Newton publishes the Principia
Newton publishes the Principia
Overview
In 1687 Isaac Newton published the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, deriving Kepler's laws from a single inverse-square law of universal gravitation. It unified falling bodies, planetary orbits, comets and tides under one mathematical framework, ending the ancient divide between terrestrial and celestial physics. The Principia made astronomy a predictive science founded on dynamics, a paradigm that dominated until general relativity.