Post-Newtonian Astronomy

Abstract

Newton’s discoveries and his formulations of the laws of motion and the law of gravity, together with the calculus, produced a revolution in the practice of astronomy, particularly in the development of theoretical astronomy. Even observational astronomy, which can be pursued without any theory about motion and gravity, was greatly stimulated, for the observational astronomer was now challenged either to prove or disprove the Newtonian laws. Any observed deviations from these laws would redound greatly to the fame of the discoverer and challenge the theoreticians further to explain any observed deviations. But to this end the Newtonian laws had to be reexpressed or reformulated in the most useful mathematical forms possible. These mathematical forms are what we now call the “differential equations of motions” which are, in fact, algebraic equations of infinitesimals. Interestingly enough, these theoretical developments, in their most useful forms, stemmed not from British mathematicians but from the French school of mathematics led by such great mathematicians as Joseph Louis Lagrange, Pierre Simon Laplace, Alexis Claude Clairaut, Claude Jean D’Alembert, Pierre Louis Morean de Maupertuis, and Simeon Denis Poisson.

Science is the topology of ignorance.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes