NEWTONIAN COSMOLOGY AND THE GEOMETRY OF SPACE

ABSTRACT. Norton stresses that in ordinary Newtonian gravitation theory, one decomposes a free fall motion into two parts: an inertial trajectory and a deflection due the gravitational field. Krantz thinks that a version of Newtonian mechanics based on the present axiomatization of force measurement (together with the usual statements of Newton's second and third laws) would have to be considered slightly programmatic in character. As Domski puts it, Newton contends that we should not use the dimensions of equations corresponding to curves as a means for classifying curves as simple or complex.