The publication, in 1687, of Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy by English scientist Sir Issac Newton was the culmination of a reduction philosophy of science that used force and action to explain the fundamentals of motion/energy, time and space/position. Newton showed how both the motions of heavenly bodies and the motions of objects on or near the surface of the Earth could be explained by four simple laws; the three laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation.

This brilliant synthesis of several apparently different topics was an extension of the work of Galileo's law of falling bodies and Kepler's law of planetary motion. Newton developed a new form of mathematics, calculus, as a framework to his new physics.

Newtonian physics is often referred to as classical physics after the development of modern physics (quantum physics) in the 1920's.

Excerpt from the Encyclopedia Britannica without permission.