While not a physicist, my understanding is that Newton and his contemporaries interpreted why those equations worked as they do by positing the aether, through which phenomena were able to transit.
Only later did much math reveal that the aether couldn't be air, because that would pool up into atmospheres, and contentious and interminable debate fail perennially to resolve just what the aether actually was.
Finally, relativity did away with the aether completely, and quantum mechanics came up with the vacuum pressure, the quantum foam out of which particles spontaneously erupt, which is the present model of the universe. I don't like probability theory, and can't wait for the next theory to blow it out of the water.
The math just described how forces propagated through the aether, and that conception of reality was provably factually incorrect, even though the math works. Well, works well enough to steer rockets into orbit.
You have my permission to shoot me if I'm wrong.
If you can find me.
Just talk about evidence with these kind of zero facters.
Copy and paste, don't even talk, they will never get it, their minds cannot handle it.
@logiczombie are you on Discord? https://discord.com/invite/5nh9dj 🤠
:)
Ok.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Newton's gravitational equation is science (engineering).
Newton's aether hypothesis is merely a hypothesis.
Any perceived "flaws" in the aether hypothesis have no impact on the efficacy of Newton's gravitational equation.
HOWevEr, "a primal substrate" would seem to be a pretty good description of what Einstein calls "SPACETIME" (time and space being the same substance and also being a necessary prerequisite for all other substances).
SPACETIME = AETHER