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To: bkepley

Well-established laws in science rarely change; rather, they are superseded by laws which take account of a wider (or more extreme) range of phenomena. Contrast the range of applicability of Newton's inverse square law of gravity with Einstein's general relativistic theory of gravity. You can send a rocket around the moon and back using Newton's law and not be off by much; but if you want to understand what happens around a neutron star or a black hole, say, Einstein's theory is essential.


10 posted on 09/19/2005 3:47:26 AM PDT by snarks_when_bored
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To: snarks_when_bored

And then there's Aristotle. How many years did people depend on his laws?


15 posted on 09/19/2005 3:54:13 AM PDT by bkepley
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To: snarks_when_bored; RadioAstronomer
Contrast the range of applicability of Newton's inverse square law of gravity with Einstein's general relativistic theory of gravity. You can send a rocket around the moon and back using Newton's law and not be off by much; but if you want to understand what happens around a neutron star or a black hole, say, Einstein's theory is essential.

I agree with your general point absolutely. But I was very interested to discover (from Radio Astronomer the Freeper) that Newton is *not* enough for piloting rockets to Mars. He does this for a living. Use Newton and he'll miss his orbit. You've got to use Einsteinian mechanics to travel that distance.

Also GPS devices operate according to Einsteinian physics, or your location would be off by a few metres.

104 posted on 09/19/2005 9:33:25 AM PDT by Thatcherite (Conservative and Biblical Literalist are not synonymous)
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