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Newton, the inverse square law and the direct distance law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2016

C. W. Kilmister
C. W. Kilmister*
Affiliation:
King’s College, Strand, London WC2R 2LS
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Extract

Newton was fascinated by the fact “which is very remarkable” that the two “principal cases of attractions” (i.e. the inverse square and direct distance laws) are distinguished from others in two independent ways:

  1. (i) the attraction of a spherically symmetric body at a point outside “preserves the same law of increase or decrease” as that of a point mass (call this the spherical property);

  2. (ii) a particle can move in an elliptical orbit, though with different centres of force in the two cases (call this the elliptical property).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 58 , Issue 403 , March 1974 , pp. 35 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Mathematical Association 1974

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