Laws of motion and gravity

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Overview

Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, set out three laws of motion and a law of universal gravitation. With them one set of mathematical rules accounted for falling bodies, tides, comets and the orbits of the planets. The achievement made the universe look like an ordered system that human reason could calculate, and it became the model for what a scientific theory should be: few principles, exact mathematics and testable predictions.

Context

Before Newton, Kepler had described planetary orbits and Galileo had studied falling bodies, but the two were not joined. Aristotle's older physics held that heavenly and earthly motion followed different rules. Newton worked in England in the later seventeenth century, helped by the Royal Society, and developed his own calculus, which led to a later dispute with Leibniz over credit.