Newton's Reservations:
While Newton was able to formulate his law of gravity, he was deeply uncomfortable with the notion of "action at a distance" which his equations implied. In 1692, in his third letter to Bentley, he wrote: "That one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else”. He never, in his words, "assigned the cause of this power". In all other cases, he used the phenomenon of motion to explain the origin of various forces acting on bodies, but in the case of gravity, he was unable to experimentally identify the motion that produces the force of gravity. Moreover, he refused to even offer a hypothesis as to the cause of this force on grounds that to do so was contrary to sound science. He commented that gravity is fundamental to all the "phenomena of nature". These fundamental phenomena are still under investigation.
Which of the given options can be inferred from the above paragraph?
Newton's Reservations:
While Newton was able to formulate his law of gravity, he was deeply uncomfortable with the notion of "action at a distance" which his equations implied. In 1692, in his third letter to Bentley, he wrote: "That one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else”. He never, in his words, "assigned the cause of this power". In all other cases, he used the phenomenon of motion to explain the origin of various forces acting on bodies, but in the case of gravity, he was unable to experimentally identify the motion that produces the force of gravity. Moreover, he refused to even offer a hypothesis as to the cause of this force on grounds that to do so was contrary to sound science. He commented that gravity is fundamental to all the "phenomena of nature". These fundamental phenomena are still under investigation.
Which of the given options can be inferred from the above paragraph?
The correct option is D All of these.
Let’s see some interesting lines from above paragraph:
In the second line of the first paragraph, Newton stated that: "one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else”. This line says that gravitational force is independent of medium and so acts in vacuum also. The first line of the second paragraph tells that all phenomena of motion can be explained by gravitational force. The second line of the second paragraph tells that Newton was able to explain the motion of all bodies through gravitational force. But he was unable to experimentally identify the cause of gravity. This explanation makes option A, B and C correct.
All of these.
Let’s see some interesting lines from above paragraph:
In the second line of the first paragraph, Newton stated that: "one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else”. This line says that gravitational force is independent of medium and so acts in vacuum also. The first line of the second paragraph tells that all phenomena of motion can be explained by gravitational force. The second line of the second paragraph tells that Newton was able to explain the motion of all bodies through gravitational force. But he was unable to experimentally identify the cause of gravity. This explanation makes option A, B and C correct.
