Mechanics and motion
Feel the coupled oscillations on the partner swing. © Jörg F. Müller
Motion and the development of the natural sciences
Precise knowledge about movement was one of the main reasons that science was able to develop so successfully in the time between Aristotle (384–322 BCE) and Galileo Galilei (1564–1642). Exactly how things moved was known very early on. But back then nobody was really able to explain satisfactorily why things moved as they did.
The English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton (1643–1727) was the first to find a convincing answer to that question, when he placed the general relationship between gravity and motion at the centre of his thinking. Thus Newton came to be the founder of classical mechanics.
By the way: It is said that the solution came to Newton when he was sitting beneath an apple tree and a ripe apple fell on his head...