Classical Astronomy

Introduction
Astronomy is probably the oldest of sciences. Humans, with their innate curiosity and intelligence have looked up and wondered about phenomena in the sky since prehistoric times. People of different cultures scattered across the globe have incorporated their observations of celestial objects and events into their creation myths and religions. Civilizations such as the Babylonians and Egyptians made longterm, systematic observations of the night sky and some of their records still survive. Five planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn plus the Sun and Moon were visible to the unaided eyes of the ancient astronomers. The planets could be distinguished from stars in that through regular observation they were seen to move relative to the stars. The very word planet derives from the classical Greek term for wandering star. Unlike stars, planets also varied their brightness over time. A final complication in the observed behavior of planets was that of retrograde motion. This is where a planet seemed to back track on its path across the sky through the constellations before reverting to its normal direction. The diagram below clearly shows this for the planet Mars in late 2003.

Credit: Image was generated using Starry Night Pro software.

Figure 1.1 From mid-July to mid-September 2003 the planet Mars appeared to backwards relative to the stars on the celestial sphere. This is an example of retrograde motion. This section does not seek to provide a detailed history of astronomy up till Newton. If you wish to delve into this vast subject in more detail we encourage you to follow some of the links to other sites specialising in the topic. The depth presented here nonetheless probably goes beyond that required by the NSW

syllabus. In doing so it should provide some background to what is a fascinating topic.

Classical Astronomers
The Ionians (6th - 4th Century BC)
The ancient Greeks, specifically the Ionian school of philosophers, are credited with the move to a natural, mechanistic view of the Universe. Based on Miletus in Asia Minor and founded by Thales, the Ionians are remembered not so much for the specific models of the Universe that they suggested, but rather that they asked questions that they could then attempt to answer through reason, observation and the application of geometry. Anaximander refined Thales' ideas and proposed a model which had a cylindrical Earth at rest in the centre of the Universe, surrounded by air then one or more spherical shells with holes in them. These appeared as stars due to the rim of fire that lay beyond the solid sphere.

Credit: R. Hollow CSIRO

Figure 1.2 Anaximander had a cylindrical Earth surrounded by air and a solid sphere. Holes in the solid sphere allowed the light from the outer rim of fire to shine through, appearing as stars and the Sun. Anaximander's model of the Universe was revolutionary for two main reasons. Firstly it introduced a mechanistic view, moving beyond a mythological, supernatural explanation for the Universe. It also proposed the concept of spheres surrounding the Earth. This was to profoundly influence astronomy and cosmology for the next two millennia.Anaximenes refined Anaximander's model by suggesting

that the stars were fixed on to a solid, transparent crystalline sphere that rotated about the Earth. Later Ionians contributed more ideas and discoveries. Anaxogoras (c. 450 BC) realised that the Moon shone by reflected sunlight,had mountains and was inhabited and that the Sun was not a god but a large fiery stone much larger than Greece and a large distance from Earth. Empedocles suggested that light traveled fast but not at infinite speed. Democritus proposed not just at atomist model of matter but also proposed that the Milky Way was composed of thousands of unresolved stars.

The Pythagoreans

Pythagoras Pythagoras (c. 580 - 500 BC) is credited with postulating a spherical Earth and with realising that Phosphoros, the morning star and Hesperos, the evening star were in fact the same object, the planet Venus. He and his followers believed in the concept of cosmos, a well-ordered, harmonious Universe. They placed great importance on the power and aesthetics of geometry and mathematics rather than experiments. Regular geometrical solids, especially the sphere, were revered and they sought to find harmonies and ratios in the natural world. Herakleides, a student of Plato and Aristotle but heavily influenced by Pythagorean ideas refined an earlier model by Philolaus to develop one that had a spherical Earth rotating on it axis. It also had Mercury and Venus revolving around the Sun whilst the Sun and other planets revolved around the Earth. Stars again were fixed on a revolving crystalline sphere. Models that had the Earth at the centre of the Universe are termed geocentric or earth-centered. Interestingly whilst most classical models were variations on geocentric models, one of the Pythagoreans, Aristarchus of Samos (c. 310 - 230 BC) proposed a model that placed the Sun at the centre, that is a heliocentric Universe. His model would be familiar to us today as a reasonable description of the solar system. All the

planets, including the earth, revolved around a fixed Sun in circular orbits. The Earth rotated once a day on its axis and the Moon revolved about the Earth.

