Newton's Principia and universal gravitation
- Date
- 1687
- Category
- Science, technology & invention
- Region
- England (London / Cambridge)
- Era
- Early Modern
- Significance
In 1687 Isaac Newton published Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), printed under the authorisation of the Royal Society after Edmond Halley urged him to write it and underwrote the costs.
In three books and rigorous geometrical proofs, Newton set out his three laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation, which holds that every body attracts every other with a force proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. With these principles he unified terrestrial and celestial mechanics, showing that the same force governing a falling apple or a thrown stone also keeps the Moon in orbit and guides the planets and comets. He derived Kepler's empirical laws of planetary motion from his theory, demonstrated that spherical bodies attract as if their mass were concentrated at their centre, and accounted for the tides and the orbits of comets. The Principia is regarded as one of the most important works in the history of science: it provided the mathematical foundation of classical mechanics, crowned the Scientific Revolution, and defined the framework of physics until Einstein.
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Empires active in 1687
- Mughal Empire1526 CE – 1857 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE – 1974 CE
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE – 1922 CE
- Qing Dynasty1636 CE – 1912 CE
Related science, technology & invention events
- Watt patents the rotative steam engine1781
- Edward Jenner Develops Smallpox Vaccination14 May 1796
- Copernicus publishes De revolutionibus and the heliocentric universe1543
- Founding of the Royal Society of London28 November 1660 (chartered 1662)
- Variolation against smallpox reaches Europe1721
- West African Variolation Knowledge Transmitted to the Americas via Onesimus1721 (knowledge conveyed c. 1716; campaign 1721-1722)
Further reading
If you read one book
Isaac Newton
Concise, elegant biography of the scientific giant.
Get it on Amazon →Also worth reading
- Newton — Amazon →
Newton
Short, elegant 150-page life of Newton and his science for the general reader.
Get it on Amazon →
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