ASOW 2012/16/09: Kepler, Newton, and Einstein : “Wrong” theo

[owlice]

Kepler, Newton, and Einstein : “Wrong” theories and the progress of science
Presenter: Dr. Rob Knop
Professor of Physics, Quest University, Canada

Kepler’s laws gave us a beautiful and powerfully predictive description of the Solar System: planets orbiting in ellipses with the Sun at its center. Newton’s Universal Theory of Gravity gave us the physics that explained Kepler’s laws but also showed that they weren’t perfect. Centuries later, Einstein’s General Relativity gave us our modern picture of gravity, showing that Newton’s gravity isn’t quite right. Science progresses by overthrowing old theories and showing that they are wrong… only, very often, the term “wrong” is over-simplistic, hiding subtleties in how science really progresses.

First presented in Second Life on June 6, 2008.