I found myself reading the Principia as literature rather than the series of proofs it appears to be.
. . . series of proofs it appears to be.
Very perceptive. Indeed Newton’s Principia only “appears” to be a series of proofs. There is hardly any proposition that does not refer to another as proof. And chasing them usually exhausts the reader who soon gives up and accepts Newton’s authority, after all this is Newton, he must have proved it somewhere somehow, right, even if we don’t know about it?
What is more important to realize is that it is totally irrelevant if Newton proves a theorem or not. Readers of the Principia have been listening to Newton’s own propaganda about how to read his book. None of those geometrical-like proofs are used in actual astronomical calculations supposedly proving Newtonian dynamical laws. Those calculations are in III.4, III.8, I.57, I.58, I.59 and I.60 and these are independent of the rest of the book.
So, from the start physics was designed to be a cargo cult. Proofs are faked. Computations are faked. Experiments are faked. Then all faked stuff are proved by authority. The Newtonian school is established. A legal mechanics is developed and all observations are saved by fitting to mechanics and marketed as verification of Newtonian ideology. If you don’t understand this process don’t bother. It’s totally irrelevant anyway.
But understand that Newton is the new Aristotle.
Newton’s disciples the physicists have turned Newton into their own Aristotle. You may think General Relativity is not Newtonian physics. It is. Just look at the constant used in so-called Einstein’s equations. Newton is one of the best and strongest brands ever created in any field.
I realize that it is as useful to criticize Newton’s book as criticizing Apple’s iPod. You see how the old apple trope works in apparently different fields: In Christianity, in physics and in consumer products. But these are not different fields. They are all defined and driven by marketing.
Understanding that physics is ruled by marketing departments of the global Unhuman Organism will make it clear to you why physics is a mixture of religion and cargo cult.