Credit: R. Hollow, CSIRO

Figure 1.3 In Aristarchus' heliocentric model all the planets orbit the Sun along circular paths. The Moon orbits the Earth which in turn spins on its axis. There are several reasons why Aristarchus' model did not gain wide acceptance and was in effect lost for 18 centuries until Copernicus redeveloped it. Firstly his original writings were lost in the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria in AD 415. Secondly his concept of a moving Earth defies common sense. We do not feel the Earth spinning or moving through space. His idea contradicted the prevailing view of motion as espoused by Aristotle. The final key objection to his model was the failure of observers to detect any stellar parallax. Under Aristarchus' model, the closer stars should show a periodic shift in position to and fro against more distant stars over the course of a year as the Earth orbited the Sun. In fact this was not detected until 1838 following careful telescopic observations. Aristarchus had underestimated the distance of the earth from the Sun thus the size of possible parallax was overestimated.

Credit: R. Hollow, CSIRO

Figure 1.4 In a heliocentric model, closer stars should show an apparent shift in position relative to background stars due to parallax. This diagram greatly exaggerates the effect and is not to scale.

Plato (428 - 348 BC)

Plato An Athenian and a pupil of Socrates, Plato had a profound influence on philosophy and he wrote widely on many different fields. Rather than being remembered for a specific model of the Universe it was his views on its nature, put forward in his dialogue Timaeus, that were to so strongly influence subsequent generations. To Plato the Universe was perfect and unchanging. Stars were eternal and divine, embedded in an outer sphere. All heavenly motions were circular or spherical as the sphere was the perfect shape. Such was his influence that the concept of circular paths was not challenged until Kepler, after many years of painstaking calculations, discovered the elliptical orbits of planets nearly 2,000 years later. Plato thought that the visible world was only a dim representation of the real world. He was therefore not concerned with direct observations or how they

correlated with his ideas but realised geometrical, arithmetical models could be devised to fit observations and save appearances.

Aristotle (384 - 322 BC)

Aristotle Aristotle's work had a profound influence on western thought, eventually being absorbed and molded into supporting Christian theology and dogma. He would probably have been disturbed by this. A pupil of Plato, he in turn tutored Alexander the Great. Whilst thought of as a theoretical philosopher he also conducted experiments in several fields. His works on astronomy and the physics of motion were written in On the heavens and Physics. Like Empedocles before him Aristotle saw all matter on Earth as being composed of combinations of only four elements; earth, air, fire and water with the properties of cool, moist, hot and dry. The stars were made of a separate fifth element, quintessence and were incorruptible and eternal. Motion in the heavens was natural, unforced and circular so that the planets and Sun orbited a fixed, unmoving spherical Earth in circular orbits. On Earth, however, matter was corruptible and subject to decay. Motion was linear with objects requiring a force acting on them to stay in motion. It is was not until Newton in the second half of the seventeenth century that this concept of forced motion was overthrown. Aristotle's own model of the Universe was a development of that of Eudoxus who had also studied under Plato. It had a series of 53 concentric, crystalline, transparent spheres rotating on different axes. Each sphere was centered on a stationary Earth so the model was both geocentric and homocentric. Stars were fixed on the outer sphere. The Moon marked the boundary between the unchanging, constant heavens and the corruptible Earth. According to Aristotelian cosmology it was only within the sub-lunary sphere, that is between the Earth and Moon, that changeable phenomena such as comets could exist.

Ptolemy (AD 120 - 180)

Claudius Ptolemy The last of the great classical astronomers, Claudius Ptolemy lived in Alexandria. He contributed to mathematics, optics, geography and music but is chiefly remembered for his vast work on astronomy, known as the Almagest. In it he detailed a model of the Universe that profoundly influenced Western and Arabic thought for the next 1,500 years. Ptolemy relied heavily on tools invented and observations made by earlier astronomers. Apollonius (262 - 190 BC) had developed the concepts of the eccentric and the epicycle to explain planetary motions (see Figure 1.5 below). Hipparchus (161 - 126 BC) had organised earlier Babylonian records together with his own observations to develop a catalogue of 850 stars. He plotted them on a celestial sphere and introduced the concept of comparing brightnesses on a magnitude scale that forms the basis of that still used today. Ptolemy synthesised all this work and incorporated his own careful observations to produce a model that was to become accepted as the standard model until the 1600s.

