Comets and Epidemics before the Advance of Newtonian Physics

Authors: Espinosa Sánchez JM*

DOI: 10.23880/phij-16000145

Volume 3, Issue 2

Abstract

The present paper aims to analyze the methodological differences between the Catholic religion and Isaac Newton, to explain what is a comet? In the last third of the 17th century, in England, a radical change occurred around physics. Scientists devoted themselves to studying the cosmos with methods based on experimentation and observation, with new mathematics. Newton also wrote the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy that in the third book dedicated to the Solar System deals scientifically with comets. To this end, we will put two examples: the comets of 1736 and 1758, where epidemics, wars and deaths of kings appeared, which bodes ill for society at that time because economic crises, deaths, hunger come, the church related the comet that appeared in Heaven as the wrath of God against humanity for their sins. While Newtonian optics analyzed it with science with the gravitational theory whose scientific achievement was demonstrated with the most advanced mathematics.

Keywords: Comet; Newton; Newtonian optics; Principia and Halley

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