Timeline of classical mechanics

Early history

• 260 BC
  260 BC
  -Sicily:* The Roman advance continues westward from Agrigentum with their forces relieving the besieged cities of Segesta and Macella. These cities have sided with the Roman cause, and have come under Carthaginian attack for doing so....
  
   - Archimedes
  Archimedes
  Archimedes of Syracuse was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity...
  
   mathematically works out the principle of the lever
  Lever
  In physics, a lever is a rigid object that is used with an appropriate fulcrum or pivot point to multiply the mechanical force that can be applied to another object....
  
   and discovers the principle of buoyancy
  Buoyancy
  In physics, buoyancy is the upward force that keeps things afloat. The net upward buoyancy force is equal to the magnitude of the weight of fluid displaced by the body. This force enables the object to float or at least seem lighter....
  
  
• 60
  60
  Year 60 was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.-Roman Empire:* Romans build the first London Bridge.* Boudica sacks London ....
  
   AD - Hero of Alexandria
  Hero of Alexandria
  Hero of Alexandria . was an ancient Greek mathematician who was a resident of a Roman province ; he was also an engineer who was active in his native city of Alexandria...
  
   writes Metrica, Mechanics, and Pneumatics
• 1000-1030 - Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī introduces experiment
  Experiment
  In scientific research, an experiment is a method of investigating causal relationships among variables, or to test a hypothesis. An experiment is a cornerstone of the empirical approach to acquiring data about the world and is used in both natural sciences and social sciences...
  
  al scientific method
  Scientific method
  Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific...
  
  s in statics
  Statics
  Statics is the branch of mechanics concerned with the analysis of loads on physical systems in static equilibrium, that is, in a state where the relative positions of subsystems do not vary over time, or where components and structures are at a constant velocity...
  
   and dynamics
  Analytical dynamics
  In classical mechanics, analytical dynamics, or more briefly dynamics, is concerned about the relationship between motion of bodies and its causes, namely the forces acting on the bodies and the properties of the bodies...
  
  , and unifies them into the science
  Science
  Science is in its broadest sense to any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice that is capable of resulting in a prediction or predictable type of outcome...
  
   of mechanics
  Mechanics
  Mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the behaviour of physical bodies when subjected to forces or displacements, and the subsequent effect of the bodies on their environment....
  
  ; he also combines the fields of hydrostatics with dynamics to create the field of hydrodynamics, and realizes that acceleration
  Acceleration
  In physics, and more specifically kinematics, acceleration is the change in velocity over time. Because velocity is a vector, it can change in two ways: a change in magnitude and/or a change in direction. In one dimension, i.e. a line, acceleration is the rate at which something speeds up or slows...
  
   is connected with non-uniform motion
  Motion (physics)
  In physics, motion means a change in the location of a body. Change in motion is the result of applied force. Motion is typically described in terms of velocity, acceleration, displacement, and time. An object's velocity cannot change unless it is acted upon by a force, as described by Newton's...
  
  
• 1000-1030 - Alhazen and Avicenna
  Avicenna
  , known as Abū Alī Sīnā or Ibn Sīnā , and commonly known in English by his Latinized name Avicenna , was a Persian polymath and the foremost physician and philosopher of his time...
  
   develop the concepts of inertia
  Inertia
  Inertia is the resistance of any physical object, to a change in its state of motion. It is represented numerically by an object's mass. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to describe the motion of matter and how it is affected by...
  
   and momentum
  Momentum
  In classical mechanics, momentum is the product of the mass and velocity of an object . For more accurate measures of momentum, see the section "modern definitions of momentum" on this page...
  
  
• 1100-1138 - Avempace
  Ibn Bajjah
  Abū-Bakr Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn al-Sāyigh , known as Ibn Bājjah , was an Andalusian-Arab Muslim polymath: an astronomer, logician, musician, philosopher, physician, physicist, psychologist, poet and scientist. He was known in the West by his Latinized name, Avempace...
  
   develops the concept of a reaction
  Reaction (physics)
  In classical mechanics, Newton's third law states that forces occur in pairs, one called the Action and the other the Reaction . Both forces are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction...
  
