Researched
Newtonian Mechanics
Newton's Principia (1687) explain falling apples and planets with three laws of motion and one law of gravitation.
Open in the interactive tree →Newton showed that the same force that pulls a stone down also holds the Moon on its orbit, and he derived Kepler's laws from it using calculus. For 200 years this mechanics was the model of an exact science and the basis of machines, ballistics and celestial navigation. Its limits (very fast, very small, very massive) led to relativity and quantum mechanics.
Prerequisites
Unlocks
- Enlightenment & Encyclopedia1715-1789
- Partial Differential Equations1747
- Balloon Flight1783
- Electric Charge & Coulomb1785
- Aerodynamics & Gliders1799-1896
- Wave Optics (Young, Fresnel)1801
- Thermodynamics1824
- Water Turbine1827
- Electromagnetism1831-1865
- Discovery of Neptune1846
- Airplane1903
- Tsiolkovsky's Rocket Equation1903
- Theory of Relativity1905
- Seismology: inside the Earth1906
- Gyrocompass & Autopilot1908
- Noether's Theorem1918
- Hohmann Transfer Orbits1925
- Quantum Mechanics1925
- Milankovitch orbital cycles1941
- Liquid-fuel rocket (V-2)1942
- Numerical weather prediction1950
- Chaos Theory1963
- Evidence for Dark Matter1970
- Exoplanet discovery1995Radial-velocity planet detection fits Newtonian orbital motion
- A theory of turbulenceopen
- Navier-Stokes Problemopen