Kepler vs Newton
Evidently the date was wrong for the Archimedes vs Newton fight, but with Newton up by 9, we will let him get started in the final.
Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion:
1. The orbit of every planet is an ellipse with the sun at one of the foci. An ellipse is characterized by its two focal points. Thus, Kepler rejected the ancient Aristotelean and Ptolemaic and Copernican belief in circular motion.
2. A line joining a planet and the sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time as the planet travels along its orbit. This means that the planet travels faster while close to the sun and slows down when it is farther from the sun. With his law, Kepler destroyed the Aristotelean astronomical theory that planets have uniform velocity.
3. The squares of the orbital periods of planets are directly proportional to the cubes of the semi-major axes (the "half-length" of the ellipse) of their orbits. This means not only that larger orbits have longer periods, but also that the speed of a planet in a larger orbit is lower than in a smaller orbit. His third law is based on the foundation left by Copernicus, because he uses a mathematical expression to show the correlation between T (time for one revolution) and D (distance from the sun).
Newton's Laws of Motion:
Briefly stated, the three laws are:
1. An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by a net force.
2. Force equals mass multiplied by acceleration.
3. To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Monday, December 17, 2007
THE FINAL
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7 comments:
Well, despite voting against Newton in the last round, here he wins. It is three on three, a fair fight. In fact even the laws themselves are close knit.
It does not take much time to see that Newton's Laws are much more succinct than Kepler's. This allows for Newton to attack at a greater frequency wearing down Kepler.
Newton for the win again. And for much the same reason as his other victories. He is the ancient grand master.
I can run through the derivations if anybody really wants, but the fact is that Kepler's Laws are all dependent on the principles described by Newton's Laws. They are a useful, but very limited subset of the awesomeness that is Newton.
Suck it, planet-boy.
Kepler. No contest.
Kit, I am astounded. Not long ago, you ridiculed and mocked my reasons for picking Kepler to defeat Ohm. I justified my prediction with "big picture" reasons such as the relative contributions to humanity of each of the laws. A subset of a law's contributions to humanity is its usefulness in formulating other laws. You argue that because Kepler's laws depend on Newton's, Newton's laws are superior. This is just a very limited subset of the awesomeness that is Kepler.
To demonstrate why I am right, I will use your criterion (who would win in a cage match) from the Kepler-Ohm battle to show why Kepler would win.
The laws face off. Of course, this is a metaphor, since the laws are really just mathematical metaphors- mathaphors, if you will- that are going to fight somehow. Anyway, the arena is quiet as the spectators get ready for a bloodbath. Newton gets busy, preparing some sort of ballistic weapon. Perhaps it is a catapault, or a crossbow, or a slingshot. Whatever it is, the ammunition is an apple. At some great speed, the apple strikes Kepler. Score one round for Newton. The crowd goes wild.
But it's not over. The Kepler mathaphor gets up and just smiles at Newton. Apple after apple careens across the dusty mathaphorical colosseum and pelts Kepler, bruising him horribly. But still Kepler smiles. Eventually the crowd realizes that he's got something up his mathaphorical sleeve. The fall silent. Expecting something to happen, wondering when and how Kepler is going to fight back.
Then the sky goes dark. Kepler keeps smiling. The crowd looks up, then the Newton mathaphor, and their confused silence is replaced by frenzied screaming. You see, eons ago, the Kepler mathaphor diverted the planet Mars from its orbit and is bringing the red planet down on the arena.
You see, Newton can do all sorts of neat things, with great accuracy. But Kepler just needs to get in the neighborhood to obliterate Newton. Sure, he died in the process...or did he? After all, mathaphors cannot die. They are undeniable facts of the universe.
Kepler wins because he easily caused the death of Newton (and himself, and thousands of spectatophors), before Newton could cause even a single death.
Score one for Kepler, and hand him a trophy. One shaped like a planet.
Well, nickg, based on my reasoning for picking a winner in this round (brevity) kit wins. After actually reading your post I can explain why it is fact, in addition to Newton being more concise.
As these mathaphores fight and battle and Newton "pelts Kepler, bruising him horribly" Newton does indeed damage Kepler. Kepler then kills them all. See this is much like Halo 3 where some n00b gets a few body shots in with a battle rifle and then at pointblank range you hit him with a rocket, or you stick him and the shrapnel of his body kills you too. Because he did damage you before your untimely demise, he gets credit for killing you.
So, it is a draw, each killed once, each died once (spectatorphores don't count). So, it becomes requisite to resort to boxing scoring. Newton had more hits, so Newton wins.
If Kepler had curbed his verbosity perhaps Newton would not have had so much time to bludgeon the opposing mathaphore leading the judges to give Newton the nod.
But to be honest, I was hoping Kepler would pull it off. Alas.
nickg,
Let me start by asking you this question. How did Kepler divert Mars?
You see, as Newton pointed out - an object in motion tend to remain in motion (and with the same velocity (which includes direction)) unless acted on by an outside force. So anything Kepler could do with Mars Newton could do better.
And your use of strawman weapons for Newton shows the overall weakness of your argument. Newton is not just about bows, catapults, and stuff (most of those are more closely tied with Hooke - but that's a different fight). Newton also covers firearms, missiles, rockets, and other such things.
So Newton (wanting to give the fans a little "sizzle") may start with an apple catapult, but as soon as Mars is detected to be on a collision course (which would be months in advance) he busts out the GAU-8 Avenger cannon. After turning Kepler into a body shaped doily filled with 30mm holes, he moves Mars back into its proper orbit.
Then he goes home and sleeps with his wife.
* bonus points for the first to correctly identify the 3 movie references in my post.
Ah, the irony continues. The most overrated scientific laws of all time are defended with the most overrated video games of all time and the silliest sport ever devised (other than cricket).
I will concede that Newton can hit Kepler more often, and with more than a mere apple launcher. But this does not mean that Newton wins. He gets a moral victory at best. Newton can do some impressive things, but he could never strike with the world-shattering finality of the planet tossing Kepler.
kit, I will address you first. I hope you were trying to say that Newton went home to sleep with his own wife, and not the wife of Kepler, this is a family friendly web site.
nickg, sorry, but I have more of your errors to point out. Boxing is not the "silliest sport ever devised" next to cricket. Curling is sillier than either of them. And if professional eaters are athletes, I would also put professional eating as a sillier sport.
Also, being more destructive does not leave the opponent any more dead. True you can no longer go through their pockets looking for loose change, but what would an archaic law need a quarter for? Newton still wins.
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