Christiaan Huygens
- His circular motion, sling motion
Rejection of Newtonian attraction
- Quoted in Cohen p.153
- Before reading the Principia Huygens wrote “I have nothing against his not being a Cartesian, provided he does not give us suppositions like that of attraction.”
- After reading the Principia Huygens rejected Newton’s theory of the tides and “all othar theories he builds upon his Principle of Attraction, which to be seems absurd.”
- Huygens stated as plainly as possible that a Newtonian “attraction is not explainable by any of the principles of Mechanics, or of the rules of motion and thus cannot be accepted in natural philosophy.”
- Before reading the Principia Huygens wrote “I have nothing against his not being a Cartesian, provided he does not give us suppositions like that of attraction.”
Huygens and newton’s soul
Did Huygens say that Newton’s force was “Newton’s Soul”?
Apparently, Huygens was ambivalent about Newton’s Principia. He thought Newton’s mathematics was good but
https://www.jstor.org/stable/531383 Christiaan Huygens and Newton’s Theory of Gravitation by H. A. M. Snelders
Newton’s idea that gravity is an attractive force, Huygens could not accept. Considering gravity as a universal force, which operates over empty space, inevitably led to the problem how any force could act at a distance. But for a mechanical philosopher like Huygens, nothing could act at a distance. Talking of gravity this way is talking of occult causes. [1]
I remember reading long time ago a stronger criticism by Huygens of Newton’s force. As far as I can remember, Huygens thought that Newton brought back the old scholastic notion of souls into rational mechanics. Huygens said that Newton’s force was an agent that acted without time passing which meant that force was everywhere at once.
For this reason, Huygens called Newton’s force “Newton’s Soul” that permeated the whole universe.
Did Huygens say something like this? (Of course, I’m looking for a direct reference. Searching for “Huygens Newton’s soul” pulls up a couple of pages but without any scholarly references.)
Discourse on the cause of gravity, Christiaan Huygens, 1690.
Preface (original p.126)
- Still others have resorted to certain spirits and immaterial emanations, which elucidates nothing since we have no understanding of how something immaterial gives motion to a corporeal substance.
- Huygens states that no new motion can be created and motion can only be transferred by contact.
- So spirits and immaterial emanations cannot transfer motion.
- Huygens states that no new motion can be created and motion can only be transferred by contact.