   force
• 1100-1165 - Hibat Allah Abu'l-Barakat al-Baghdaadi
  Hibat Allah Abu'l-Barakat al-Baghdaadi
  Hibat Allah Abu'l-Barakat al-Baghdaadi was a Muslim physicist, philosopher, psychologist and scientist of Jewish-Arab descent from Baghdad, Iraq. His Hebrew birth name was Nathanel. It is known that Abu-l-Barakat had converted from Judaism to Islam at some point in his life...
  
   discovers that force
  Force
  In physics, a force is any agent that causes a change in the motion of a free body, or that causes stress in a fixed body. It can also be described by intuitive concepts such as a push or pull that can cause an object with mass to change its velocity , i.e., to accelerate, or which can cause a...
  
   is proportional to acceleration rather than velocity, a fundamental law in classical mechanics
• 1121 - Al-Khazini
  Al-Khazini
  Abd al-Rahman al-Khazini was a scientist, astronomer, physicist, biologist, alchemist, mathematician and philosopher from Merv, then in the Khorasan province of Persia but now in Turkmenistan, who made important contributions to physics and astronomy. He is considered the greatest scholar from...
  
   publishes The Book of the Balance of Wisdom, in which he develops the concepts of gravitational potential energy and gravity
  Gravitation
  Gravitation is a natural phenomenon by which objects with mass attract one another. In everyday life, gravitation is most commonly thought of as the agency which lends weight to objects with mass. Gravitation causes dispersed matter to coalesce, thus accounting for the existence of the Earth, the...
  
   at-a-distance
  Action at a distance (physics)
  In physics, action at a distance is the interaction of two objects which are separated in space with no known mediator of the interaction. This term was used most often with early theories of gravity and electromagnetism to describe how an object could "know" the mass or charge of another...
  
  
• 1201-1274 - Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī described an early yet incomplete theory of the conservation of mass
  Conservation of mass
  The law of conservation of mass/matter, also known as principle of mass/matter conservation is that the mass of a closed system will remain constant over time, regardless of the processes acting inside the system. A similar statement is that mass cannot be created/destroyed, although it may be...
  
  , noting that a body of matter
  Matter
  The term matter traditionally refers to the substance that all objects are made of. One common way to identify this "substance" is through its physical properties; a common definition of matter is anything that has mass and occupies a volume...
  
   is able to change, but is not able to disappear
• 1340-1358 - Jean Buridan
  Jean Buridan
  Jean Buridan was a French priest who sowed the seeds of the Copernican revolution in Europe. Although he was one of the most famous and influential philosophers of the late Middle Ages, he is today among the least well known...
  
   develops the theory of impetus
  Theory of impetus
  The theory of impetus was an auxiliary or secondary theory of Aristotelian dynamics, put forth initially to explain projectile motion against gravity. It was first introduced by Hipparchus in antiquity, and subsequently further developed by John Philoponus in the 6th century AD...
  
  
• 1490 - Leonardo da Vinci
  Leonardo da Vinci
  Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian polymath, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer....
  
   describes capillary action
  Capillary action
  Capillary action, capillarity, capillary motion, or wicking refers to two phenomena:1 The movement of liquids in thin tubes.
  2 The flow of liquids through porous media, such as the flow of water through soil....
  
  
• 1500-1528 - Al-Birjandi
  Al-Birjandi
  Abd al-Ali ibn Muhammad ibn al-Husayn al-Birjandi prominent 16th century Persian Astronomer, mathematician and physicist who lived in Birjand, Iran.- His works :He wrote some more than 13 books and treatises;...
  
   develops the theory of "circular inertia
  Inertia
  Inertia is the resistance of any physical object, to a change in its state of motion. It is represented numerically by an object's mass. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to describe the motion of matter and how it is affected by...
  
  " to explain Earth's rotation
• 1581 - Galileo Galilei
  Galileo Galilei
  Galileo Galilei was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism...
  
   notices the timekeeping property of the pendulum
  Pendulum
  A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so it can swing freely.When a pendulum is displaced from its resting equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position. When released, the restoring force will cause it...
  
