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Home > 4. Chemistry and Physics > Newton and Cosmology
Podcast: 4. Chemistry and Physics
Episode:

Newton and Cosmology
Category: Science & Medicine
Duration: 00:00:51
Publish Date: 2011-07-13 18:32:30
Description: Transcript: Newton viewed both time and space as smooth, absolute, and Euclidian. Newton’s gravity law is an inverse square law, so the gravity of every object diminishes with the square of the distance. However it never reaches zero because one over the square of a large number is a very small number but not zero. Newton believed in an infinite universe, which means that in an infinite universe filled with objects, stars or galaxies, the gravity is infinite too. This was a problem for Newton’s theory of gravity and for his understanding of cosmology. He could not solve this problem at the time. Newton also did not understand what was the nature of the force of gravity that could act across the vacuum of space. As he said, “I frame no hypothesis.”
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