Credit: R. Hollow CSIRO

Figure 1.5 The Epicycle, Deferent and Eccentric. A planet orbits point x in a circular path called the epicycle. The deferent is the circular path that point x takes around the centre of motion, C. This is not the same point as the location of the Earth. The offset is called the eccentric. Different planets would have different eccentrics, deferents and epicycles. The resultant path traced out by a planet could account for retrograde motion and variations in brightness. The Ptolemaic model had a spherical, unmoving Earth in the central region of the Universe, its natural place. Note contrary to common misconception, it was not strictly geocentric as the model used eccentrics; rather it was geostatic. 10,000 Earth diameters from the the centre, stars were fixed on a celestial sphere that rotated once every 24 hours. The Sun and the five planets had their motions explained by combinations of epicycles, deferents and eccentrics. In total some seventy circles and spheres were required. Ptolemy's desire, inspired by Plato, that his model should fit observations and save appearances led him to introduce a subtle device, the equant, into his model. Each heavenly body had its own equant, the point around which motions of four epicycles appeared uniform. The equant did not coincide with the centre of a planet's deferent. Whilst the concept of the equant broke with the precept that the motion of spheres about their centres be uniform it was effective in accounting for the variations noted in the retrograde motion of some planets. To us Ptolemy's model seems overly complex and clearly wrong yet it survived as the standard model used by scholars for 1,500 years. Why was this? There are several reasons: 1. It worked, that is it could predict the position of a planet to within 2. 2. It accounted for the observed planetary motions, retrograde motion and variations in brightness. 3. Unlike Aristarchus' model it did not predict the unobserved stellar parallax. 4. It placed the Earth in its natural place at the centre of things, satisfying Aristotelian philosophy. 5. It matched with common sense. We do not feel the Earth move and Ptolemy's model had a static Earth. It was not seriously challenged until the mid-1500's by the work of Copernicus.

Medieval & Renaissance Astronomy

Medieval Astronomy
Contrary to common misconception the period between the end of the classical era and the start of the Renaissance was not devoid of scientific progress. Islamic scholars translated many of the surviving writings from Greek or Syriac into Arabic from the late 700's onwards. These translations in turn were transported into Islamic Spain where they eventually fell into Christian hands and were translated into Latin. Islamic astronomers such as Muhammad al-Battani (c. 850 - 929) refined Ptolemy's model and their published works and tables were later used by Western astronomers. Even today the influence of Islamic astronomers is found in the names of many of the bright stars such as Betelgeuse ( Ori), Alnitak ( Ori) and Zubenelgenubi ( Lib).

Nicole Oresme As Western scholars studied the Latin translations of the classical philosophers they incorporated many aspects of their work into the prevailing theology and world view. Aristotle's physics described the motion of objects and the refined model of Ptolemy was used to study the night sky. The Frenchman, Nicole Oresme (1320 82) applied an early concept of the centre of gravity, used mathematics to argue against astrology and even suggested the existence of other inhabited worlds in space. Nicolas of Cusa (born c. 1401) supported this idea and rejected the concept of a static Earth at the centre of all motions. Georg Puerbach (1423 - 61) refined the Almagest and wrote a popular textbook on it. This prompted a renewal of interest in the need for accurate observations. His pupil, Regiomontanus (1436 - 76) highlighted problems with Ptolemy's work based on observations made at his purpose-built observatory. He published his own and other writings on astronomy and the increasing availability of printed books did

much to spread ideas among scholars. In 1482 he observed a bright comet that was later identified as one of the visits of Comet Halley and was most likely working towards a heliocentric model influenced by Aristarchus at the time of his death.

