Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 13, 2025

Neutron Radiography and Computed Tomography of Biological Systems at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's High Flux Isotope Reactor
Published on: May 7, 2021
Disregarding evidence: Reasonable options for Newton and Rutherford?
1Johns Hopkins University, USA.
Abstract:
To determine whether, and to what extent, you are justified in believing a proposition you need to consider all the relevant evidence available to you, not just some part of it. So says the "Requirement of Total Evidence" (RTE). If you violate this you are unreasonable. Are you? Two scientific cases will be presented to defend the answer: Not necessarily. The first involves Newton's argument for universal gravity, the second, Rutherford's argument for his model of the atom. These cases, it will be argued, show something important about the limitations of RTE and about reasonable belief. At the end a way of rethinking RTE will be proposed.
Related Concept Videos
01:22Rutherford's Atomic Model
Subatomic Particles
Newton's First Law: Introduction
Space-Time Curvature and the General Theory of Relativity
This has been verified in many experiments. However, space and time are no longer absolute. Two observers moving relative to one another do not agree on the length of objects or the passage of time. The mechanics of objects based on Newton's laws of...
01:22Thomson's Atomic Model
Detection of Black Holes
Their closest cousins are neutron stars, which are composed almost entirely of neutrons packed against each other, making them extremely dense. A neutron star has the same mass as the Sun but its diameter is only a few kilometers. Therefore, the escape velocity from their surface is close to the speed of light.
Not until the 1960s, when the first neutron...