  
• 1589 - Galileo Galilei uses balls rolling on inclined planes to show that different weights fall with the same acceleration
• 1638 - Galileo Galilei publishes Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences
• 1658 - Christian Huygens experimentally discovers that balls placed anywhere inside an inverted cycloid
  Cycloid
  A cycloid is the curve defined by the path of a point on the edge of circular wheel as the wheel rolls along a straight line.It is an example of a roulette, a curve generated by a curve rolling on another curve....
  
   reach the lowest point of the cycloid in the same time and thereby experimentally shows that the cycloid is the isochrone
• 1668 - John Wallis
  John Wallis
  John Wallis was an English mathematician who is given partial credit for the development of modern calculus. Between 1643 and 1689 he served as chief cryptographer for Parliament and, later, the royal court. He is also credited with introducing the symbol ∞ for infinity...
  
   suggests the law of conservation of momentum
• 1676-1689 - Gottfried Leibniz
  Gottfried Leibniz
  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German philosopher, polymath and mathematician who wrote primarily in Latin and French....
  
   develops the concept of vis viva, a limited theory of conservation of energy
  Conservation of energy
  The law of conservation of energy states that the total amount of energy in a closed system remains constant. A consequence of this law is that energy cannot be created nor destroyed...
  
  

Newtonian mechanics

• 1687 - Isaac Newton
  Isaac Newton
  Sir Isaac Newton FRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is perceived and considered by a substantial number of scholars and the general public as one of the most influential men in history...
  
   publishes his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
  Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
  The Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Latin for "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", often Principia or Principia Mathematica for short, is a work in three books by Isaac Newton, first published on 5 July 1687. Newton also published two further editions, the second in 1713,...
  
  , in which he formulates Newton's laws of motion
  Newton's laws of motion
  Newton's laws of motion are three physical laws that form the basis for classical mechanics. They are:# In the absence of force, a body either is at rest or moves in a straight line with constant speed....
  
   and Newton's law of universal gravitation
  Newton's law of universal gravitation
  Newton's law of universal gravitation states that every object in this universe attracts every other object with a force which is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of distance between their centres. This is a general physical law derived...
  
  
• 1690 - James Bernoulli shows that the cycloid
  Cycloid
  A cycloid is the curve defined by the path of a point on the edge of circular wheel as the wheel rolls along a straight line.It is an example of a roulette, a curve generated by a curve rolling on another curve....
  
   is the solution to the isochrone problem
• 1691 - Johann Bernoulli
  Johann Bernoulli
  Johann Bernoulli was a Swiss mathematician and was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family. He is known for his contributions to calculus and educated the great mathematician Leonhard Euler in his youth.-Early life and education:Johann began studying medicine at Basel...
  
   shows that a chain freely suspended from two points will form a catenary
  Catenary
  In physics and geometry, the catenary is the theoretical shape a hanging chain or cable will assume when supported at its ends and acted on only by its own weight. Its surface of revolution, the catenoid, is a minimal surface and will be the shape of a soap film bounded by two circles...
  
  
• 1691 - James Bernoulli shows that the catenary curve has the lowest center of gravity that any chain hung from two fixed points can have
• 1696 - Johann Bernoulli shows that the cycloid is the solution to the brachistochrone problem
• 1714 - Brook Taylor
  Brook Taylor
  Brook Taylor FRS was an English mathematician who is best known for Taylor's theorem and the Taylor series.- Life and work :...
  
   derives the fundamental frequency
  Fundamental frequency
  The fundamental tone, often referred to simply as the fundamental and abbreviated f₀ or F₀, is the lowest frequency in a harmonic series....
  
   of a stretched vibrating string in terms of its tension and mass per unit length by solving an ordinary differential equation
  Differential equation
  A differential equation is a mathematical equation for an unknown function of one or several variables that relates the values of the function itself and its derivatives of various orders...
  
  
• 1733 - Daniel Bernoulli
  Daniel Bernoulli
  Daniel Bernoulli was a Dutch-Swiss mathematician and was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family. He is particularly remembered for his applications of mathematics to mechanics, especially fluid mechanics, and for his pioneering work in probability and statistics...
  
   derives the fundamental frequency and harmonic
  Harmonic
  In acoustics and telecommunication, a harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency. For example, if the fundamental frequency is...
  
  s of a hanging chain by solving an ordinary differential equation
• 1734 - Daniel Bernoulli solves the ordinary differental equation for the vibrations of an elastic bar clamped at one end
• 1738 - Daniel Bernoulli examines fluid
  Fluid
  A fluid is a substance that continually deforms under an applied shear stress. All gases are fluids, but not all liquids are fluids. Fluids are a subset of the phases of matter and include liquids, gases, plasmas and, to some extent, plastic solids....
  