The Renaissance
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 - 1543)

Nicolaus Copernicus Copernicus studied classics and mathematics at Krakow in his native Poland, canon law in Bologna and Ferrara and medicine at Padua in Italy. His keen interest in astronomy was fostered in Italy and developed back in Poland where he was canon at the cathedral in Frauenberg (now Frombeck) where he spent most of his life. A conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 1504 was observed to differ by 10 days from the predictions of tables based on Ptolemy's work. This, combined with Copernicus' abhorrence of the equant drove him to develop an improved model. Influenced by the work of Regiomontanus (thus also Aristarchus) and neoplatonism (which viewed the Sun as the Godhead and source of all knowledge) he produced his own model. He withheld publication due to his conservative nature and fear of ridicule but was eventually persuaded by Rheticus. Allegedly he received the first copy of his work De revolutionibus orbium (On the revolution of the heavenly spheres) on his deathbed in 1543.

Manuscript example of Copernicus' model. In Copernicus' model a spherical Earth rotates daily on it axis whilst it and the other planets each orbit the Sun. The period of the planets' orbits increases with increasing distance from the Sun. The Sun was not exactly at the centre of the planetary orbits thus strictly speaking the model is heliostatic rather than heliocentric. There were several advantages of Copernicus' model over that of Ptolemy: 1. It could predict planetary positions to within 2, the same as that of Ptolemy. 2. Retrograde motion of planets was explained by the relative motion between them and the Earth. 3. Distances between planets and the Sun could be accurately determined in units of the Earth-Sun distance (ie Astronomical Units). 4. Orbital periods could be accurately determined.

5. It explained the difference between the inferior planets (Mercury and Venus) that were always observed close to the Sun and the superior ones (Mars, Jupiter and Saturn). 6. It preserved the concept of uniform circular motion without the need for equants. 7. It preserved Aristotle's concept of real spheres nestled inside one another. 8. Unlike Ptolemy's model it did not require the Moon to change in size. Copernicus' model also had several problems which contributed to its failure to immediately supplant Ptolemy's model: 1. No annual stellar parallax could be detected. Copernicus explained this as due to the fact that the stars were a vast distance hence any parallax would be very small and difficult to detect. 2. It required a moving Earth, This would contradict Aristotelian physics and Copernicus presented no new laws of motion to replace Aristotle. 3. By removing the Earth from its natural place it was philosophically and theologically unacceptable to many scholars. 4. It was no more accurate than Ptolemy's in predicting planetary positions. 5. It was actually more complicated then Ptolemy's model. In his efforts to avoid the equant but retain uniform circular motion he had to introduce more devices to fit his observations.

Tycho Brahe (1546 - 1601)

Tycho Brahe and his great mural quadrant Tycho Brahe, of Danish noble stock, was probably the greatest astronomical observer of the pre-telescope era. Early observations in the 560's revealed inaccuracies with existing tables and spurred him onto making systematic, long-

term observations and records. This task would occupy the rest of his life. With generous funding from the King of Denmark he established a dedicated observatory, Uraniborg, on the island of Hven (now Ven). He built large instruments such as quadrants from wood and brass that improved on earlier designs. The measurements he made were up to ten times more accurate than any preceding ones and were at the limit of that obtainable by the unaided eye. The investment by the Danish King amounted to 5% of his total income, still a record for investment on scientific research. Brahe eventually fell out with the Danish court and moved to Prague for his final years. In November 1572 a new star appeared in the constellation Cassiopeia. Brahe's observations showed that it was motionless relative to nearby stars suggesting to him that it was in fact a star and not a tail-less comet. Five years later he observed a bright comet and discerned no parallax and placed it at least six times further from Earth than the Moon. Both of these observations challenged the Aristotelian orthodoxy. The stars were supposed to be changeless and perfect whilst comets were supposed to be confined to the sub-lunary sphere, that is between the Earth and Moon. Further observations revealed that the comet would move through the solid crystalline spheres of an Aristotelian Universe.

To reconcile his observations with his philosophy Brahe developed his own model, incorporating some aspects of Copernicus' but rejecting the idea of a moving Earth. Although his hybrid model enjoyed a brief period of popularity it was soon replaced by the work of his assistant, Johannes Kepler.

Tycho Brahe's Model: Brahe's model was somewhat of a hybrid and drew upon Herakleide's earlier concepts. It had a static Earth at the centre of the Universe with the Moon orbiting it. A rotating sphere of fixed stars also revolved around the Earth once every 24 hours. The planets however orbited about the Sun which itself orbited the Earth. It utilised epicycles, deferents and equants. In his model there is no need for stellar parallax. The diagram above shows a simplified representation. Brahe's lasting legacy was his long-term and meticulous observations of planetary motions, especially those of Mars. This data was used after his death by Kepler, who worked as his assistant during Brahe's last year.

