Science & technology

Newton's laws of motion

5 July 1687

Newton's laws of motion were published in the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, one of the most important works in the history of science, which appeared with the support of the astronomer Edmond Halley, who encouraged and paid for its printing. The first law says that a body stays at rest or in uniform motion unless a force acts on it, the second that its acceleration is proportional to the force and inversely to its mass, and the third that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In the same book Isaac Newton presented the law of universal gravitation. Together they explained the motion of planets and falling objects and formed the foundation of classical mechanics, later refined by relativity and quantum theory.

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This moment belongs to the Early modern world (1500 CE to 1760 CE), voyages, printing and new ideas. You can also browse everything in the 17th century.