- The Oxford Handbook of The History of Physics
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
- Was There a Scientific Revolution?
- Galileo’s Mechanics of Natural Motion and Projectiles
- Cartesian Physics
- Physics and the Instrument-Makers, 1550–1700
- Newton’s <i>Principia</i>
- Newton’s Optics
- Experimentation in the Physical Sciences of the Seventeenth Century
- Mathematics and the New Sciences
- The Physics of Imponderable Fluids
- Physics on Show: Entertainment, Demonstration, and Research in the Long Eighteenth Century
- Instruments and Instrument-Makers, 1700–1850
- Mechanics in the Eighteenth Century
- Laplace and the Physics of Short-Range Forces
- Electricity and Magnetism to Volta
- Optics in the Nineteenth Century
- Thermal Physics and Thermodynamics
- Engineering Energy: Constructing a New Physics for Victorian Britain
- Electromagnetism and Field Physics
- Electrodynamics from Thomson and Maxwell to Hertz
- From Workshop to Factory: The Evolution of the Instrument-Making Industry, 1850–1930
- Physics Textbooks and Textbook Physics in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
- Physics and Medicine
- Physics and Metrology
- Rethinking ‘Classical Physics’
- The Emergence of Statistical Mechanics
- Three and a Half Principles: The Origins of Modern Relativity Theory
- Quantum Physics
- The Silicon Tide: Relations between Things Epistemic and Things of Function in the Semiconductor World
- Physics and Cosmology
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Abstract and Keywords
This article focuses on mechanics in the eighteenth century. The publication in 1687 of Isaac Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy has long been regarded as the event that ushered in the modern period in mathematical physics. The success and scope of the Principia heralded the arrival of mechanics as the model for the mathematical investigation of nature. This subject would be at the cutting edge of science for the next two centuries. This article first provides an overview of the fundamental principles and theorems of mechanics, including the principles of inertia and relativity, before discussing the dynamics of rigid bodies. It also considers the formulation of mechanics by Jean-Baptiste le Rond d’Alembert and Joseph-Louis Lagrange, the statics and dynamics of elastic bodies, and the mechanics of fluids. Finally, it describes major developments in celestial mechanics.
Keywords: mechanics, Isaac Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, mathematical physics, rigid bodies, Jean-Baptiste le Rond d’Alembert, Joseph-Louis Lagrange, elastic bodies, fluids, celestial mechanics
Department of Mathematics, University of Turin
Professor at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, Victoria College, University of Toronto
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- The Oxford Handbook of The History of Physics
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
- Was There a Scientific Revolution?
- Galileo’s Mechanics of Natural Motion and Projectiles
- Cartesian Physics
- Physics and the Instrument-Makers, 1550–1700
- Newton’s <i>Principia</i>
- Newton’s Optics
- Experimentation in the Physical Sciences of the Seventeenth Century
- Mathematics and the New Sciences
- The Physics of Imponderable Fluids
- Physics on Show: Entertainment, Demonstration, and Research in the Long Eighteenth Century
- Instruments and Instrument-Makers, 1700–1850
- Mechanics in the Eighteenth Century
- Laplace and the Physics of Short-Range Forces
- Electricity and Magnetism to Volta
- Optics in the Nineteenth Century
- Thermal Physics and Thermodynamics
- Engineering Energy: Constructing a New Physics for Victorian Britain
- Electromagnetism and Field Physics
- Electrodynamics from Thomson and Maxwell to Hertz
- From Workshop to Factory: The Evolution of the Instrument-Making Industry, 1850–1930
- Physics Textbooks and Textbook Physics in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
- Physics and Medicine
- Physics and Metrology
- Rethinking ‘Classical Physics’
- The Emergence of Statistical Mechanics
- Three and a Half Principles: The Origins of Modern Relativity Theory
- Quantum Physics
- The Silicon Tide: Relations between Things Epistemic and Things of Function in the Semiconductor World
- Physics and Cosmology
- Name Index
- Subject Index
