Alternative World - no Newton

[Asta Kask]

Isaac Newton, born prematurely, dies after six hours in this vale of tears. How does this world, tentatively called Newton-Null, differ from ours (all other things up to that moment being equal)?

[The Grue]

Gottfried Leibniz is remembered by history as the sole creator of Calculus. The laws of motion and universal gravitation are formulated by another 17th century thinker, probably also Leibniz, and are named after him.

Apart from those I don't think there would be any significant changes visible in the present day.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Apart from those I don't think there would be any significant changes visible in the present day.

The main difference would be that the wave theory of light may have come into prominence much earlier as Newton championed the Corpuscular theory.

...And a gang of coiners might have survived for a little longer...

[Grozomah]

Well, there are many changes that may or may not have a large influence on the future development.

I'd say that Newton's laws would be created soon in any case, as has already been suggested. The edges on round coins may take a while to get invented, but i don't see this having a large influence on history either way.

His widest known influence IMO was his knighthood (especially since it supposedly also had political reason and could thus not be so easily given to another) that elevated the value of scientific endevour to the public.

Also geology would develop faster, because "Newton said it cannot be older than 5000 years, so it isn't!" could not be used as an argument.

[Jay R]

The laws of motion and of gravity happen anyway. People were looking at that. Maybe they would be delayed by ten or twenty years.

Liebniz was already inventing calculus. That doesn't particularly change

I have no idea if any other mathematical mind was looking at optics. That might (or might not) have been delayed a lot more.

But based on Chaos Theory and dynamic systems, the effects are incalculable.

For instance, Newton has a student Roger Cotes, who had a student Robert Smith, whose student Walter Taylor had a student Stephen Whisson, who taught Thomas Postlethwaite, whose student Thomas Jones taught Adam Sedgwick, who taught William Hopkins, who had six students who taught ... for a tree of academic descendants of more than 11,000 top-grade academics. What effect would *not* having Isaac Newton have had on all of them? We cannot know.

[Tebryn]

Isaac Newton, born prematurely, dies after six hours in this vale of tears. How does this world, tentatively called Newton-Null, differ from ours (all other things up to that moment being equal)?

We come to realize the things he found later or potentially earlier by someone else. Newton not having lived past birth does nothing to make the universe not work the way it does.

[hamishspence]

How big the "delay" is, might depend on who you ask.

I've seen arguments that Newton's scientific methodology was revolutionary enough that "A World Without Newton" would be as much as a generation behind- whereas "A World Without Einstein" would not suffer nearly as big a "knowledge delay".

[Kato]

How big the "delay" is, might depend on who you ask.

I've seen arguments that Newton's scientific methodology was revolutionary enough that "A World Without Newton" would be as much as a generation behind- whereas "A World Without Einstein" would not suffer nearly as big a "knowledge delay".

But it really is just speculation... Nothing against newton, he certainly did a lot for science but still, I think he didn't do anything someone else couldn't have done. And from many records he wasn't a very nice person either

[tensai_oni]

Nothing changes.

A brilliant mind does not cause great breakthroughs out of nothing. Science doesn't work like that. Humanity doesn't work like that. Scientists take past knowledge into consideration and work with it as a base - a base that either supports their ideas, or is supposed to be overthrown. If one person does not come to a conclusion, then another one eventually does. The difference between a genius and someone less brilliant is simply that the former does it faster.

It's like with historical tyrants. Killing one wouldn't change anything - they are a product of their own society, even if one of them was gone or removed from power the society would find a different one soon enough.

[Jay R]

Nothing changes.

A brilliant mind does not cause great breakthroughs out of nothing. Science doesn't work like that. Humanity doesn't work like that. Scientists take past knowledge into consideration and work with it as a base - a base that either supports their ideas, or is supposed to be overthrown. If one person does not come to a conclusion, then another one eventually does. The difference between a genius and someone less brilliant is simply that the former does it faster.

It's like with historical tyrants. Killing one wouldn't change anything - they are a product of their own society, even if one of them was gone or removed from power the society would find a different one soon enough.

