A Monday Thought -

Isaac Newton was a genius.  That’s undisputed.  He was also wrong.

It’s  important to note that while Newton was on the right track with gravity, his logic was fundamentally flawed and as a result his theory and understanding were 100% wrong.

The flaw in newtonian physics lies in assuming that objects are attracted to each other, while in truth the fact of the matter is that matter bends space itself, the appearance of gravity is nothing but smaller objects moving within space that is bent by larger ones.

Imagine a trampoline with a bowling ball in the center of it.  The trampoline represents space, the bowling ball represents, for the sake of argument, the sun.

Roll a tennis ball around the bowling ball and you get a 2D approximation of why/how orbital mechanics works.  The bowling ball isn’t pulling the tennis ball into a semi-round orbit, but the surface the tennis ball is travelling on is curved, so the ball moves with the curve.

Matter tells space how to bend, space tells matter how to move.

Next week I’ll explain time.

#justsaying

Yes, I’m that kind of geek. ;-)

January 11, 2010 · Posted in Geek/Nerd  
    

Comments

Comments are closed.