Quotes & Sayings About Gravity Newton

Science probes; it does not prove. Imagine Newton's reaction to an objector of his law of gravity who argued that he could not establish a universal law because he had not observed every falling apple, much less proved the law of gravity - there might, after all, be an apple that levitates! Why should a group of simple, stable compounds of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen struggle for billions of years to organize themselves into a professor of chemistry? — Robert M. Pirsig

The irony of the present day is, that, the more human rights jurisprudence seems to be fortified, the more there are human rights violations in newer and newer forms and some recidivism all due to the conflicting deductions of protecting even human rights of offenders. No doubt offenders deserve their rights to be protected, but in cases of serious offenses such as 'rape' where the offence is proved beyond all reasonable doubt against the offender and where the offender consciously commits the act while being aware of the justice system in his particular country and prefers to cross the precincts of the law, the question of a lighter punishment vis-a vis the gravity of the offence is a big question. — Henrietta Newton Martin

(The story that Newton was inspired by an apple hitting his head is almost certainly apocryphal. All Newton himself ever said was that the idea of gravity came to him as he sat "in a contemplative mood" and "was occasioned by the fall of an apple.") — Stephen Hawking

Just as the system of the sun, planets and comets is put in motion by the forces of gravity, and its parts persist in their motions, so the smaller systems of bodies also seem to be set in motion by other forces and their particles to be variously moved in relation to each other and, especially, by the electric force. — Isaac Newton

That one body should act upon another through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else is so great an absurdity that no man suited to do science ... can ever fall into it, ... Gravity must be caused by an agent ... but whether that agent be material or immaterial I leave to my readers. — Isaac Newton

However the great successes of science - Galileo's telescopic observations, Newton's law of gravity, etc - all of this great success caused people to sort of say, what if we could establish religion on that same successful basis? What if we could have a good rational foundation for religious belief. What if religion could be sort of like science. Of course, that can't be. — George Coyne

Against the mutability of dream, the natural laws advocated by our bewigged Enlightenment forebears are powerless. Newton, for instance, insists on gravity and other prohibitions of the physical world, from which (while we are awake) we are never free. But we can fly in dreams. — Gregory Maguire

Curiously, a principle affects your life whether you are aware of it or not. For instance, the principle of gravity was working long before the apple ever fell on Newton's head. But once it did, and he understood it, then we as a society were free to harness this principle to create, among other things, airline flight. — Andy Andrews

Just because an apple falls one hundred times out of a hundred does not mean it will fall on the hundred and first. — Derek Landy

Newton's work on gravity led to the discovery of the Lagrange point, a place where opposing forces cancel one another out, and a body may remain at relative rest. This is where I am right now; the forces in my life confound one another. Better, for the moment, to be here and now, without history or future. — Nick Harkaway

Here is a statistic that does matter: Three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that "God helps those who help themselves." That is, three out of four Americans believe that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only is Franklin's wisdom not biblical; it's counter-biblical. Few ideas could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor. On this essential matter, most Americans - most American Christians - are simply wrong, as if 75 percent of American scientists believed that Newton proved gravity causes apples to fly up. — Bill McKibben

Gravity must be caused by an Agent acting constantly according to certain laws, but whether this Agent be material or immaterial I have left to the consideration of my readers. — Isaac Newton

I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called a hypothesis, and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. — Isaac Newton

You sometimes speak of gravity as essential and inherent to matter. Pray do not ascribe that notion to me, for the cause of gravity is what I do not pretend to know, and therefore would take more time to consider of it. — Isaac Newton

The same law takes place in a system, consisting of many bodies, as in one single body, with regard to their persevering in their state of motion or of rest. For the progressive motion, whether of one single body or of a whole system of bodies, is always to be estimated from the motion of the center of gravity. — Isaac Newton

