Rethinking Newton's Principia

It is widely accepted that the notion of an inertial frame is central to Newtonian mechanics and that the correct space-time structure underlying Newton's methods in Principia is neo-Newtonian or Galilean space-time. I argue to the contrary that inertial frames are not needed in Newton's t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Philosophy of science 2013-01, Vol.80 (1), p.22-48
Main Author: Saunders, Simon
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Epistemology. Philosophy of science. Theory of knowledge
Framing
Inertia
Mechanics
Philosophy
Philosophy of science
Physics
Social theory
Space
Spatial models
Time
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Summary:It is widely accepted that the notion of an inertial frame is central to Newtonian mechanics and that the correct space-time structure underlying Newton's methods in Principia is neo-Newtonian or Galilean space-time. I argue to the contrary that inertial frames are not needed in Newton's theory of motion, and that the right space-time structure for Newton's Principia requires the notion of parallelism of spatial directions at different times and nothing more.
ISSN:0031-8248
1539-767X
DOI:10.1086/668881