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Fortunately for my son the engineer, he got his mother’s math and physics abilities. I look at calculus and see Latin. Speaking of which, July 5, 1687 is when one of the most important math and physics books, Sir Isaac Newton’s Mathematical Principals of Natural Philosophy, was published. In Latin.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: July 5, 1687--
So, what’s in it and why does it matter? Here is the “guy who sucks at math” interpretation. (I should have had my son fact check this before publishing.)
Newton’s laws of motion: three physical laws forming the foundation of classical mechanics, which are not people who play Mozart and work on cars. There is the inertia one, but a lot of people don’t realize that’s not just about a body in motion staying in motion unless acted on by an outside force. It is also about staying at rest. Like, when Netflix asks, “Are you still watching?” Yes, I’m still fucking watching because I’m suffering from inertia and can’t get off this goddamn couch unless acted upon by the outside force of that beer I drank needing to vacate the premises.
The two other laws I don’t really understand so look it up.
There was also some stuff about gravity and how it sucks. I guess this was important because he used “empirical observation” and “inductive reasoning” to develop a “physical law” of the universe of how when you’re drunk some invisible force sucks your face toward the ground. Not a hypothesis or a theory; gravity is the fucking law! There was probably no apple.
The book also had some stuff about how planets move, with a hat tip to German astronomer Kepler.
Newton’s book was presented to The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, but they’d just blown their publishing wad on a book titled A History of Fishes, which I’m sure is fascinating. And so, Edmond Halley—the comet guy—came up with the cash to publish Newton’s book. Tragically, the fish book sold poorly; the Royal Society took a bath on it and ended up telling Halley they’d not be able to afford his salary as clerk of the society, so they paid him with excess copies of the fish book.
Newton’s book was way more popular than the fish one; no other is more seminal to the development of modern physics. And it stood up for more than two centuries until Einstein said, “Newton, I love ya, but shit is actually weirder than this.” And then he wrote some shit about warping space and time and I don’t know ask my son.
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