Alternative World - no Newton
 

Isaac Newton, born prematurely, dies after six hours in this vale of tears. How does this world, tentatively called Newton-Null, differ from ours (all other things up to that moment being equal)?

Re: Alternative World - no Newton
 

Sheldon Cooper figures gravity out on his own.

I kid of course, but I'd like to find out myself.

Re: Alternative World - no Newton
 

Leibnitz spends less time arguing and uses the time to invent even more math.

Flamsteed becomes a household name for his theory of gravitation.

Probably doesn't affect the Rosicrucians much.

Re: Alternative World - no Newton
 

Vision of Escaflowne has a far less-interesting BBEG, and SI's unit of force has a different name.

More seriously, I've read before that, rather than the first scientist, Isaac Newton was more like the last alchemist. While he did do a great deal to advance science, I'm unconvinced someone (or someones) couldn't have managed similar feats. Science may be slightly retarded by a decade or two, but probably isn't fundamentally different.

Re: Alternative World - no Newton
 

The thing is, Newton didn't just work on gravity. He made significant contributions to all the fields of physics that were present at the time. Some of them he invented himself - I think optics was one of them. He was really a key figure.

Re: Alternative World - no Newton
 

Nobody exists in a vacuum and nature is always there to teach us. Somebody else, or multiple somebodies do all the same work within a few decades of 1600 either way.

Re: Alternative World - no Newton
 

All Newton physics didn't occurs... so, gravity is a kind of psionic enegy from Earth, the attraction body is a kind of alchemical process, ect...
Another Azoth world is born

:) the truth is always the perception and not the perception reveal the truth.

Re: Alternative World - no Newton
 

Newton did make some administrative contributions, too. Something he did while Master of the Mint is supposed to have been significant in moving Britain from a de facto silver standard to a de facto gold standard, and quite possibly Flamsteed would have died before publishing his figures unless Newton had sent bailiffs with a search warrant to seize them.

I'd back Robert Hooke ahead of John Flamsteed to get to gravity first.

Re: Alternative World - no Newton
 

I have run a similar situation in my Infinite Cabal campaign. That's based in a world where Newton's occult work was rather successful, and he's now a Grand Master of the Cabal, with the Royal Society as his lodge.

The PCs work for the Royal Society exploring the IW, and have some rather large objectives ("Find out why there are all these worlds, how they are created and why they are different.") It's a reasonably effective way to run a Cabal campaign.

They have visited a world they call Sans-Newton, where Newton died in the plague of 1666. The relevant chunk of the campaign journal, kept by one of the PCs is here.

Re: Alternative World - no Newton
 

Archaeology and anthropology develop sooner because Newton isn't around to keep antiquarians and related scholars out of the Royal Society.

Everybody eats Leibniz biscuits instead of Fig Newtons.