Newton vs Einstein: Who Revolutionized Physics?

[DiracPool]

Sorry guys, but this was the logical follow up of my previous thread. Your mission, if you choose to take it, is the following: who better "revolutionized" physics, Einstein or Newton? For now we will leave the question this simply, I may push for more clarifications later. Give your reasons.

 

[jedishrfu]

Before we start, is this for some school project?

 

[DiracPool]

Before we start, is this for some school project?

Yes, it's for the school of scientific enquiry...

 

[DiracPool]

Because some obviously seem timid to begin, I will start. My vote goes to Einstein, because he overturned a world of opinion that had, for the better part of two centuries, a world that pushed to operationalize physics. Newton was essentially working with a blank slate. That's not to knock Newton's accomplishments, Newton brought humanity out of the oblivion of ignorance of the physical sciences. However, he had no competition. You could argue that his achievements were on par with Galileo, someone who saw science where others just worried about money and their family, etc., but wanted to do more. Admirable. But Einstein really went outside the box to get to the heart of the matter. For Newton, physics was just one of several ways to merge with his creator.

 

[jedishrfu]

I would say Newton, he made the box that Einstein was able to go outside of.

 

[n10Newton]

Newton don't study physics that time it was Natural Philoshphy. Also Gravitation and other don't influence the world,Apple till today fall on Earth just known why, it was the Atomic Bomb based on E=m^2.that changed world upside down, a new Sun on Surface of Earth.

My vote is for Einstein.

 

[jedishrfu]

Newton don't study physics that time it was Natural Philoshphy. Also Gravitation and other don't influence the world,Apple till today fall on Earth just known why, it was the Atomic Bomb based on E=m^2.that changed world upside down, a new Sun on Surface of Earth.

My vote is for Einstein.

except that the engineers and scientists who built the bomb, airplane and equipment to extract the material for it used Newton's methods.

 

[DiracPool]

except that the engineers and scientists who built the bomb, airplane and equipment to extract the material for it used Newton's methods.

Actually, I think the major work done during the Manhattan project was based on quantum mechanics, not classical or relativity physics.

 

[n10Newton]

except that the engineers and scientists who built the bomb, airplane and equipment to extract the material for it used Newton's methods.

Because they not have velocity c,Newton's Laws applies to Real world and Einstein's simply Imagine or go advanced.

If something really Revoutionised the World then it is Electricity, Maxwell & Faraday.Newton didn't do anything which help mankind in living. The Question Newton Vs Einstein always comes but main point turn to who is the Genius.And who is your Role Model.

 

[jedishrfu]

Because they not have velocity c,Newton's Laws applies to Real world and Einstein's simply Imagine or go advanced.

If something really Revoutionised the World then it is Electricity, Maxwell & Faraday.Newton didn't do anything which help mankind in living. The Question Newton Vs Einstein always comes but main point turn to who is the Genius.And who is your Role Model.

but all these scientists, Einstein included learned Newton's physics so you can't say he didn't influence them somehow once again he built a box that others stood on and Einstein jumped out of.

With respect to the equation E=mc^2 true it predicted the energy in an atom but it didn't show the way on how to extract it. Others did that using their Newtonian training did that with the help of Quantum Mechanics.

 

[DiracPool]

but all these scientists, Einstein included learned Newton's physics so you can't say he didn't influence them somehow once again he built a box that others stood on and Einstein jumped out of.

My opinion is that is that it is almost like comparing apples and oranges. Newton invented something out of nothing, whereas Einstein revolutionized the common understanding. These are two fundamentally different accomplishments qualitatively, but we tend to lump Newton and Einstein together in the same apple bag. But their achievements are qualitatively distinct. My question is that can we place an objective value on one over the other?

 

[n10Newton]

Both Explored their own Era and also both have different fields so its hard to campare, (not as easy Feynman Vs Dirac).Newton give their all law for Bulk particles (because Electron not discovered) and assume Mass a constant quantity. Today Quarks were discovered and if E=mc^2 don't explain that then his theory also come with restriction.