Johannes Kepler (1571 - 1630)

Johannes Kepler

Best known for his key works on astronomy, Johannes Kepler made valuable contributions in other fields. In his works on optics he examined the refraction of light, correctly explained the working of the eye for the first time and provided a theoretical basis for telescopes with suggested means of improving them. His explanation on the new Napierian logarithms did much to encourage their wide acceptance. Given a challenge to calculate volumes of wine casks he ended up developing an approach to infinitesimal calculus well ahead of the ideas of Liebniz and Newton. Kepler had studied under the renowned astronomer Michael Maestlin, one of the first proponents of Copernicus' work. In his first astronomical work, Mysterium cosmographicum (The cosmic mystery) in 1596, Kepler upheld his belief in the Copernican system. He also discovered a geometrical relationship for the orbits of the planets around the Sun. Between the sphere of each planet's orbit he found he could place one of the five regular solids, for example a cube between Jupiter and Saturn, so that the six planets were separated by five regular solids. This system reflects the influence on Kepler of the Platonic-Pythagorean tradition of matching order in nature with the regularities of mathematics. Of greater long-term importance however was his suggestion that the Sun somehow affected the orbits of the planets, perhaps by magnetism.

Kepler's geometrical relationship in the Solar System as shown in his Mysterium cosmographicum of 1596. Kepler tried to fit Brahe's data to the Copernican model but consistently arrived at errors of at least eight seconds of arc, small but not insignificant. He was finally

forced to abandon the concept of uniform circular orbital paths but it was to take him several years of painstaking, methodical calculations before he arrived at an alternate model that fitted Brahe's 20 years of data on Mars. The results were published in 1609 in his work Astronomica nova (New Astronomy). In it he explained what are now known as his first two laws of planetary motion.

Kepler's 1st Law: The Law of Ellipses. All planets orbit the Sun in elliptical orbits with the Sun as one common focus. Note the eccentricity of the ellipse has been greatly exaggerated in the above diagram. For most planets their orbits are almost circular.

Kepler's 2nd Law: The Law of Equal Areas. The line between a planet and the Sun (the radius vector) sweeps out equal areas in equal periods of time. In the diagram, the time interval t2-t1 = t4-t3 so the areas swept through in equal times are equal, that is A1 = A2. This effect is very noticeable in comets such as Comet Halley that have highly elliptical orbits. When in the inner Solar System, close to the Sun at perihelion, they move much faster than when far from the Sun at aphelion.

Kepler actually formulated the law of equal areas first and it then led him to the law of ellipses. His third law was not published until 1618 in Harmonice mundi (The Harmony of the World). This resulted from his attempts to find a relationship between the distance of a planet from the Sun and its orbital period. Kepler's Third Law: The Law of Periods or the Harmonic Law*. The square of a planet's period, T, is directly proportional to the cube of its average distance from the Sun, r. Mathematically this can be expressed as: T2 r3 or T /r3 = k (1.1) where k is a constant and the same for all planets or orbital bodies (such as comets) in a given system.
2

If T is measured in Earth years and r in astronomical units (AU) then for the Earth, T = 1 and r = 1 so: T2/r3 = k 1/1 = k ie. k =1 (* Note this equation is not explicitly required for 8.5 The Cosmic Engine unit in the NSW Preliminary Course. It is, however, explicitly required in Unit 9.2 Space in the HSC course.) The implication of Kepler's Third Law is that planets more distant from the Sun take longer to orbit the Sun. Let us see how this can be used to determine the mean distance of Mars from the Sun if its orbital period is 1.88 Earth years. If T2/r3 = k (1.1) Then rewriting for r r3 = T2/k r = ((1.88)2/1)1/3 so r = 1.524 AU So Mars is 1.524 astronomical units from the Sun. Kepler's laws of planetary motion were empirical, they could predict what would occur but could not account for why planets behaved in such a manner. His Rudolphine tables of planetary motion published in 1627 were more accurate than nay previous ones. He came close to uncovering the concept of gravitation and corresponded with Galileo and was aware of his telescopic discoveries.

