Newton Vs William Derham Essay

After Isaac Newton algebraically found the speed of sound, he discovered that his answer varied from the answer found in the direct experiment done by William Derham. Newton was 15% off from the observed speed of sound. In an attempt to make fix his error, he took into account that air was composed of more than just oxygen and temperature fluctuated, but he was still off and his reasoning was confusing and illogical. Newton practically lied about his calculated speed of sound. Of the scientists that are taught in schools, Isaac Newton is one of them. Isaac Newton is one of the more well known scientists, while William Derham is not. Other well known scientists include: Albert Einstein and Leonardo Da Vinci, but what about the lesser known scientists.

He determined that an invisible line that connected the planet to the sun were equal in area over the same amount of time (see figure 2), this was his second law, the Law of Areas.

Figure 2: A visual description of Kepler’s second law. Two shapes have been drawn by selecting four points a planet could be and then drawing a line to the center of the sun, the areas of the two shapes are equal.

Kepler’s third law, the Law of Periods, it states that the relationship between the period of two planets is connected to their distance from the sun. Kepler said that the square of the period was proportional to the cube of the radius of the planet (see figure 3). Figure 3: A visual description of Kepler’s third law, where T is the period of the planet, G is the gravitational constant (6.67 * 10 -11),

M is the mass of the planet, and a is semi-major axis.

Along with Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion, also determined that refraction drives vision in the eye and that using two eyes enables depth perception, with this knowledge, he made eyeglasses and explained how telescopes work. Kepler also claimed that gravity was caused by two bodies instead of one, that the sun rotates, and he created the word