[ASTRON 10] - Midterm Exam Guide - Comprehensive Notes for the exam (27 pages long!)
Document Summary
Kepler ended the question on how planets move. Born 1642 to a middle class family. Like other discussed, was sponsored to go to college. Due to plague, cambridge shut down for 1. 5 yrs. Early form of epidemiology noticed plague being concentrated in cities. Started to do some thinking on deep physical questions. Wondered why moon didn"t sail away due to rotational / linear(angular) momentum. Figured out that fg = g m1 m2 / r2. Gravity is inversely proportional to the square of radius. R refers to the distance between centers of gravity. Gave the idea that the more mathematical a science became, the more inherently scientific it was. Newton never told anyone initially about his formula for gravity. 15 years later, edmund halley, a royal fellow, came to ask newton about the mechanism behind kepler"s laws, to which newton showed him the equation, stating that he figured it out during the plague.