Galileo & Newton

Galileo Newton

Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642)

Credit: Leoni Galileo Galileo was born in the same year as Shakespeare and on the day of Michelangelo's death. Appointed to the Chair of Mathematics at the University of Pisa when he was 25 his studies of motion there and later at Padua provided the foundation of the study of dynamics. His contributions to the the development of gravitational theory and motion were to terminally undermine the tenets of Aristotelian motion and physics. In 1604 a bright new star appeared in the constellation Serpentarius. Galileo's observations detected no parallax, suggesting it was a star and not some atmospheric phenomenon. This result confirmed Brahe's findings from the nova of 1572 that stars could change and again challenged the Aristotelian orthodoxy. When Galileo heard about a new optical device, the telescope, in 1609 he quickly built his own version. He then used it and more refined telescopes to systematically observe the night sky. Details on Galileo's use of the telescope can be found in the HSC Astrophysics section. His findings, published in 1610 in Sidereus nuncius (The starry messenger) had important implications. 1. The Moon: According to Aristotelian principles the Moon was above the sub-lunary sphere and in the heavens, hence should be perfect. Galileo found the "surface of the moon to be not smooth, even and perfectly spherical,...,but on the contrary, to be uneven, rough, and crowded with depressions and

bulges. And it is like the face of the earth itself, which is marked here and there with chains of mountains and depths of valleys." He calculated the heights of the mountains by measuring the lengths of their shadows and applying geometry. He also detected earthshine on the lunar surface, that is the Moon was lit up by reflected light from the Earth just like we receive reflected light from the Moon. 2. Stars in the Milky Way:

Galileo's drawing of the Pleiades shows many more stars than visible to the unaided eye. Even through a telescope the stars still appeared as points of light. Galileo suggested that this was due to their immense distance from Earth. This then eased the problem posed by the failure of astronomers to detect stellar parallax that was a consequence of Copernicus' model. On turning his telescope to the band of the Milky Way Galileo saw it resolved into thousands of hitherto unseen stars. This posed the question as to why there were invisible objects in the night sky? 3. The Moons of Jupiter:

The moons of Jupiter as drawn by Galileo over successive nights. Observations of the planet Jupiter over successive night revealed four starlike objects in a line with it. The objects moved from night to night, sometimes disappearing behind or in front of the planet. Galileo correctly inferred that these objects were moons of Jupiter and orbited it just as our Moon orbits Earth. Today these four moons are known as the Galilean

satellites; Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. For the first time, objects had been observed orbiting another planet, thus weakening the hold of the Ptolemaic model. The Earth was clearly seen to not be at the centre of all motions. Two subsequent observations also undermined the Arisotelian-Ptolemaic Universe. Galileo found that Venus exhibits phases, just like the Moon. This of course could be accounted for in a Copernican system but not in a Ptolemaic one. He published a letter in 1613 announcing his discovery of sunspots in which he also proclaimed his belief in the Copernican model. Monitoring sunspots showed that the Sun rotated once every 27 days and that the spots themselves changed. The concept of a perfect, unchanging Sun thus also became untenable. In presenting his views in his Dialogue concerning the two chief systems of the world, the Ptolemaic and the Copernican in 1632 Galileo reignited his earlier conflict with the authorities of the Catholic Church. Eventually forced into publicly recanting his belief in the Copernican system and being placed under comfortable house arrest his Dialogue, along with the works of Copernicus and Kepler was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. Galileo spent the last years of his life working once again on trying to understand motion. The resultant final book Dialogues concerning two new sciences had to be smuggled out of Italy before being published in Holland in 1638. It primarily dealt with describing motion, kinematics, but also revealed that acceleration resulted from the application of a force and that he was aware of the concept of inertia. He rejected Aristotle's ideas of forced and natural motions after studying falling or rolling objects and projectiles and realised that gravity was some type of force acting in terrestrial situations though he does not seem to have extended this to heavenly motions. Whilst Galileo did not propose his own model of the Universe, his observational, experimental and theoretical work provided the conclusive evidence need to overthrow the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic system. His work on forces was to help Newton develop his dynamics. Galileo died in 1642, the year that Newton was born.

