The Perihelic Rotation of Mercury by Newton's Original Method
Jorge C. Cur
Keywords: perihelic rotation, Mercury, Newtonian solution, classical mechanics, anamalous motion
The purpose of the paper is to show that the dynamical solution of the socalled "anamalous motion" of the planet Mercury, or excess perihelic motion of the planets, appeared for the first time in Newton's Principia in 1687, long before the actual astromonical phenomenon was discovered by LeVerrier in 1859. This historical fact invalidates Einstein's assertion that "Classical Mechanics is powerless" to explain this astrodynamic phenomenon. It is also shown that this Newtonian solution of the excess perihelic motion of the planets provides two additional gravitational terms: one repulsive and another attractive.
