Law of universal gravitation
Ley de gravitación universal
- Date
- 1687 · confidence high
- Place
- Cambridge, England, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Isaac Newton
- People
- 👤 Isaac Newton1642–1727
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Every mass attracts every other mass with a force proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance. It unifies the fall of an apple with the orbit of the Moon and proves Kepler's laws.
Priority dispute with Hooke over the inverse-square law; the constant G was measured by Cavendish in 1798. Merged with 'Law of universal gravitation' (duplicate, 23-09-2026).
What it led to
- Celestial mechanics and prediction of comets and planets (Neptune, 1846)
- Unification of terrestrial and celestial physics
- Concept of a universal law of nature
- General relativity as its reformulation
- Celestial mechanics
- Prediction of Halley's Comet
- Discovery of Neptune by calculation
- Astronautics
Built on
- Kepler's laws of planetary motion1609-1619
- Huygens's centrifugal force
- Speculations of Hooke and Borelli
Made possible
- Vis-viva equation1687
- Halley's Comet periodicity and predicted return1705 (retorno 1758)
- Bošković's theory of forces (Theoria philosophiae naturalis)1758
- Astronomical unit from the transits of Venus1761-1769
- Discovery of Uranus1781
- Legendre polynomials1782
- Cavendish experiment: measuring the gravitational constant1798
- Physical binary stars1803
- Discovery of Neptune by calculation1846
- Gravitational light deflection confirmed (1919 eclipse)1919
- Tidal calculation
- Geodesy and the shape of the Earth
- Satellite navigation and astronautics
- Orbit calculation
- Analytical mechanics