Our design, not respecting arts, but philosophy, and our subject, not manual, but natural powers, we consider chiefly those things which relate to gravity, levity, elastic force, the resistance of fluids, and the like forces, whether attractive or impulsive; and therefore we offer this work as mathematical principles of philosophy; for all the difficulty of philosophy seems to consist in this from the phenomena of motions to investigate the forces of nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the other phenomena ... — Isaac Newton

The split between religion and science is relatively new. Isaac Newton, who first worked out the laws by which gravity held the planets and even the stars in their traces, was sufficiently impressed by the scale and regularity of the universe to ascribe it all to God. — Seth Shostak

I just think it's fortunate that Sir Isaac Newton didn't share the sense of humor of a member of the public, because had he done so, he would of been so amused by the simple effects of gravity, that he would of never gotten round making a comprehensive study of it's causes.
That's the punchline! 'a comprehensive study of it's courses'! I worked for that! Will you be telling this joke at work? I don't think so!
And yes, I am aware that I say this to you while hanging precariously of this art-deco balcony. And I do so deliberately in the hope that I will fall to my death, and that you will learn about the thin line between slap-stick and tragedy. — Stewart Lee

The hypothesis of matter's being at first evenly spread through the heavens is, in my opinion, inconsistent with the hypothesis of innate gravity without a supernatural power to reconcile them, and therefore, it infers a deity. — Isaac Newton

Thus far I have explained the phenomena of the heavens and of our sea by the force of gravity, but I have not yet assigned a cause to gravity. Indeed, this force arises from some cause that penetrates as far as the centers of the sun and planets without any diminution of its power to act, and that acts not in proportion to the quantity of the surfaces of the particles on which it acts (as mechanical causes are wont to do) but in proportion to the quantity of solid matter, and whose action is extended everywhere to immense distances, always decreasing as the squares of the distances. — Isaac Newton

It was a little insulting to admit that a drooling dolt like Coulter might be right about something, but after all, Isaac Newton didn't reject gravity just because the apple had a low IQ. — Jeff Lindsay

Newton had a very good description of gravity, back in the day, and then Einstein came along and dug a little bit deeper. Science is like peeling an onion. You go deeper and deeper and deeper, and it doesn't stop. It's not like you will get to a right answer. — Dallas Campbell

The Church no more gave us the New Testament canon than Isaac Newton gave us the force of gravity. — J.I. Packer

As to your Newton, I confess I do not understand his void and his gravity; I admit he has demonstrated the movement of the heavenly bodies with more exactitude than his forerunners; but you will admit it is an absurdity to maintain the existence of Nothing.
[Letter to Voltaire, 25 Nov. 1777] — Frederick The Great

Sir Isaac Newton, renowned inventor of the milled-edge coin and the catflap!"
"The what?" said Richard.
"The catflap! A device of the utmost cunning, perspicuity and invention. It is a door within a door, you see, a ... "
"Yes," said Richard, "there was also the small matter of gravity."
"Gravity," said Dirk with a slightly dismissed shrug, "yes, there was that as well, I suppose. Though that, of course, was merely a discovery. It was there to be discovered." ... "You see?" he said dropping his cigarette butt, "They even keep it on at weekends. Someone was bound to notice sooner or later. But the catflap ... ah, there is a very different matter. Invention, pure creative invention. It is a door within a door, you see. — Douglas Adams

Gravity may put the planets into motion, but without the divine Power, it could never put them into such a circulating motion as they have about the Sun; and therefore, for this as well as other reasons, I am compelled to ascribe the frame of this System to an intelligent Agent. — Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton was asked how he discovered the law of gravity. He replied, By thinking about it all the time. — Isaac Newton

At the root of everything lay the passionate
desire of thinking people to find a simple, unifying norm for society like the law of gravity that Newton had found for nature. — James H. Billington

The smaller the planets are, they are, other things being equal, of so much the greater density; for so the powers of gravity on their several surfaces come nearer to equality. They are likewise, other things being equal, of the greater density, as they are nearer to the sun. — Isaac Newton

