Anaya Nolan
The law of gravity, also known as Newton's law of universal gravitation, was formulated by Sir Isaac Newton and published in 1687. Newton's law describes gravity as a force that acts instantaneously over a distance, resulting in a pull between any two objects in the universe. This concept of gravity, which is most familiar today, was considered a scientific law until Einstein's General Theory of Relativity was published more than two centuries later.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Name | Isaac Newton |
| Year of Publication | 1687 |
| Title of Publication | Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Latin for 'Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy' (the Principia)) |
| Description of Gravity | A force that instantaneously acts over a distance |
| Nature of Gravity | A force that pulls objects with mass towards each other |
| Strength of Gravity | Stronger when objects are closer together and weaker when far apart |
| Law of Gravity | Any two bodies are attracted by a force proportional to their mass and inversely proportional to their separation squared |
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What You'll Learn
Isaac Newton's discovery
Newton's theory of gravity was first formulated in 1665 or 1666. Legend has it that Newton's theory of gravitation was inspired by observing an apple fall from a tree in his mother's garden in Lincolnshire, England, and wondering why the apple fell straight down, rather than sideways or upward. Newton himself recounted this story to several contemporaries, who recorded it for posterity. Newton's theory showed that the force that makes the apple fall and holds us on the ground is the same force that keeps the Moon and planets in their orbits.
Newton's work on gravity was published in 1687 in his Principia, which combined his laws of motion with new mathematical analysis to explain Kepler's empirical results. His work on gravity was considered a scientific law until Einstein's General Theory of Relativity was published over two centuries later. Newton's theory explained gravity as a force that instantaneously acts over a distance, resulting in a pull between any two objects in the universe.
In addition to his work on gravity, Newton also made significant contributions to the fields of optics, mathematics, and science. He worked on the principles of visible light and proposed that white light is a combination of all the colours of the rainbow, leading to the development of new telescope designs. He also invented calculus and, along with German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, developed differentiation and integration techniques that remain fundamental in mathematics and science.
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Rival Robert Hooke's earlier work
Isaac Newton's 1687 description of gravity was considered a scientific law for over two centuries, until Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Newton's work unified previously described phenomena of gravity on Earth with known astronomical behaviours, marking the "first great unification".
However, before Newton's work, there were many theories explaining gravity. One of Newton's scientific rivals, Robert Hooke, was a brilliant scientist who made several discoveries. Hooke was a polymath, active as a physicist, astronomer, geologist, meteorologist, and architect.
Hooke is known for his work with microscopes, telescopes, and other scientific instruments. He was one of the first scientists to investigate living things at a microscopic scale, using a compound microscope of his own design. He also invented the Hooke joint, a universal joint that allowed his instruments to smoothly follow the motion of the observed body. He built the first practical Gregorian telescope, which used a silvered glass mirror.
Hooke's work with gravity included his announcement of a law of elasticity, which he used to demonstrate central force due to gravity. In 1665, he argued for an attracting principle of gravitation in "Micrographia", a radical departure from the contemporaneous Aristotelian celestial model. By 1670, he had penned the words: "All celestial bodies whatsoever have an attraction or gravitating power towards their own centres", which some historians believe Newton later used as his own. In 1674, he gave a Gresham lecture, "An Attempt to Prove the Motion of the Earth by Observations", in which he stated that gravitation applies to "all celestial bodies", though he did not yet provide mathematical evidence for his claims.
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Newton's apple story
The story of Newton's apple is one of the most famous in the history of science. The story goes that a young Isaac Newton was sitting under an apple tree in his family's garden at Woolsthorpe Manor when an apple fell from the tree and hit him on the head. Newton then had a sudden realisation about the force of gravity that was causing the apple to fall to the ground.
While the precise details of the story are impossible to verify, it is believed that Newton himself often told this story to acquaintances, including Voltaire, John Conduitt, Catherine Barton, William Stukeley, and Christopher Dawson. Stukeley recorded the story in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, published in 1752, in which he wrote:
> "After dinner, the weather being warm, we went into the garden and drank tea under the shade of some apple trees... he told me, he was just in the same situation, as when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasion'd by the fall of an apple, as he sat in [a] contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself..."
The apple tree in question was a Flower of Kent variety, known for its large and flavourful green apples. Despite being blown down by a storm in 1820, the tree regrew from its original roots, and its descendants and clones can be found worldwide.
Newton's observation of the falling apple led him to develop his theory of universal gravitation, which he published in 1687 in a book called Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), commonly known as the Principia. In this work, Newton laid down the foundations for his theories on the laws of gravity and motion, including his three laws of motion:
- Newton's Law of Inertia: Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.
- Newton's Second Law: The change of motion of an object is proportional to the force applied and is made in the direction that the force is applied.
- Newton's Third Law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Newton's theory of gravity revolutionised the field of physics and led to significant advancements in space travel and global positioning technology.
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Einstein's General Theory of Relativity
Isaac Newton is credited with discovering the law of gravity in 1687, describing it as a force that acts instantaneously over a distance. Newton's law of universal gravitation states that every particle attracts every other particle in the universe with a force that is proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centres of mass.
However, Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, published in 1915, offered a new understanding of gravity. According to Einstein, gravity is not a force but a result of warped spacetime caused by massive objects. This theory, also known as the general theory of relativity or Einstein's theory of gravity, is a geometric theory of gravitation.
General relativity is a physical theory about space and time, described by Einstein as a four-dimensional spacetime that obeys the Einstein equation. This equation explains how matter curves spacetime, resulting in the gravitational field. In this theory, gravity is a fictitious force that arises from the curvature of spacetime.
Einstein's theory revolutionised our understanding of gravity and space-time, leading to predictions such as black holes, gravitational waves, and gravitational lensing. It also provided a unified description of gravity, refining Newton's law and offering a more accurate explanation of gravitational phenomena.
The development of general relativity began with Einstein's thought experiment in 1907, exploring how to incorporate gravity into his relativistic framework. He presented his theory to the Prussian Academy of Science in November 1915, marking the culmination of an eight-year search for a relativistic theory of gravity.
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Newton's laws of motion
Isaac Newton is credited with discovering the laws of gravity and motion. Newton's three laws of motion explain the relationship between a physical object and the forces acting upon it. These laws form the basis of modern physics and classical mechanics.
Newton's first law states that an object at rest will remain at rest, and an object in motion will remain in motion at a constant speed and in a straight line unless compelled to change by an unbalanced force. This tendency to resist changes in the state of motion is called inertia. If all external forces cancel each other out, there is no net force acting on the object, and it will maintain its velocity.
Newton's second law defines force as equal to the change in momentum (mass times velocity) per change in time. This law can be used to determine the new values of velocity and mass if the force is known, and vice versa. It also states that the amount of acceleration is proportional to the force applied and inversely proportional to the mass of the object.
Newton's third law states that when two objects interact, they apply forces to each other of equal magnitude but in opposite directions. For example, when a basketball player shoots a jump shot, the ball follows an arcing path due to the forces acting on it.
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Frequently asked questions
Isaac Newton created the law of gravity in 1687.
Newton created the law of gravity to explain gravity as a force that acts instantaneously over a distance, resulting in a pull between any two objects in the universe.
Newton was inspired to create the law of gravity after seeing an apple fall from a tree in his mother's garden. He wondered if the same force that pulled the apple down was also at work on the moon.
