"It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else, which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact, as it must be, if gravitation, in the sense of Epicurus, be essential and inherent in it. And this is one reason why I desired you would not ascribe innate gravity to me. That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body can act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain laws; but whether this agent is material or immaterial, I have left to the consideration of my readers."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Isaac Newton, Letter to Richard Bentley (February 25, 1693) as quoted in The works of Richard Bentley, Vol. 3, pp. 211-212.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Principle_of_locality
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Principle of locality
17 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Principle of locality →
Related Quotes
"[C]onsider the scalar ... the change in the electrons' interference pattern is a nonlocal effect of the electric fiel…"
"For several centuries, there has been a strong feeling that nonlocal theories are not acceptable in physics. ...Newto…"
"In the long debate about action at a distance versus contact action we also find a concern with the effective individ…"
"Frans van Luteren (1991), in his extensive... study of conceptions of gravity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centur…"
"Classical electrodynamics is generally understood to be the paradigm of a local and causal physical theory. ...[A] th…"
"To soothe the theologians, who in his time were pressing so hardly upon Galileo, Descartes was content to say that th…"
"[L]ocality... reflects our ability to construct the "big picture" like a jigsaw puzzle, starting with a description o…"
"In fact every theory in the history of physics before quantum theory was EPR-local. So the discovery that the world i…"
"I must ask you to go over very old ground, and to turn your attention to a question which has been raised again and a…"
"The generation that grew up with Newtonian gravity found the theory entirely natural. For millennia, natural philosop…"