 

[jedishrfu]

Both Explored their own Era and also both have different fields so its hard to campare, (not as easy Feynman Vs Dirac).Newton give their all law for Bulk particles (because Electron not discovered) and assume Mass a constant quantity. Today Quarks were discovered and if E=mc^2 don't explain that then his theory also come with restriction.

You PF name contains "Newton" twice so I rest my case...

 

[SteamKing]

My vote is Newton. Without Newton, I don't think Einstein would have the mathematics necessary for his work.

 

[n10Newton]

You PF name contains "Newton" twice so I rest my case...

My PF name has only one n10Newton, N is for my Real Name, 10 is my Rank in International Physics Olympiad and last one Newton.

 

[DiracPool]

Remember, the OP's (mine) post was who better "revolutionized" physics.

 

[ModusPwnd]

Sorry guys, but this was the logical follow up of my previous thread. Your mission, if you choose to take it, is the following: who better "revolutionized" physics, Einstein or Newton? For now we will leave the question this simply, I may push for more clarifications later. Give your reasons.

"Revolutionized" as defined by google says "Verb; Change (something) radically or fundamentally."

In this sense I suppose I would say Einstein because what he did was more about changing what we had rather than inventing something new. Inventing new things is not as much "revolutionizing" as changing existing things is.

 

[DiracPool]

In this sense I suppose I would say Einstein because what he did was more about changing what we had rather than inventing something new. Inventing new things is not as much "revolutionizing" as changing existing things is.

Wow, someone finally gives us a sensible comment

 

[D H]

Newton was essentially working with a blank slate.

No, he wasn't. "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

However, he had no competition.

He had no competition because he stands head and shoulders above any other physicist (IMO of course). Einstein doesn't compare; no one does.

I don't even know if I would put Einstein in second position. There are so many others to consider. Before Newton's time, Galileo, Brahmagupta, Archimedes. Between Newton and Einstein, Lagrange, Hamilton, Maxwell. During the 20th century, a whole slew of contenders.

Top slot is easy though. It's Newton.

 

[jedishrfu]

"Revolutionized" as defined by google says "Verb; Change (something) radically or fundamentally."

In this sense I suppose I would say Einstein because what he did was more about changing what we had rather than inventing something new. Inventing new things is not as much "revolutionizing" as changing existing things is.

You could make that same case with Newton though as he changed the way people thought about the world by bringing together all the disparate knowledge of the day under one roof. Before Newton many people had a sense of how things worked in specific cases such as the Romans knowing the torsion law was a cube root and not a square root or Kepler's emperical results on planetary motion.

 

[WannabeNewton]

There's no question that it is Newton. Einstein doesn't even come close in the presence of the father of physics - Newton. GR might just be the most beautiful and elegant physical theory currently in existence but Newton's contributions stand proudly at the zenith overshadowing the rest.

 

[ModusPwnd]

You could make that same case with Newton though as he changed the way people thought about the world by bringing together all the disparate knowledge of the day under one roof. Before Newton many people had a sense of how things worked in specific cases such as the Romans knowing the torsion law was a cube root and not a square root or Kepler's emperical results on planetary motion.

You could, but I didnt. Einstein's base of previous knowledge was necessarily larger than Newton's. And his contributions were much more narrow, revolutionizing theories in physics. Newton's impact was wide and I think less about revolutionizing current knowledge than Einstein's was. That does not minimize Newton's revolutions, it means he shares them with novel inventions (where Einstein perhaps does not). For this reason I might also argue that Newton had a bigger "impact" where Einstein caused more of a "revolution".

 

[DiracPool]

There's no question that it is Newton.

I beg to differ with you fine folk. I'll state it again, Newton brought to light the obvious, he (pardon the pun) grabbed the low hanging fruit (apples if you must) and operationalized the maths to fit the model. Outstanding, but still just stating the obvious. Einstein, on the other hand, really went out of the box and forced upon us a universe that was not obvious, was not easy. There's a difference there.

