Newton's Principia
Isaac Newton publishes the laws of motion and universal gravitation, establishing the mechanistic worldview that dominates for 200 years.
Explore this event on the interactive timeline →The Principia Mathematica unified terrestrial and celestial mechanics for the first time, demonstrating that the same laws govern falling apples and orbiting planets.
Perspective
Newton didn't just discover physics — he demonstrated that the universe was comprehensible through mathematics. That's the real revolution: the conviction that nature has rules we can discover. Everything from the steam engine to the iPhone descends from this mindset.