People were worried, mostly about everything, but particularly about why things stayed on the ground. Apples fell. Horses galloped. Cannonballs soared (briefly) and came crashing down. But no one was quite sure why the moon didn’t join in and plummet to Earth in the same enthusiastic fashion.
And then on July 5, 1687, Isaac Newton published a book with a title so long it felt like a Latin riddle: Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. In three volumes, Newton calmly explained how the universe kept its house in order. Why apples fall, why planets don’t wander off, and why we aren’t all quietly drifting into space every time we sneeze.
The Principia might never have seen the light of day if not for Edmund Halley—the comet chap—who personally bankrolled the printing. Newton, brilliant as he was, had managed to fall out with the only other mathematician capable of understanding him. (This was the 17th-century version of crowdfunding, only with fewer emails and more quills.)
The Royal Society, which should have funded such an important work, had unfortunately blown their entire publishing budget on De Historia Piscium—an extravagant illustrated guide to fish that proved about as popular as the chocolate teapot. So when Newton presented his revolutionary handbook for understanding the universe, they essentially shrugged and said, “Looks fascinating, but we’re broke. Best of luck finding a publisher. As gratitude, please accept this copy of the History of Fishes.”
Halley’s intervention saved science from being reduced to “things fall down because they do” for another century.
In the 337 years since, Newton’s ideas have been used for all sorts of fussy yet vital activities: building bridges that don’t collapse, plotting planetary orbits, and explaining why toast inevitably lands butter-side down.
NASA still uses Newton’s framework today. They strap adventurous humans into enormous cylinders, set off controlled explosions underneath, and fling them into space—because three centuries later, it’s still the best idea we’ve got.
We treat the Principia as a sacred text, but it’s really just a rulebook for how objects behave. Big ones, like moons and planets. And small ones, like apples, cannonballs, and the pen you dropped under the fridge last week.
Newton’s laws gave us a universe that made sense—mostly. They made possible everything from satellite launches to the quiet reassurance that, barring catastrophe, your kettle isn’t going anywhere.
Today, we celebrate 337 years of objects falling over in a way we can more or less predict. Physics students may still curse Newton’s name during exams, but the rest of us can be quietly grateful he wrote down the fine print of reality so we didn’t have to.
Fancy more tales of science, silliness, and improbable feats of human ingenuity?
Tune into The Multiverse Employee Handbook—the only podcast that treats Newtonian physics like a bureaucratic policy memo with optional tea breaks.
🎧 Listen here and let us help you understand why the universe isn’t floating off into a filing cabinet marked “To Be Sorted Later.”