 

[WannabeNewton]

Stating the obvious? Really? It's obvious that in an isotropic, homogenous space a free particle moves in a straight line with constant velocity or is at rest? It's obvious that for every force you exert on an object it exerts a force back with equal magnitude and opposite direction? I would hardly say that is obvious - people just take it for granted. There is nothing a priori in the universe that states things must be this way.

 

[micromass]

I beg to differ with you fine folk. I'll state it again, Newton brought to light the obvious, he (pardon the pun) grabbed the low hanging fruit (apples if you must) and operationalized the maths to fit the model. Outstanding, but still just stating the obvious. Einstein, on the other hand, really went out of the box and forced upon us a universe that was not obvious, was not easy. There's a difference there.

Quite the opposite! A lot of contemporaries of Einstein were working on ideas of relativity. Einstein was just the first to publish it and to give a nice interpretation. But he really wasn't thinking very much out of the box. Let's say that a lot of the ideas were "in the air" already.

Newton, on the other hand, really revolutionized both physics and mathematics. Saying that it's the "low hanging fruit" is really doing a disservice to Newton his genius.

 

[micromass]

Quite the opposite! A lot of contemporaries of Einstein were working on ideas of relativity. Einstein was just the first to publish it and to give a nice interpretation. But he really wasn't thinking very much out of the box. Let's say that a lot of the ideas were "in the air" already.

Newton, on the other hand, really revolutionized both physics and mathematics. Saying that it's the "low hanging fruit" is really doing a disservice to Newton his genius.

To add to this point. Newton really came up with a novel theory. Laws like "Everything that is in motion remains in motion" or "Every person exerts a force on the earth" are extremely counterintuitive. It is obvious now since we learn those laws in kindergarten (so to speak).

Back in the middle ages, Aristotle was the source for good science. His works were almost holy. But Aristotle stated that "everything in motion eventually stops moving". So what Newton did was going directly against Aristotle and 1000's of years of established science!

 

[ZombieFeynman]

Gibbs makes the shortlist for sure.

He is surely my favorite physicist.

 

[DiracPool]

Back in the middle ages, Aristotle was the source for good science. His works were almost holy. But Aristotle stated that "everything in motion eventually stops moving". So what Newton did was going directly against Aristotle and 1000's of years of established science!

Yeah but, Einstein's adamantcy over defining the speed of light, c, as fundamental really is the single most significant "game changer" in science. My point is that what he did was not obvious. f=ma and all the other stuff Newton did was "inside the box".

 

[ZombieFeynman]

Yeah but, Einstein's adamantcy over defining the speed of light, c, as fundamental really is the single most significant "game changer" in science. My point is that what he did was not obvious. f=ma and all the other stuff Newton did was "inside the box".

I fundamentally disagree. I think the realization that matter is made of atoms is far more significant.

I'm not taking anything away from Einstein, but there was a lot of mounting experimental evidence suggesting c being constant around the late 1890s and early 1900s.

 

[WannabeNewton]

Yeah but, Einstein's adamantcy over defining the speed of light, c, as fundamental really is the single most significant "game changer" in science. My point is that what he did was not obvious. f=ma and all the other stuff Newton did was "inside the box".

Now you are just making blanket statements. This isn't a debate anymore it is just you making up fantastical "facts" about the "game changers" on the spot. Just because you see Einstein's ideas being sensationalized on discovery channel or the science channel doesn't mean his ideas are more revolutionary than those of Newton. The reason so many laymen think Einstein is the most intelligent human being ever is because the entertainment media spoon feeds them into settling for this mindset. There have been far more revolutionary changes effected by others in the history of physics. I would place Newton, Faraday, and Maxwell above him easily.

 

[jedishrfu]

Gibbs makes the shortlist for sure.

He is surely my favorite physicist.

He's also on NCIS but I digress.

 

[micromass]

Yeah but, Einstein's adamantcy over defining the speed of light, c, as fundamental really is the single most significant "game changer" in science. My point is that what he did was not obvious. f=ma and all the other stuff Newton did was "inside the box".

It's not really out of the box since Poincarre has the same ideas before Einstein. Furthermore, it wasn't really a surprising hypothesis after the Michelson-Morley experiment.

