The clockwork universe

–Karthik Gurumurthy

Modern Science can be said to have started with the work of Isaac Newton (1642-1727)  in England. According to Newton, the universe is something like a clock. In a clock, the external appearance- the slow sleeping of the hands- is the result of the motion of internal gears. In the same way, all the natural phenomena we see in the world around us are the result of natural laws working beneath the surface of things.

For Newton, the key fact about motion was that it occurs in response to the action of one or more forces. The “gears” that connect forces and motion are Newton’s three Laws of Motion, and they apply to everything that moves. Gases streaming out of an exploding star, a Cricket ball bowled to a batsman, and blood cells in your arteries all move in compliance with these very simple, but very general, laws.

We will start with Motion tomorrow.