Sir Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727)

Sir Isaac Newton Isaac Newton is the pivotal figure in the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries. He discovered the composition of white light, and laid the foundations of modern optics. In mathematics he invented infinitesimal calculus and the binomial theorem. His work on the laws of motion and of universal gravitation became the basis of modern physics. Whilst today remembered for his immense contributions to science the bulk of his writings were actually in the fields of theology and alchemy though as his views on both of these was contrary to the establishment he kept many of them secret. During 1665-6 Newton returned to his home at Woolsthorpe from Cambridge when the University closed due to the Great Plague. This period allowed him time to develop his ideas on optics and light, planetary motions and the concept of gravitation. By 1670 he was Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge, had developed his corpuscular theory of light and built the first successful reflecting telescope, thus avoiding the chromatic aberration problems inherent in the lenses of refracting telescopes. For this he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He withheld publication of chief work on light, Optiks, until 1704, the year after his adversary Robert Hooke died. Newton's scientific legacy rests on his other work, the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), generally known as Principia published due to Edmond Halley's urging and funding, in 1687. His detailed exposition of the concepts of force and inertia is summarised eloquently in his three axioms or Laws of Motion (from the translation in On the Shoulders of Giants, ed. by Stephen Hawking, Running Press, 2002). Newton's Laws of Motion: 1. Law I: Every body preserves in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces

impressed thereon. This is more commonly stated as: An object remains at rest or in a state of uniform motion unless acted on by an unbalanced force. 2. Law II: The alteration of motion is ever proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed. This is now commonly referred to as F = ma and emphasises the vector nature of force. 3. Law III: To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts. The true genius of his work is that he then went on and applied them not just to motion on Earth but realised that they applied equally to the motions of other bodies such as planets in space. He applied his mathematical techniques to investigate the nature of the force between the Earth and the Moon, and the Earth and the Sun. His solution revealed the force to obey an inverse-square relationship and result in elliptical orbits as calculated by Kepler.

Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation

(The formulae used in this section are not required for the NSW Stage 6 Preliminary Course. They are explicitly required for unit 9.2 Space in the HSC course) As he showed in Book 3, System of the World of his Principia, Newton could apply his law of universal gravitation to accurately predict the motions of planets, the orbits of comets and even account for tides on Earth. His law can be mathematically expressed as follows: F m1m2 / r2 where F is the force between any two objects of masses m1 and m2 respectively and separated by a distance r. As there are no other variables involved the equation becomes: F = Gm1m2 / r2 (1.2) where G is a constant known as the Universal Gravitational Constant. (G = 6.673 10-11 Nm2kg-2)

This

can

also

be

expressed

in

words

as:

The force of attraction between any two bodies in the Universe is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of their distance apart. Having shown that gravitationally all the mass of an object can be assumed to be at its centre of mass, the gravitational force therefore acts along a line joining the two bodies. It is always an attractive force. The gravitational mass of an object was shown to be identical to its inertial mass (that which hinders its change in motion). For a two-body system such as the Sun-Earth an equilibrium exists such that the gravitational force = centripetal force. Using this relationship Newton was able to derive Kepler's Third Law. Since FG = FC then: F = GmSmE / r2 = mEr2 (1.3) where mS and mE are the masses of the Sun and Earth and is the angular velocity of the Earth around the Sun. Simplifying (1.3) gives GmS / 2 = r3 (1.4) Now the time taken for one complete revolution of the Earth around the Sun,is its orbital period, T such that: T = 2 / (1.5) so 2 = 42 / T2 (1.6) substituting this into (1.4) gives: GmST2 / 42 = r3 which can be rewritten as: T2 = 42r3 / GmS Note this is of the form: T2 = kr3 which is Kepler's Third Law, and the value of k is: k = GmS / 42 (1.7) This value of k is a constant for all bodies orbiting the Sun as it only depends upon the mass of the Sun and the constant, G.

Newton's contributions profoundly influenced subsequent generations. His view of the Universe was a mechanistic one that ran like clockwork and had a designer. The success of his law of gravitation was confirmed in 1758 when a bright comet returned as predicted earlier by Edmond Halley. He realised that it would be the same comet that had previously been seen in 1531, 1608 and 1682. This comet was subsequently named in his honour and we now know it was the same comet shown on the Bayeaux Tapestry commerating the Norman invasion of England in 1066.