   flow in Hydrodynamica
• 1739 - Leonhard Euler
  Leonhard Euler
  Leonhard Paul Euler was a pioneering Swiss mathematician and physicist who spent most of his life in Russia and Germany. His surname is in English ; the common English pronunciation is incorrect....
  
   solves the ordinary differential equation for a forced harmonic oscillator and notices the resonance
  Resonance
  In physics, resonance is the tendency of a system to oscillate at larger amplitude at some frequencies than at others. These are known as the system's resonant frequencies . At these frequencies, even small periodic driving forces can produce large amplitude vibrations, because the system...
  
   phenomenon
• 1742 - Colin Maclaurin
  Colin Maclaurin
  Colin Maclaurin was a British mathematician. Due to changes in orthography since that time , his surname is alternatively written MacLaurin. In Gaelic the name is "Cailean MacLabhruinn", which is literally 'Colin, the son of Laurence.'-Life and work:Maclaurin was born in...
  
   discovers his uniformly rotating self-gravitating spheroids
• 1747 - Pierre Louis Maupertuis
  Pierre Louis Maupertuis
  Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis was a French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters. He became the Director of the Académie des Sciences, and the first President of the Berlin Academy of Science, at the invitation of Frederick the Great.Maupertuis made an expedition to Lapland to...
  
   applies minimum principles to mechanics
• 1759 - Leonhard Euler
  Leonhard Euler
  Leonhard Paul Euler was a pioneering Swiss mathematician and physicist who spent most of his life in Russia and Germany. His surname is in English ; the common English pronunciation is incorrect....
  
   solves the partial differential equation for the vibration of a rectangular drum
  Drum
  The drum is a member of the percussion group of music instruments, technically classified as a membranophone.. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with parts of a player's body, or with some sort of...
  
  
• 1764 - Leonhard Euler examines the partial differential equation for the vibration of a circular drum and finds one of the Bessel function
  Bessel function
  In mathematics, Bessel functions, first defined by the mathematician Daniel Bernoulli and generalized by Friedrich Bessel, are canonical solutions y of Bessel's differential equation:...
  
   solutions
• 1776 - John Smeaton
  John Smeaton
  John Smeaton, FRS, was an English civil engineer – often regarded as the "father of civil engineering" – responsible for the design of bridges, canals, harbours and lighthouses. He was also a more than capable mechanical engineer and an eminent physicist. He was...
  
   publishes a paper on experiments relating power
  Power (physics)
  In physics, power is the rate at which work is performed or energy is converted. It is an energy per unit of time. As a rate of change of work done or the energy of a subsystem, power iswhere P is power, W is work and t is time....
  
  , work
  Mechanical work
  In physics, mechanical work is the amount of energy transferred by a force acting through a distance. Like energy, it is a scalar quantity, with SI units of joules...
  
  , momentum
  Momentum
  In classical mechanics, momentum is the product of the mass and velocity of an object . For more accurate measures of momentum, see the section "modern definitions of momentum" on this page...
  
   and kinetic energy
  Kinetic energy
  The kinetic energy of an object is the extra energy which it possesses due to its motion. It is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its current velocity. Having gained this energy during its acceleration, the body maintains this kinetic energy unless its...
  
  , and supporting the conservation of energy.
• 1788 - Joseph Louis Lagrange
  Joseph Louis Lagrange
  Joseph-Louis Lagrange, born Giuseppe Lodovico Lagrangia was an Italian-born mathematician and astronomer, who lived most of his life in Prussia and France, making significant contributions to all fields of analysis, to number theory, and to classical and celestial mechanics...
  
   presents Lagrange's equations of motion
  Lagrangian mechanics
  Lagrangian mechanics is a re-formulation of classical mechanics that combines conservation of momentum with conservation of energy. It was introduced by Italian mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange in 1788...
  
   in Mécanique Analytique
• 1789 - Antoine Lavoisier
  Antoine Lavoisier
  Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ; ), the father of modern chemistry, was a French noble prominent in the histories of chemistry and biology...
  
   states the law of conservation of mass
  Conservation of mass
  The law of conservation of mass/matter, also known as principle of mass/matter conservation is that the mass of a closed system will remain constant over time, regardless of the processes acting inside the system. A similar statement is that mass cannot be created/destroyed, although it may be...
  
