English physicist Sir Isaac Newton's (1642-1727) 1687 work, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) advanced a law of universal gravitation that had a profound impact on the scientific and philosophical world. Newton's law specifies that objects with mass attract each other with a force that varies directly as the product of their masses and inversely as the square of the distance between the objects. Along with Newton's laws of motion, his law of gravitation became one of the key components in the development of physical theory.

Perhaps the most famous contribution of Isaac Newton to science was his theory of gravitation. As reported by the French philosopher, Voltaire: "One day in the year 1666, Newton had gone to the country, and seeing the fall of an apple, as his niece told me, let himself be led into a deep...