FOOTNOTES:

[i] “… the basic laws of physics…”

“The early modern period is seen as a flowering of the Renaissance, in what is often known as the “Scientific Revolution”, viewed as a foundation of modern science. Historians like Howard Margolis hold that the Scientific Revolution began in 1543, when Nicolaus Copernicus received the first copy of his De Revolutionibus, printed in Nuremberg (Nürnberg) by Johannes Petreius. Most of its contents had been written years prior, but the publication had been delayed. Copernicus died soon after receiving the copy.

Further significant advances were made over the following century by Galileo Galilei, Christiaan Huygens, Johannes Kepler, and Blaise Pascal. During the early seventeenth century, Galileo made extensive use of experimentation to validate physical theories, which is the key idea in the modern scientific method. Galileo formulated and successfully tested several results in dynamics, in particular the Law of Inertia. In Galileo’s Two New Sciences, a dialogue between the characters Simplicio and Salviati discuss the motion of a ship (as a moving frame) and how that ship’s cargo is indifferent to its motion. Huygens used the motion of a boat along a Dutch canal to illustrate an early form of the conservation of momentum.

The scientific revolution is considered to have culminated with the publication of the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687 by the mathematician, physicist, alchemist and inventor Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727). In 1687, Newton published the Principia, detailing two comprehensive and successful physical theories: Newton’s laws of motion, from which arise classical mechanics; and Newton’s Law of Gravitation, which describes the fundamental force of gravity. Both theories agreed well with experiment. The Principia also included several theories in fluid dynamics.

After Newton defined classical mechanics, the next great field of inquiry within physics was the nature of electricity.”

Reference:  Wikipedia.org

[ii] “…electricity…”

“Electricity would remain little more than an intellectual curiosity for over two millennia until 1600, when the English physician William Gilbert made a careful study of electricity and magnetism, distinguishing the lodestone effect from static electricity produced by rubbing amber. He coined the New Latin word electricus (“of amber” or “like amber”, from ηλεκτρον [elektron], the Greek word for “amber”) to refer to the property of attracting small objects after being rubbed. This association gave rise to the English words “electric” and “electricity”, which made their first appearance in print in Thomas Browne’s Pseudodoxia Epidemica of 1646.

Further work was conducted by Otto von Guericke, Robert Boyle, Stephen Gray and C. F. du Fay. In the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin conducted extensive research in electricity, selling his possessions to fund his work. In June 1752 he is reputed to have attached a metal key to the bottom of a dampened kite string and flown the kite in a storm-threatened sky. He observed a succession of sparks jumping from the key to the back of his hand, showing that lightning was indeed electrical in nature.

In 1791 Luigi Galvani published his discovery of bioelectricity, demonstrating that electricity was the medium by which nerve cells passed signals to the muscles. Alessandro Volta’s battery, or voltaic pile, of 1800, made from alternating layers of zinc and copper, provided scientists with a more reliable source of electrical energy than the electrostatic machines previously used. André-Marie Ampère discovered the relationship between electricity and magnetism in 1820; Michael Faraday invented the electric motor in 1821, and Georg Ohm mathematically analyzed the electrical circuit in 1827.

While it had been the early nineteenth century that had seen rapid progress in electrical science, the late nineteenth century would see the greatest progress in electrical engineering. Through such people as Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, Ernst Werner von Siemens, Alexander Graham Bell and Lord Kelvin, electricity was turned from a scientific curiosity into an essential tool for modern life, becoming a driving force for the Second Industrial Revolution.”

Reference:  Wikipedia.org

[iii] “… Sir Isaac Newton…”

“Sir Isaac Newton (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, theologian, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica was published in 1687, and said to be the greatest single work in the history of science, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler’s laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.

In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.

In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called “Newton’s method” for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.

In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed much more influential than Albert Einstein.”

Reference:  Wikipedia.org