I agree that when it's time for a scientific breakthrough, it will happen. But people still effect when it will happen, and how soon it is noticed. If Mendeleyev hadn't been an obscure researcher writing in an obscure language, his periodic table would have been noticed much earlier.

Nonetheless, everything probably changes. If an obscure person who never had a major effect on the world didn't exist, everything probably changes - because if he wasn't there, somebody else would have been talking to person A, so person B would have been distracted and not seen person C, who therefore didn't marry person D, etc. The study of dynamic systems and Chaos Theory show that in any sufficiently complex system, a trivial change multiplies until, in fairly short order, everything is different.

[Kato]

The study of dynamic systems and Chaos Theory show that in any sufficiently complex system, a trivial change multiplies until, in fairly short order, everything is different.

Meh, the question in how far human society is such a system is still open to discussion... Yeah, removing Newton likely would have had some impact and possibly delayed research a while but that by far doesn't apply to every person who has ever lived. I think it's much more complex than just saying "tiny changes cause big differences"... it might happen or it might not.

It's... difficult. Probably, neither nothing changes nor everything changes in the Newton (or tyrant) case. It's hard to judge how far Newton really was ahead of other people at the time from today's standard. Then again, following the progression of scientific research itself is kind of tricky, seeing as there were so many periods when it went really, really slow and now you'd be baffled when you miss five or ten years which has pretty much been the rule for the last 100-150 years.

[AgentofHellfire]

Nothing changes.

A brilliant mind does not cause great breakthroughs out of nothing. Science doesn't work like that. Humanity doesn't work like that. Scientists take past knowledge into consideration and work with it as a base - a base that either supports their ideas, or is supposed to be overthrown. If one person does not come to a conclusion, then another one eventually does. The difference between a genius and someone less brilliant is simply that the former does it faster.

"Doesn't cause breakthroughs out of nothing"=/="isn't a relevant component". The geniuses of the world can all have differing opinions even if they're all equally intelligent, and slight errors can matter--and on top of even that, the less intelligent people aren't even necessarily going to be interested enough to take the time to solve all that. If you remove all the people who'll have the proper opinions, and replace them with less brilliant ones, then the improper opinions would just be listened to because no one would contest them.

It's like with historical tyrants. Killing one wouldn't change anything - they are a product of their own society, even if one of them was gone or removed from power the society would find a different one soon enough.

If someone like Stalin came to power in post-WWI Germany, it would not have been the same as when Hitler controlled it. Stalin wouldn't have carried on the war in Russia the way Hitler did--and there were lots of different people in power in Russia in real life as well, although not in the highest position--all with different attitudes. So someone like Stalin (although probably a better speechmaker) coming to power there wouldn't be impossible. For one example of why that's not true.

(As for why I say that someone like Stalin wouldn't...well...Stalin couldn't imagine that Hitler would.

[The Grue]

...and Godwin's Law prevails again.

[Ridureyu]

The same theories do surface, but not from Isaac Newton, since he was never born. Instead, they are first proposed by a man named Jimbo Finklebutt.

The world ends up much the same, except that we talk about Finklebutt Physics, and eat Fig Finklebutts.

[mucat]

But based on Chaos Theory and dynamic systems, the effects are incalculable.

For instance, Newton has a student Roger Cotes, who had a student Robert Smith, whose student Walter Taylor had a student Stephen Whisson, who taught Thomas Postlethwaite, whose student Thomas Jones taught Adam Sedgwick, who taught William Hopkins, who had six students who taught ... for a tree of academic descendants of more than 11,000 top-grade academics. What effect would *not* having Isaac Newton have had on all of them? We cannot know.

If you take Chaos Theory into account, then any change to history -- that proverbial butterfly beats its wings four times instead of three -- would essentially reset the world's random number generator. Within a short time after the change, none of the same people who exist in our world would even be born. How different the world would turn out with this new cast of characters is a tougher question.

If we ignore all that, though, and say that the point of this game is to decide how Newton's absence would affect the world because he was Newton, not because he was part of a chaotic system like we all are...

I agree that Leibniz would get calculus off to a strong start even without Newton's "help". Maybe a stronger start, without the confusion of different competing notations...although some of Newton's more advanced calculus tricks would probably wait a generation or two. (Seriously, the guy was doing really non-trivial differential equations, like a decade after inventing basic calculus!)

