ABSTRACT
Newton’s edifice is venerated as one of the greatest scientific achievements, notwithstanding the fact that it has been overthrown by the revolutions of modern physics. Induction into Newtonian physics is still regarded as the essential first step in the training of a physicist. The Copernican revolution in astronomy created a crisis in physics. The ancient cosmology of Aristotle had neatly separated the celestial and terrestrial worlds and had given them different laws. One of the achievements of the special and general theories of relativity is often said to be the elimination of Absolute Space and Time from physics. The bucket thought-experiment shows decisively that Descartes’ ‘proper motion’ is not mechanically significant. The significance of the Third Law is often left as obscure as the wording. Absolute Space is independent of particular material things, as Absolute Time is of particular processes of change.
