A simple Cartesian treatment of planetary motion

1 July 1993

journal article
Published by IOP Publishing in European Journal of Physics

Vol. 14 (4), 145-147
https://doi.org/10.1088/0143-0807/14/4/001

Abstract

Two famous theorems are proved in a simple manner. First, it is proved that planets pursuing Keplerian trajectories have accelerations which conform to Newton's central 1/R² equation. Then it is proved that, conversely, planetary orbits must be Keplerian if Newton's central 1/R² equation holds true.

Keywords

PLANETARY MOTION
CARTESIAN TREATMENT
KEPLERIAN
SIMPLE CARTESIAN
NEWTON'S CENTRAL 1/R2
CENTRAL 1/R2 EQUATION

This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit:

From Newton to Einstein
The American Mathematical Monthly, 1992

Cited by 5 articles