When taking a physics class in high school or in college the most common is that you are starting of with the most classic rules of nature, understood as classical mechanics. The defintion of mechanics in general is that mechanics is the area of mathematics and physics concerned with the relationships between force, matter, and motion among physical objects.
Classical mechanics gives the fundamental understanding of physics in our macro cosmos. As teased before the macro cosmos includes everything besides atoms and subatomic particles in general. The physical science of these objects fall in an area known as quantum mechanics and differentiate objects from the micro and the macro cosmos.
My experience with mechanics sadly does not go beyond simple examples of forces and motion but I still love how we came up with those ideas and how they evolved over the last few hundreds when not even thousands of years. I am still in the learning process and I just shortly came in touch with calculus, a mathematical tool invented by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. But how did the science behind moving objects actually start?
Among the first of proposing abstract principles for govern nature were ancient Greek philosophers. They developed a method of analysing bodies both statically and dynamically.
In the Middle Ages, the theories of the ancient Greek philosophers wer highly criticised and modified by a number of figures, under it was the well-known Persian mathematician Ibn Sina.
Ibn Sina published his theory of motion in “The Book of Healing” in the year 1020. He proposed that momentum is imparted to a projectile by the thrower, and viewed it as persistent, requiring external forces such as air resistance to dissipate it. With this theory he claimed that a projectile in a vacuum would not stop unless it is acted upon, which is actually consistent with Newton's first law of motion.
When continuing the article with Isaac Newton we can see that he made a major impact to the world of classical mechanics and mathematics. Besides giving fundamental rules for our nature and developing methods to describe them he also is one of the inventors of calculus, the mathematical study of continuous change. He released his work in the year 1687 with the book “Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica” which provided a mathematical account of mechanics, using this newly developed mathematical tool.
With the tools provided by Newton we now had a more detailed and more specific explanation for the world around us. With the brilliant work he made with calculus he changed the world in every region and helped developing all kinds of modern technology from which a lot of them made the world a better place for all of humanity.
The history of mechanics gives us a great look on who and when methods were developed and what they made of an impact to the future. Talking about this history really made me appreciate todays technology and the world understanding that we already have. Last but not least mathematics really is the language with which we can understand the world of physics and that’s why I will work on a more detailed description behind mechanics with a brief use of the developed math. This will be published on the 9th of October, so subscribe to not miss it.
I want to leave you with a book suggestion which goes in more detail of the history of physics.
The Science of Mechanics by Ernst Mach:
A book that inspired Einstein to start his work and fascinated him about physics.
For my German readers I recommend:
Eine kleine Nachtphysik: Große Ideen und ihre Entdecker
Dieses Buch beschreibt, wie die besten Entdecker der Physik auf ihre grandiosen Ideen gekommen sind.