 

[ZombieFeynman]

It's not really out of the box since Poincarre has the same ideas before Einstein. Furthermore, it wasn't really a surprising hypothesis after the Michelson-Morley experiment.

Perhaps not surprising, but certainly unpopular. Looking back on the literature of the time, it becomes readily apparent that scientists went to great lengths to avoid getting rid of the aether.

A lesson to be learned for our generation and those ahead of us.

 

[BobG]

To add to this point. Newton really came up with a novel theory. Laws like "Everything that is in motion remains in motion" or "Every person exerts a force on the earth" are extremely counterintuitive. It is obvious now since we learn those laws in kindergarten (so to speak).

Back in the middle ages, Aristotle was the source for good science. His works were almost holy. But Aristotle stated that "everything in motion eventually stops moving". So what Newton did was going directly against Aristotle and 1000's of years of established science!

Newton's first law (conservation of momentum) wasn't all that novel. It was Galileo's Principle of Inertia ("A body moving on a level surface will continue in the same direction at constant speed unless disturbed.") It just got included with Newton's other two laws, since they logically fit together better than learning Galileo's Law of Inertia and Newton's Two Laws of Force.

As to Einstein, there was a lot more to the theory of relativity than just light maintaining a constant speed, no matter how fast of slow the object emitting the light was traveling. It was coming up with laws that were consistent with that fact.

For that matter, Hamilton developing quaternions was as impressive an accomplishment as Newton's Laws of Motion and development of calculus and Einstein's Theory of Relativity. It just didn't have the same impact as Newton's or Einstein's work.

Once you start into which had the greater impact, I think Newton wins.

 

[DiracPool]

Furthermore, it wasn't really a surprising hypothesis after the Michelson-Morley experiment.

OMG, you people, don't you get it? It's not about who developed this or that, it's about who defined this or that. There are so many examples of this. One could argue that lionel pauling was the true discoverer of DNA, but he envisioned a triple helix, not a double. Lorentz had all the hardware required for special relativity but he did not define it as so, and he was too much of a woosey to argue about it, as are most insecure mathematical physicists such as myself.

 

[Sayajin]

I think Einstein was better. I respect them both but what Einstein did is much bigger.
Sure Newton did invent calculus, the laws of motion, law of gravity, reflector telescope etc but what Einstein did is not something that can be observed or visualized so easily.
He had to break the most fundamental concepts ( that time and space are universal and the same for every refenrece frame) which were assumed to be true since the beginning of man. He basicaly had to start from 0 complately ignoring Newtonian physics.
He actualy discovred what is the source of gravity (space-time curvature is not something that you can visualize or see every day) and when he was developing General Relativity he was fighting with some mathematical problem. At this time Hilbert was hunting for the same thing. Einstein got it first. We are talking about one of the greatest mathematicians. Even when he did mistakes he actualy was in the right direction.
His cosmological constant, and quantum entanglement (Einstein, Rosen Podolsky experiment) turned out to be the most misterious things even today. He is the one that pointed this things out and now people 80 years later are actualy making nobel prices by making discoveries about this staff. All the modern cosmology is based on Einstein's GR.I respect them both but in my eyes Einstein will aways be on top.

Just tell me some modern theory that does not use SR or GR( except for some reason Quantum Mechanics does not like gravity).

 

[WannabeNewton]

While everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion on who their favorite physicist is, one can look at popular opinions amongst lay people and conclude that pop science has made a hyperbole out of Einstein. I would be the last person to say General Relativity isn't one of the greatest achievements of any human being but you cannot claim with absoluteness that it is unequivocally THE greatest. All the pillars of physics today were built on the foundation forged by Isaac Newton.

 

[micromass]

While everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion on who their favorite physicist is, one can look at popular opinions amongst lay people and conclude that pop science has made a hyperbole out of Einstein. I would be the last person to say General Relativity isn't one of the greatest achievements of any human being but you cannot claim with absoluteness that it is unequivocally THE greatest. All the pillars of physics today were built on the foundation forged by Isaac Newton.

