Wednesday Wisdom

WHO?

Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727), an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, and philosopher who made groundbreaking contributions to the fields of physics and mathematics. The meme of an apple falling on his head, while amusing, can somewhat blur the impact he had on opening up the study of physics and the universe.

Newton developed the law of universal gravitation, which states that every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. This law explains the motion of celestial bodies, including the Earth's orbit around the Sun and the Moon's orbit around the Earth.

As early as 600 BC, Greek scientist Miletus surmised the moon as having a force on the ocean which caused the tides. In his work Meteorology, Aristotle wrote about the natural world and suggested tides were related to the movement of the moon and observed tides were more pronounced in enclosed bodies of water such as the Mediterranean Sea as compared to open ocean.

It wasn't until Newton that the term gravity was used about the force of the moon on the ocean. Gravity is from the Latin gravitas meaning “weight” or ‘heaviness”. Gravity is best described as the effect of large objects on each other over space and time. His work on studying the universe and gravity paved the way for others like Einstein to redefine these principles for further understanding.

What he produced

Isaac Newton, the renowned physicist and mathematician, made significant contributions to the understanding of tides. In his seminal work "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica" (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) published in 1687, Newton formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, which provided a comprehensive explanation for the tides.

2024 why do we care?

Tides and their cause are commonly misunderstood. The term the tide is “going in’ or “out” is incorrect because the water is not actually moving. The gravity of the sun and the moon make the oceans bulge and the rotation of the earth into and out of the bulging water is the actual causation of high and low tide (see the picture above). To the ancient Greeks credit, yes, the moon has an effect on tides but only accounts for roughly 2/3 of the effect, the other portion is the gravitational effect of the sun. The tides and everyone on earth are affected by the gravitational forces of the moon and the sun.

A fundamental concept in Buddhist philosophy and a key aspect of the Buddha's teaching is the principle called Impermanence, or Anicca. It refers to the understanding that all conditioned phenomena, whether physical, mental, or emotional, are inherently transient and subject to change.

According to Buddhist teachings, nothing in the world, including ourselves, remains fixed or unchanging. Everything arises, exists for a time, and eventually passes away. This applies to both external phenomena and internal experiences. Impermanence is seen as an essential characteristic of existence and a fundamental truth to be realized through direct experience.

While tides height changes from day to day, it never deviates off two high and low tides as the earth rotates. The world may seem in flux and always changing, but the gravitational pull of the sun and the moon never cease.

As any sailor would know and as an allegory to life, the constants in life will help you navigate, but always be prepared for the unexpected.

And now you know...

Philosophy is the art of thinking, the building block of progress that shapes critical thinking across economics, ethics, religion, and science.

METAPHYSICS: Literally, the term metaphysics means ‘beyond the physical.’ Typically, this is the branch that most people think of when they picture philosophy. In metaphysics, the goal is to answer the what and how questions in life. Who are we, and what are time and space?

LOGIC: The study of reasoning. Much like metaphysics, understanding logic helps to understand and appreciate how we perceive the rest of our world. More than that, it provides a foundation for which to build and interpret arguments and analyses.

ETHICS: The study of morality, right and wrong, good and evil. Ethics tackles difficult conversations by adding weight to actions and decisions. Politics takes ethics to a larger scale, applying it to a group (or groups) of people. Political philosophers study political governments, laws, justice, authority, rights, liberty, ethics, and much more.

AESTHETICS: What is beautiful? Philosophers try to understand, qualify, and quantify what makes art what it is. Aesthetics also takes a deeper look at the artwork itself, trying to understand the meaning behind it, both art as a whole and art on an individual level. A question an aesthetics philosopher would seek to address is whether or not beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

EPISTEMOLOGY: This is the study and understanding of knowledge. The main question is how do we know? We can question the limitations of logic, how comprehension works, and the ability (or perception) to be certain.