| Newton, the great Isaac Newton, only for him, where | | | | pushed, that it will keep moving in a straight line until |
| would we be? Shanks mare perhaps? Newton's | | | | some other force acts to slow or deflect it and that |
| Philsosphiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in | | | | every action has an equal but opposite reaction and |
| 1687, is considered to be the most influential book in | | | | his universal law of gravitation - that every object in |
| the history of science. It was also described as one of | | | | the universe exerts a tug on every other object. |
| the most inaccessible books ever written, it's content | | | | These laws explained so much - ocean movements, |
| was definitely esoteric but for those few who could | | | | planetary motions, classical mechanics (paving the way |
| follow it (some accounts claim that the number was | | | | for modern engineering) - all were revealed by the |
| as low as three) it was a blinding revelation. It not only | | | | great Newton. One of its most immediate controversial |
| explained mathematically the orbits of heavenly bodies, | | | | revelations was the suggestion that the earth was not |
| but also identified the attractive force that got them | | | | round - the world were aghast, after all, they had |
| moving in the first place - gravity. And just like that | | | | already went through centuries of this palaver. |
| Newton explained how every motion in the universe | | | | However, according to Newton, the centrifugal force |
| occurred. | | | | of the Earth's spin would result in a slight flattening at |
| At the heart of the book were Newton's three laws of | | | | the poles and a bulging at the equator, which would |
| gravity - that a thing moves in the direction that it is | | | | make the planet slightly oblate. |