No king or minister could have instructed Newton to discover the law of gravity, for they did not know and could not know that there was such a law to discover. No Treasury official told Fleming to discover penicillin. Nor was Rutherford instructed to split the atom by a certain date ... — C. Northcote Parkinson

Okay," I sighed, interrupting before a battle of wills erupted. "So we will have to scout the wall first. We can-Apollo!"
The god looked up. In his hands, the Newton balls knocked off of each other once more. "What?" he asked.
"What?" I shot him an annoyed look. "Seriously. Have you've never seen a Newton's Cradle before? Every time you move the first ball, it's going to move the rest of the balls."
"No." His gaze dipped to the cradle. "Gravity is cool."
"Oh my gods," I moaned, slumping in my seat. "My brain hurts."
Apollo let go of the silver ball once more, and then placed the cradle on the edge of Marcus' desk. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

The moon gravitates towards the earth and by the force of gravity is continually drawn off from a rectilinear motion and retained in its orbit. — Isaac Newton

When asked about which scientist he'd like to meet, Neil deGrasse Tyson said, Isaac Newton. No question about it. The smartest person ever to walk the face of this earth. The man was connected to the universe in spooky ways. He discovered the laws of motion, the laws of gravity, the laws of optics. Then he turned 26. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

He who thinks half-heartedly will not believe in God; but he who really thinks has to believe in God. — Isaac Newton

Kepler's laws, although not rigidly true, are sufficiently near to the truth to have led to the discovery of the law of attraction of the bodies of the solar system. The deviation from complete accuracy is due to the facts, that the planets are not of inappreciable mass, that, in consequence, they disturb each other's orbits about the Sun, and, by their action on the Sun itself, cause the periodic time of each to be shorter than if the Sun were a fixed body, in the subduplicate ratio of the mass of the Sun to the sum of the masses of the Sun and Planet; these errors are appreciable although very small, since the mass of the largest of the planets, Jupiter, is less than 1/1000th of the Sun's mass. — Isaac Newton

As Attraction is stronger in small Magnets than in great ones in proportion to their Bulk, and Gravity is greater in the Surfaces of small Planets than in those of great ones in proportion to their bulk, and small Bodies are agitated much more by electric attraction than great ones; so the smallness of the Rays of Light may contribute very much to the power of the Agent by which they are refracted. — Isaac Newton

The most famous story about gravity involves Isaac Newton and an apple that supposedly fell on his head, inspiring him to concoct his theory of universal gravitation. (It's mostly famous because Newton himself couldn't stop telling it later in life, in an unnecessary attempt to add some extra juice to his reputation as a genius.) — Sean Carroll

Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion. — Isaac Newton

One [method] is by a Watch to keep time exactly. But, by reason of the motion of the Ship, the Variation of Heat and Cold, Wet and Dry, and the Difference of Gravity in different Latitudes, such a watch hath not yet been made. — Isaac Newton

I have explained the phenomena of the heavens and of our sea by the force of gravity, but I have not yet assigned a cause to gravity. — Isaac Newton

We say that Columbus discovered America and Newton discovered gravity, as though America and gravity weren't there until Columbus and Newton got wind of them. — Susanna Kaysen

If a projectile were deprived of the force of gravity, it would not be deflected toward the earth but would go off in a straight line into the heavens and do so with uniform motion, provided that the resistance of the air were removed. — Isaac Newton

The "gravity train" was devised in the seventeenth century by British scientist Robert Hooke, who presented the idea in a letter to Isaac Newton. The idea has been seriously presented a few times, such as to the Paris Academy of Sciences in the nineteenth century. — Stephen Baxter

The act of imagination is the opening of the system so that it shows new connections. Every act of act of imagination is the discovery of likenesses between two things which were thought unlike. An example is Newton's thinking of the likeness between the thrown apple and moon sailing majestically in the sky. Hence, the 'discovery' of the laws of gravity. — Jacob Bronowski