Vickers, Peter John (2008) Was Newtonian Cosmology Really Inconsistent? [Preprint]

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Abstract

This paper follows up a debate as to the consistency of Newtonian cosmology. Whereas Malament (1995) has shown that Newtonian cosmology *is* not inconsistent, to date there has been no analysis of Norton’s claim (1995) that Newtonian cosmology *was* inconsistent prior to certain advances in the 1930s, and in particular prior to Seeliger’s seminal paper of 1895. In this paper I agree that there are assumptions, Newtonian and cosmological in character, and relevant to the real history of science, which are inconsistent. But there are some important corrections to make to Norton’s account. Here I display for the first time the inconsistencies—four in total—in all their detail. Although this extra detail shows there to be several different inconsistencies, it also goes some way towards explaining why they went unnoticed for two hundred years.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Vickers, Peter John
Keywords:	Newton, Newtonian, Cosmology, Inconsistent, Inconsistency, Contradiction, Theory, Theories
Subjects:	General Issues > Structure of Theories Specific Sciences > Physics > Cosmology General Issues > History of Science Case Studies
Depositing User:	Dr Peter Vickers
Date Deposited:	30 Mar 2008
Last Modified:	07 Oct 2010 15:16
Item ID:	3962
Subjects:	General Issues > Structure of Theories Specific Sciences > Physics > Cosmology General Issues > History of Science Case Studies
Date:	March 2008
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/3962

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