Voyages of Discovery: Copernicus to the Big Bang 
    http://edu-observatory.org/olli/VD-C2BB/Week3.html

                                  

  Isaac Newton (1642-1727) discovered (and showed mathematically)
  that objects in free fall (such as planets influenced by a
  central force like the Sun's gravity) follow the paths of conic
  sections.

  The task of deducing all three of Kepler's laws from Newton's
  universal law of gravitation is known as the Kepler problem. Its
  solution is one of the crowning achievements of Western thought.

  Isaac Newton's solution to "the Kepler Problem" is well presented
  in episode 22 of "The Mechanical Universe" series, mathematics
  and all... and can be viewed online at 

  The Mechanical Universe - MU-22  "The Kepler Problem" 28:30
    http://www.learner.org/resources/series42.html


  

  Implicit in the second law of motion is a reference, and motion
  is always with respect to something.

  Newton's Second Law
    http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/NewtonsSecondLaw.html

  Newton had is right, F = dp/dt is right on!

  "The motion of a particle is described by Euler's statement of
  Newton's second law, namely

			  F = ma

  Here F is the applied force, m is the mass of the particle, and
  a = dv/dt is the particle's acceleration, with v being the
  particle's velocity. This equation, together with the principle
  that bodies act symmetrically on one another--so that the force
  particle A feels from particle B is equal to the force B feels
  from A--is the basis for understanding particle dynamics".

  "Newton's law completely describes all the phenomena of classical
  mechanics...." 

  Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World
  by David Berlinski 
    http://www.amazon.com/dp/0743217764
  
  The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, by
  Isaac Newton, Trans. I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman, with the
  assistance of Julia Budenz (University of California Press:
  Berkeley, 1999)
    http://www.amazon.com/dp/0520088174
       
  "Newton's Principia for the Common Reader" by S. Chandrasekhar
  (1995) Clarendon Press, Oxford ISBN 0 19 851744 0
    http://www.amazon.com/dp/019852675X

  Quoting from "Great Physicists: The life and times of leading
  physicists from Galileo to Hawking: by William H Cropper.

  'For his final study, Chandra chose a remarkable subject--Isaac
  Newton. Chandra was a student of science history and biography, and
  he had a wide acquaintance among his contemporaries in physics and
  astrophysics. But for him one scientist stood above all those of
  the past and present, and that was Newton. He decided to pay homage
  to Newton, and try to fathom his genius, by translating "for the
  common reader" the parts of Newton's Principia that led to the
  formulation of the gravitational law.

  'Newton relied on the geometrical arguments that are all but
  incomprehensible to a modern audience. To make them more
  accessible, Chandra restated Newton's proofs in the now
  conventional mathematical languages of algebra and calculus. His
  method was to construct first his own proof for a proposition and
  then to compare it with Newton's version. "The experience was a
  sobering one," he writes. "Each time, I was left in sheer wonder at
  the elegance, the careful arrangement, the imperial style, the
  incredible originality, and above all the astonishing lightness of
  Newton's proofs, and each time I felt like a schoolboy admonished
  by the master."'

    

  Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
  
  
  
  The Mechanical Universe - MU-4  "The Law of Inertia" 28:30
    http://www.learner.org/resources/series42.html

  On the Shoulders of Giants by Steven Hawking
    http://www.amazon.com/dp/0762413484
    
    

    
     
    swormley1@mchsi.com