The big centerpieces of Newtonian physics -- the three laws of motion, and the universal law of gravitation -- would not have been delayed much, I think. Galileo had laid a strong groundwork for these discoveries, and other people besides Newton -- Leibniz, Hooke, even Descartes, though he really went astray -- were following up on his work. (Deleting Galileo from history might be a lot more devastating to the pace of science than deleting Newton!)



One thing that might have made a huge difference is the reshuffling of personalities and politics. Newton was one of the great geniuses of all time, but he was not a nice guy. He spent much of his life starting feuds and intentionally turning scientists against one another. If the first champions of calculus and classical physics had been less polarizing figures, then there might have been much more progress in the first few generations after Newton. (In our world, it was well into the 1700s before Newtonian physics was in universal use...it took Emilie du Chatelier's talent and Voltaire's reputation to convince many European thinkers to abandon Descartes' bizarre alternate models.)


Also, without Newton, someone else would have had to invent the cat door.

[AgentofHellfire]

...and Godwin's Law prevails again.

The part I was responding to was about historical tyrants, I posted about historical tyrants. I don't see how that's a comparison so much as it is an example that leads to a contrary result.

[Jay R]

Isaac Newton, born prematurely, dies after six hours in this vale of tears. How does this world, tentatively called Newton-Null, differ from ours (all other things up to that moment being equal)?

Calculus and laws of motion, gravity and optics are invented by a random person named Joe Smith, and 4 centuries later, somebody starts a thread asking, "Joe Smith, born prematurely, dies after six hours in this vale of tears. How does this world, tentatively called Smith-Null, differ from ours (all other things up to that moment being equal)?

[The Grue]

The part I was responding to was about historical tyrants, I posted about historical tyrants. I don't see how that's a comparison so much as it is an example that leads to a contrary result.

Spoken like someone who's just looked up Godwin's Law on Wikipedia for the first time and clicked Post Reply without any real understanding of the running joke behind it.

My own fault really.

[Asta Kask]

Historical Determinism is the order of the day, then? At least in matters of science?

[The Grue]

Historical Determinism is the order of the day, then? At least in matters of science?

It's hardly historical determinism to say that someone else would have formulated the laws of motion if Newton hadn't. Possibly a bit later, and possibly they'd look a little different, but the equations we're talking about here are derived from looking at the way the world works.

Newton didn't invent universal gravitation. It had already been there for fourteen billion years; what Newton did was look at how things fall and how planets move across the sky and try to explain those movements consistently using mathematics. Anyone with the right education and time to spare could have done the same thing.

[Jay R]

Historical Determinism is the order of the day, then? At least in matters of science?

A. I've already brought up Chaos Theory and the probability that the change would be incalculable.

B. Scientific Determinism exists, to some extent. When it's time to railroad, people start railroading. Elish Gray filed a patent caveat for the telephone the very same day as Alexander Graham Bell.

By the time somebody in math or science hits grad school, he or she has already independently re-created some results from previous mathematicians. (I once had a math professor whose test problems were, not what we'd learned, but what the next few weeks would have taught, since we now had the background to solve them.)

This is what Newton (Remember Newton? This whole thread is about him.) meant when he said, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

Of course, if there had been no Newton, I'd be quoting Bernard of Chartres, who actually said it first.

[mucat]

It's hardly historical determinism to say that someone else would have formulated the laws of motion if Newton hadn't. Possibly a bit later, and possibly they'd look a little different, but the equations we're talking about here are derived from looking at the way the world works.

Newton didn't invent universal gravitation. It had already been there for fourteen billion years; what Newton did was look at how things fall and how planets move across the sky and try to explain those movements consistently using mathematics. Anyone with the right education and time to spare could have done the same thing.

Absolutely; there is no doubt that someone would have discovered the same physical principles that Newton did...and probably around the same time in history. Even a minor change to when and how they were discovered and propagated, though, could set the late Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution on a different course, and in turn alter the whole course of history up to the present and beyond.

