physics: The Scientific Revolution

The first areas of physics to receive close attention were mechanics and the study of planetary motions. Modern mechanics dates from the work of Galileo and Simon Stevin in the late 16th and early 17th cent. The great breakthrough in astronomy was made by Nicolaus Copernicus, who proposed (1543) the heliocentric model of the solar system that was later modified by Johannes Kepler (using observations by Tycho Brahe) into the description of planetary motions that is still accepted today. Galileo gave his support to this new system and applied his discoveries in mechanics to its explanation.

The full explanation of both celestial and terrestrial motions was not given until 1687, when Isaac Newton published his Principia [Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy]. This work, the most important document of the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th cent., contained Newton's famous three laws of motion and showed how the principle of universal gravitation could be used to explain the behavior not only of falling bodies on the earth but also planets and other celestial bodies in the heavens. To arrive at his results, Newton invented one form of an entirely new branch of mathematics, the calculus (also invented independently by G. W. Leibniz), which was to become an essential tool in much of the later development in most branches of physics.

Other branches of physics also received attention during this period. William Gilbert, court physician to Queen Elizabeth I, published (1600) an important work on magnetism, describing how the earth itself behaves like a giant magnet. Robert Boyle (1627–91) studied the behavior of gases enclosed in a chamber and formulated the gas law named for him; he also contributed to physiology and to the founding of modern chemistry.

Newton himself discovered the separation of white light into a spectrum of colors and published an important work on optics, in which he proposed the theory that light is composed of tiny particles, or corpuscles. This corpuscular theory was related to the mechanistic philosophy presented early in the 17th cent. by René Descartes, according to which the universe functioned like a mechanical system describable in terms of mathematics. A rival theory of light, explaining its behavior in terms of Waves, was presented in 1690 by Christian Huygens, but the belief in the mechanistic philosophy together with the great weight of Newton's reputation was such that the wave theory gained relatively little support until the 19th cent.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Particles, Energy, and Contemporary Physics
• Relativity and Quantum Mechanics
• Birth of Modern Physics
• Advances in Electricity, Magnetism, and Thermodynamics
• Development of Mechanics and Thermodynamics
• The Scientific Revolution
• Preservation of Learning
• Greek Contributions
• Modern Physics
• Classical Physics
• Bibliography

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