How did Newton's Principia impact science?
What will be an ideal response?
After the Principia was published, physicists and astronomers understood that the motions of celestial bodies are governed by simple, universal rules that describe the motions of everything from orbiting planets to falling apples. Suddenly the Universe was understandable in simple terms, and astronomers could accurately predict future planetary motions.
The Principia also changed science in general. The works of Copernicus and Kepler had been mathematical, but no book before the Principia had so clearly demonstrated the power of mathematics as a language of precision. Newton's arguments in his book were such powerful illustrations of the quantitative study of nature that scientists around the world adopted mathematics as their most powerful tool.
Finally, the Principia changed the way people thought about nature. Newton showed that the rules that govern the Universe are simple. Particles move according to just three laws of motion, and attract each other with a force called gravity. These motions are predictable, and that makes the Universe seem like a vast machine, but one whose operations are based on a few simple rules. The Universe is complex only in that it contains a vast number of particles. In Newton's view, if he knew the location and motion of every particle in the Universe, he could, in principle, derive the past and future of the Universe in every detail. This idea of mechanical determinism has been modified by modern quantum mechanics (laws that govern behavior of particles inside atoms), but it dominated science for more than two centuries. During those years, scientists thought of nature primarily as a beautiful clockwork that would be perfectly predictable if they knew how all the gears meshed.
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