I agree. Einstein has accomplished something amazing. But I find that he's been hyped by the media. A bit the same way as Stephen Hawking is called the smartest person alive by some.
There are many physicists out there who made remarkable discoveries and paradigms, some of which are on par with Einstein. For example, the physicists who developed QM were pure genius. People like Maxwell are entirely forgotten by the popular media, although their accomplishments are no less than Einstein.

 

[BobG]

People like Maxwell are entirely forgotten by the popular media, although their accomplishments are no less than Einstein.

E=mc^2 isn't quite as intimidating as Maxwell's equations. The general public may not quite be sure what it means, but at least they can remember it.

 

[micromass]

E=mc^2 isn't quite as intimidating as Maxwell's equations. The general public may not quite be sure what it means, but at least they can remember it.

F=ma is even easier

 

[WannabeNewton]

I agree. Einstein has accomplished something amazing. But I find that he's been hyped by the media. A bit the same way as Stephen Hawking is called the smartest person alive by some.
There are many physicists out there who made remarkable discoveries and paradigms, some of which are on par with Einstein. For example, the physicists who developed QM were pure genius. People like Maxwell are entirely forgotten by the popular media, although their accomplishments are no less than Einstein.

Indeed even people like Dirac are not mentioned nearly as much as they should. Dirac was nothing short of a damn super human. You can tell just by the nature of this thread "Einstein vs Newton" that only the two physicists who have been extremely popular in the public eye (Einstein grossly more so than Newton) are being compared and this isn't a rare occurrence: these kind of physicist comparison threads always seem to centralize themselves around Einstein and Newton (whatever happened to Maxwell and Faraday guys? They were brilliant in every way!) and the popular science media painting GR in such a romantic light contributes greatly to very clouded views of not only his theory but also of his involvement in physics. People praise him as the greatest mind in history and his theory as the greatest thing to have been engendered without actually understanding the theory or looking into how the theory was developed historically. Respect is due where it is due but not much more than that.

 

[micromass]

Indeed even people like Dirac are not mentioned nearly as much as they should. Dirac was nothing short of a damn super human. You can tell just by the nature of this thread "Einstein vs Newton" that only the two physicists who have been extremely popular in the public eye (Einstein grossly more so than Newton) are being compared and this isn't a rare occurrence: these kind of physicist comparison threads always seem to centralize themselves around Einstein and Newton (whatever happened to Maxwell and Faraday guys? They were brilliant in every way!) and the popular science media painting GR in such a romantic light contributes greatly to very clouded views of not only his theory but also of his involvement in physics. People praise him as the greatest mind in history and his theory as the greatest thing to have been engendered without actually understanding the theory or looking into how the theory was developed historically. Respect is due where it is due but not much more than that.

Not to talk about people like Gauss who are 10 times more brilliant than Einstein (in my opinion). Without Gauss, there would be no differential geometry and no GR. If there should be a comparison between scientists, then a more correct comparison would be Newton vs Gauss.

 

[micromass]

And what about people like Cantor?? The entire works of Cantor are genius. The guy has been responsible of some of the most elegant mathematics known to man.
Furthermore, he developed his entire theory of mathematics entirely on his own! I have no knowledge of any predecessors of Cantor that he relied on.

What happened after Cantor developed his theory? His was ridiculed by many other mathematicians (although some accepted his work). He eventually got severely depressed. It was only later that people saw value in his work.

Cantor is one of the perfect example of a genius that is not known by many people. Although what he did was much more brilliant than Einstein. And it took a long time for people to understand the brilliance.

Of course, I do agree that Cantor's theories are not applicable to the real world, unlike Einstein. But it's still a magnificent accomplishment that more people should know about.

 

[DiracPool]

Respect is due where it is due but not much more than that.

I beg to differ Newton. It is well understood that Einstein's popularity was a product of an uncertain time in history, and the bridge with Eddington and the the "30 years war" between England-France and Germany to put a kind face on science and cooperation. The thing about Einstein, though, was that he was a celebrity for all the wrong reasons..He was a celebrity because of the strain of the times but he should have been a celebrity because of his physics. The popular culture did not recognize this. It is quite a funny predicament.

