Editing Isaac Newton (section)

=== Philosophy of Science ===

Starting with the second edition of his ''Principia'', Newton included a final section on science philosophy or method. It was here that he wrote his famous line, in Latin, "hypotheses non fingo", which can be translated as "I don't make hypotheses," (the direct translation of "fingo" is "frame", but in context he was advocating against the use of hypotheses in science). He went on to posit that if there is no data to explain a finding, one should simply wait for that data, rather than guessing at an explanation. The quote in part as translated is, "Hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses, for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction".<ref name="Newton 1850"/>

Newton contributed to and refined the [[scientific method]]. In his work on the properties of light in the 1670s, he showed his rigorous method, which was conducting experiments, taking detailed notes, making measurements, conducting more experiments that grew out of the initial ones, he formulated a theory, created more experiments to test it, and finally described the entire process so other scientists could replicate every step.<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |last=Tyson |first=Peter |date=15 November 2005 |title=Newton's Legacy |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/newton-legacy/ |access-date=14 November 2024 |website=www.pbs.org}}</ref>

In his 1687 ''Principia'', he outlined four rules: the first is, 'Admit no more causes of natural things than are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances'; the second is, 'To the same natural effect, assign the same causes'; the third is, 'Qualities of bodies, which are found to belong to all bodies within experiments, are to be esteemed universal'; and lastly, 'Propositions collected from observation of phenomena should be viewed as accurate or very nearly true until contradicted by other phenomena'. These rules have become the basis of the modern approaches to science.<ref name=":12">{{Cite book |last1=Carpi |first1=Anthony |url=https://archive.org/details/processofscience0000carp/page/91 |title=The Process of Science |last2=Egger |first2=Anne E. |publisher=Visionlearning |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-257-96132-0 |edition=Revised |pages=91–92}}</ref>