Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica

Issac Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy),known as Principia marks the dawn of modern physics. No other book in physics is more celebrated than Principia. Beginning with the three laws of motion, Newton explains the eccentric paths of comets, notes the similarity between sound waves and ripples on a pond, and makes his famous case that gravity guides the orbit of the moon as surely as it defines the trajectory of a tossed pebble.

No work was more seminal in the development of modern physics and astronomy than Newton's Principia. Its conclusion that the force retaining the planets in their orbits is one in kind with terrestrial gravity ended forever the view dating back at least to Aristotle that the celestial realm calls for one science and the sublunar realm, another. The ultimate success of Newton's theory of gravity made the identification of the fundamental forces of nature and their characterization in laws the primary pursuit of physics. The success of the theory led as well to a new conception of exact science under which every systematic discrepancy between observation and theory, no matter how small, is taken as telling us something important about the world.