathematics and set off on a two-year intensive study of the subject,",,, In October 1666 Newton’s total immersion in mathematics stopped as suddenly as it had begun when he wrote a manuscript summarising all that he had internalised. He had thoroughly learnt all of the work available on the modern analytical mathematics, extended it and systematised it. This was an extraordinary achievement by any standards and, although nobody knew about it at the time, established Newton as one of the leading mathematicians in Europe. Although quite amazing, the manuscript from 1666 is still a long way from being the calculus that we know today or even the calculus that was known, say in 1700."
Thus NEWS's specific claim that "Newton helped develop calculus" stands as undebunked. Next from Bob O'H's linked article,
Having abandoned mathematics he now turned to one of those topics, motion and space. Once again he was guided in his studies by the leaders in the field, once again Descartes, then Christiaan Huygens and also Galileo in the English translation by Thomas Salusbury, which appeared in 1665. Newton’s early work in this field was largely based on the principle of inertia that he took from Descartes and Descartes’ theories of impact. Once again Newton made very good progress, correcting Descartes errors and demonstrating that Galileo’s value for ‘g’ the force of acceleration due to gravity was seriously wrong. He also made his first attempt to show that the force that causes an object to fall to the ground, possibly the legendary apple, and the force that prevents the Moon from shooting off at a tangent, as the principle of inertia says it should, were one and the same. This attempt sort of failed because the data available to Newton at the time was not accurate enough. Newton abandoned this line of thinking and only returned to it almost twenty years later. Once again, the progress that the young Newton made in this area were quite impressive but his efforts were very distant from his proof of the law of gravity and its consequences that he would deliver in the Principia, twenty year later. For the record Newton didn’t discover the law of gravity he proved it, there is an important difference between the two.
Thus NEWS's specific claim from her linked article that "Newton studied gravity, which aided in the creation of his laws of motion,," also stands as undebunked. Next from Bob O'H's linked article, we find
The third area to which Newton invested significant time and effort in the 1660s was optics.,,, What we have here is the programme of experiments into light that Newton carried out and which formed the basis of his very first scientific paper published in 1672. This paper famously established that white light is made up of coloured light. Also of significance Newton was the first to discover chromatic aberration, the fact that spherical lenses don’t sharply focus light to a single point but break it up into a spectrum, which means the images have coloured fringes. This discovery led Newton to develop his reflecting telescope, which avoids the problem of chromatic aberration.
Thus NEWS's specific claim from her linked article, "He analyzed color, light and the spectrum," also stands as undebunked. The only criticism against NEWS's linked article that Bob's paper can realistically muster is the somewhat trivial criticism that all this activity of Newton's was limited ONLY to the year 1666, but even Bob's paper itself does not dispute that 1666 was a year of amazing and intense intellectual breakthroughs for the young Newton. In fact, Bob's linked article, far from directly contradicting any of the claims that NEWS's actually made, is actually specifically directed at debunking the over the top hyperbole that Neil deGrasse Tyson himself had repeated, i.e. Tyson had falsely claimed that "When Isaac Newton stayed at home to avoid the 1665 plague, he discovered the laws of gravity, optics, and he invented calculus." Perhaps Bob should take his grievance with the over the top hyperbole surrounding Newton's 'year of wonders' to his fellow atheist Neil deGrasse Tyson? After all, Neil deGrasse Tyson himself, Bob's fellow atheist, is the one who actually drastically overstated what Newton had actually accomplished in his 'year of wonders', not NEWS!bornagain77_{March 24, 2021
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BobRyan/2
Perhaps someone on your side could come up with how energy came about without ID.
If it's always existed it didn't come from anywhere.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed, yet it exists. It is direct evidence of a vastly superior intelligence to man, since something must have created energy.
You just said energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Doesn't that mean there's no need for a Creator?Seversky_{March 24, 2021
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Here is a link to the video with references included
Newton Fived It For thousands of years, mathematicians were calculating Pi the obvious but numerically inefficient way. Then Newton came along and changed the game.,,, Happy Pi Day! (for a few days ago...) https://www.veritasium.com/videos/2021/3/16/the-ridiculous-way-we-used-to-calculate-pi References: Arndt, J., & Haenel, C. (2001). Pi-unleashed. Springer Science & Business Media — https://books.google.com.au/books?id=QwwcmweJCDQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Dunham, W. (1990). Journey through genius: The great theorems of mathematics. Wiley — https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Journey_Through_Genius.html?id=_IbWAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y Borwein, J. M. (2014). The Life of Pi: From Archimedes to ENIAC and Beyond. In From Alexandria, Through Baghdad (pp. 531-561). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg — https://carma.newcastle.edu.au/resources/jon/pi-2012.pdf Special thanks to Alex Kontorovich, Professor of Mathematics at Rutgers University, and Distinguished Visiting Professor for the Public Dissemination of Mathematics National Museum of Mathematics MoMath for being part of this Pi Day video.
bornagain77_{March 24, 2021
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Poor Newton and poor guys in video. Everyone knows pi is 22/7 or 3 1/7.jerry_{March 24, 2021
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Where does this claim about pi come from? It's not in the linked piece (which has its own problems, with its claims b´having already been debunked), and I haven't seen it anywhere else?Bob O'H_{March 24, 2021
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Steve Alten2 Perhaps someone on your side could come up with how energy came about without ID. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, yet it exists. It is direct evidence of a vastly superior intelligence to man, since something must have created energy. You are on the side with no evidence to support evolution. ID can be seen in the very laws of physics and not a single one can exist without ID. Is it not more likely that something exists with vastly superior intellect than man put the laws into place than a single law to have come about from chaos? Laws are order and cannot come from chaos, yet that is what you must believe without ID.BobRyan_{March 23, 2021
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During Covid lockdown I expect Kairosfocus or Bornagain77 to make the ID breakthrough that will convince everyone of the truth if ID.Steve Alten2_{March 23, 2021
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