![]() ![]() Newton stated his laws of motion in his 1687 masterpiece, the Principia Mathematica, in which he also introduced his formulation of the calculus (what we now call simply calculus, a different version of which was simultaneously developed by Leibnitz). For nearly 400 years these laws have remained unchallenged even Einstein's Theory of Relativity is consistent with them. The laws are: (1) A body at rest or moving in a straight line will continue to do so unless acted upon by an external force (2) The acceleration of a moving object is proportional to and in the same direction as the force acting on it and inversely proportional to the object's mass and (3) For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Along with his law of gravitation, Newton's three laws of motion, which laid the basis for the science of mechanics, bridged the gap between scientific thinking about terrestrial and celestial dynamics. According to the famous-and possibly true-story, he observed an apple falling from a tree and, remarkably, connected the force drawing the apple to the ground with that keeping the Moon in its orbit. His universal law of gravitation states that there is an attractive force acting between all bodies in the universe. Perhaps his greatest achievement was to demonstrate that scientific principles have universal applications. ![]() Newton returned to his family home in Lincolnshire and, working alone, did some of his most important scientific work. In 1665, the year he received his bachelor's degree, an outbreak of the bubonic plague caused Cambridge to close for two years. Newton spent most of his working life at Cambridge University. The British mathematician and physicist Sir Isaac Newton stands as one of the greatest scientists of all time.
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