[The Grue]

Absolutely; there is no doubt that someone would have discovered the same physical principles that Newton did...and probably around the same time in history. Even a minor change to when and how they were discovered and propagated, though, could set the late Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution on a different course, and in turn alter the whole course of history up to the present and beyond.

Although well put, I don't subscribe to the Great Man theory of history. While the how and when of Newton's discoveries certainly contributed to historical events that followed, there were a lot more people who were also contributing to the flow of history, and for the purposes of this discussion it is assumed that they still exist.

I don't think plucking one man, no matter how influential, out of that continuum can drastically alter the course of history...but of course, I could be completely wrong and there's no way to know for sure.

[AgentofHellfire]

Although well put, I don't subscribe to the Great Man theory of history. While the how and when of Newton's discoveries certainly contributed to historical events that followed, there were a lot more people who were also contributing to the flow of history, and for the purposes of this discussion it is assumed that they still exist.

I don't think plucking one man, no matter how influential, out of that continuum can drastically alter the course of history...but of course, I could be completely wrong and there's no way to know for sure.

Well, in Newton's case, since there were others of similar enough nature pursuing his course of action, I'd agree. That competitor of his--I think you called him Leibniz, could've done those things.

At the same time, though, I would suggest that certain "great men" don't have clear competitors of a similar nature (again, my Hitler example), and if they weren't in power, well...someone might have done something different.

[The Grue]

Well, in Newton's case, since there were others of similar enough nature pursuing his course of action, I'd agree. That competitor of his--I think you called him Leibniz, could've done those things.

At the same time, though, I would suggest that certain "great men" don't have clear competitors of a similar nature (again, my Hitler example), and if they weren't in power, well...someone might have done something different.

Godwin's Law aside, I find it's difficult to quantify the effects of recent events on the whole of human history, simply because most of it hasn't happened yet. Certainly WW2 and the Holocaust had significant effects on recent human history, but for heaven's sake they happened less than a century ago. We simply don't know what the long-term effects of those events are going to be.

A better example for this context would be a tyrant from further back in history, somebody like Julius Caesar or Ivan the Terrible. We've a better idea of the long-term effects of their reigns on human history, simply because more time has passed. Can you apply your example to either of these two?

[Karoht]

2-Ideas are not all that unique. For every good idea ever implimented, for every invention ever made, someone out there said "I thought of that long ago, I just couldn't see how to make money with it."
IE-Microsoft supposedly invented the tablet. Steve Jobs was the one that make it sleek and sexy and marketed it right, along with sticking a phone in it.

[The Grue]

2-Ideas are not all that unique. For every good idea ever implimented, for every invention ever made, someone out there said "I thought of that long ago, I just couldn't see how to make money with it."
IE-Microsoft supposedly invented the tablet. Steve Jobs was the one that make it sleek and sexy and marketed it right, along with sticking a phone in it.

Arthur C. Clarke wrote up a patent application in the 60's for "geostationary telecommunications platforms", but threw it in the trash after his attorney said nobody would ever take the idea seriously.

[Ravens_cry]

Arthur C. Clarke wrote up a patent application in the 60's for "geostationary telecommunications platforms", but threw it in the trash after his attorney said nobody would ever take the idea seriously.

Can't have been in the 60's as the first communications satellite placed in geostationary orbit was in 1963. Actually, I believe it was in the mid-40's.

[Kato]

Can't have been in the 60's as the first communications satellite placed in geostationary orbit was in 1963. Actually, I believe it was in the mid-40's.

Wikipedia (I know, I know) says while Clarke made suggestions for using satellites in such a manner 1945 he never intended to patent them. So Grue's story doesn't really check out, it seems. (Also, it was proposed even earlier in the 1920s)

Story kind of reminds me of Heinlein supposedly coming up with the idea of a water bed. Not saying SciFi writers can't come up with great ideas but if we ever invent a time machine I don't think too much credit will go to Wells either.

[Ravens_cry]

Wikipedia (I know, I know) says while Clarke made suggestions for using satellites in such a manner 1945 he never intended to patent them. So Grue's story doesn't really check out, it seems. (Also, it was proposed even earlier in the 1920s)

Putting something in geostationary orbit came earlier, but the idea for a network of communications satellites there was his. At least, that's my reading of what it says on the wiki page.