"Newton has... acted contrary to his expressed intention only to investigate actual facts. No one is competent to predicate things about absolute space and absolute motion; they are pure things of thought, pure mental constructs, that cannot be produced in experience. All our principles of mechanics are... experimental knowledge concerning the relative positions and motions of bodies. ...No one is warranted in extending these principles beyond the boundaries of experience. In fact, such an extension is meaningless, as no one possesses the requisite knowledge to make use of it."
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Mathematicians from EnglandAcademics from the United KingdomAlchemistsAstronomers from EnglandPhysicists from England
Original Language: English
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Sources
Ernst Mach, The Science of Mechanics: A Critical and Historical Account of Its Development (1893) p. 229, Tr. Thomas J. McCormack.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton
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Isaac Newton
1643 – 1727
englischer Physiker und Mathematiker
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