 

[DiracPool]

Indeed even people like Dirac are not mentioned nearly as much as they should. Dirac was nothing short of a damn super human.

Yeah but...I'm reading "the strangest man" right now, the biography of Dirac. He wasn't that special, he was a left brain thinker, totally absorbed in the maths and incapable of thinking outside the box as I say like Einstein was. He wrote a piece talking about how students should study pure maths as an approach to to solving the outstanding issues in physics. Not bad advise, but it demonstrates his myopia when it comes to conceptual modeling.

 

[micromass]

Yeah but...I'm reading "the strangest man" right now, the biography of Dirac. He wasn't that special, he was a left brain thinker, totally absorbed in the maths and incapable of thinking outside the box as I say like Einstein was. He wrote a piece talking about how students should study pure maths as an approach to to solving the outstanding issues in physics. Not bad advise, but it demonstrates his myopia when it comes to conceptual modeling.

You keep asserting that Einstein thought outside the box. We have demonstrated multiple times that he didn't and that everything he did was done by others at the time. Apparently your made is already made up.

 

[WannabeNewton]

Well Dirac (hehe) I think that is a matter of opinion. I love pure math and I feel it greatly enhances a physics education. Think about how much more people would understand GR if they knew about the theory behind differentiable manifolds and topological manifolds etc. and if people knew about the functional analysis behind QM. A good example in this forum itself is Fredrik because he is well versed in both the physics and the pure math (shout out to Fredrik =D). You have to define by what you mean by outside the box because again that is a matter of perspective. Cantor's formulations regarding set theory were certainly not regarded as thinking outside of the box by some of his contemporaries who continually vilified him but most people now look at his proofs and praise their beauty. In the end, it all comes down to a matter of opinion because things like thinking outside of the box are hard to define an absolute standard for.

 

[DiracPool]

You keep asserting that Einstein thought outside the box. We have demonstrated multiple times that he didn't and that everything he did was done by others at the time. Apparently your made is already made up.

I'd argue the counter, it seems as though YOUR mind is already made up. Again, the qualifying standard is the consolidation of the concept. An attorney for Bill Gates told him he should slap the name Microsoft as a prefix on everything he did, to consolidate that concept. I don't think you're going to argue with me that Bill took his advise. My point is that it DOES mean something to consolidate your idea into a "package" rather than leave it wafting in some pseudo-conceptual hyperspace. This is what Einstein did.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

You keep asserting that Einstein thought outside the box. We have demonstrated multiple times that he didn't and that everything he did was done by others at the time. Apparently your made is already made up.

We will raise this conjecture (the purport of which will hereafter be called the “Principle of Relativity”) to the status of a postulate, and also introduce another postulate, which is only apparently irreconcilable with the former, namely, that light is always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c which is independent of the state of motion of the emitting body. These two postulates suffice for the attainment of a simple and consistent theory of the electrodynamics of moving bodies based on Maxwell's theory for stationary bodies. The introduction of a “luminiferous ether” will prove to be superfluous inasmuch as the view here to be developed will not require an “absolutely stationary space” provided with special properties, nor assign a velocity-vector to a point of the empty space in which electromagnetic processes take place.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/
Besides Einstein, who else did this?

 

[DiracPool]

You have to define by what you mean by outside the box

Yes, you're absolutely right. What I mean is that is that Einstein bucked the tradition and invented his own physics, and he paid for it, not long though, but he demonstrated that he wasn't willing to sell out. What does it mean to say that people invented concepts of Einstein before he did? It means nothing. I publish in the field of cognitive neuroscience, there are a billion ideas that move around as they should and everyone feeds off of everyone else's research. Every once in a while someone will collect these common results and musings into a generalized model of something and we have something to get excited about, either because we like it, or we like to hate it. And the discourse goes from there.

So, the point I'm trying to make here is that Lorentz had a good idea but didn't develop it, Reimann had a good idea but didn't develop it, M&M had a good experimental result and didn't develop it, etc. Einstein did, though, he "packaged" these concepts into a general model(s). That is more than luck, it is vision. A masterful vision that trumps Newton and everyone else.