  
• 1813 - Peter Ewart
  Peter Ewart
  Peter Ewart was a British engineer who was influential in developing the technologies of turbines and theories of thermodynamics....
  
   supports the idea of the conservation of energy in his paper On the measure of moving force.
• 1821 - William Hamilton
  William Rowan Hamilton
  Sir William Rowan Hamilton was an Irish physicist, astronomer, and mathematician, who made important contributions to classical mechanics, optics, and algebra. His studies of mechanical and optical systems led him to discover new mathematical concepts and techniques...
  
   begins his analysis of Hamilton's characteristic function
• 1834 - Carl Jacobi
  Carl Gustav Jakob Jacobi
  Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi was a Prussian mathematician, widely considered to be the most inspiring teacher of his time and one of the greatest mathematicians of all time.-Biography:...
  
   discovers his uniformly rotating self-gravitating ellipsoid
  Ellipsoid
  An ellipsoid is a type of quadric surface that is a higher dimensional analogue of an ellipse. The equation of a standard axis-aligned ellipsoid body in an xyz-Cartesian coordinate system is...
  
  s
• 1834 - John Russell
  John Scott Russell
  John Scott Russell was a Scottish naval engineer who built the Great Eastern in collaboration with Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and made the discovery that gave birth to the modern study of solitons.-Early life:John Scott Russell was born John Russell on 9 May 1808 in Parkhead, Glasgow, the son of...
  
   observes a nondecaying solitary water wave (soliton
  Soliton
  In mathematics and physics, a soliton is a self-reinforcing solitary wave that maintains its shape while it travels at constant speed. Solitons are caused by a cancellation of nonlinear and dispersive effects in the medium. "Dispersive effects" refer to dispersion relations between the frequency...
  
  ) in the Union Canal
  Union Canal (Scotland)
  The Union Canal is a 31.5 mile contour canal in Scotland, from Lochrin Basin, Fountainbridge, Edinburgh to Falkirk, where it meets the Forth and Clyde Canal.-Location and Features:...
  
   near Edinburgh
  Edinburgh
  Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland. It is the second largest Scottish city, after Glasgow, and the seventh-most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas....
  
   and uses a water tank to study the dependence of solitary water wave velocities on wave amplitude and water depth
• 1835 - William Hamilton states Hamilton's canonical equations of motion
  Hamiltonian mechanics
  Hamiltonian mechanics is a reformulation of classical mechanics that was introduced in 1833 by Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton. It arose from Lagrangian mechanics, a previous reformulation of classical mechanics introduced by Joseph Louis Lagrange in 1788, but can be formulated without...
  
  
• 1835 - Gaspard Coriolis
  Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis
  Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis or Gustave Coriolis was a French mathematician, mechanical engineer and scientist. He is best known for his work on the supplementary forces that are detected in a rotating frame of reference, and one of those forces nowadays bears his name. See the Coriolis Effect...
  
   examines theoretically the mechanical efficiency of waterwheels, and deduces the Coriolis effect
  Coriolis effect
  In physics, the Coriolis effect is an apparent deflection of moving objects when they are viewed from a rotating reference frame.Newton's laws of motion govern the motion of an object in an inertial frame of reference. When transforming Newton's laws to a rotating frame of reference, the Coriolis...
  
  .
• 1841 - Julius Robert von Mayer
  Julius Robert von Mayer
  Julius Robert von Mayer was a German physician and physicist and one of the founders of thermodynamics...
  
  , an amateur
  Amateur
  An amateur is generally considered a person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science, without formal training or pay. An amateur receives little or irregular income from their activities, and differs from a professional who makes a living from the pursuit and typically has some formal...
  
   scientist, writes a paper on the conservation of energy but his lack of academic training leads to its rejection.
• 1842 - Christian Doppler
  Christian Doppler
  Christian Andreas Doppler was an Austrian mathematician and physicist. He is most famous for what is now called the Doppler effect, which is the apparent change in frequency and wavelength of a wave as perceived by an observer moving relative to the wave's source.- Life and work :Christian...
  
   proposes the Doppler effect
  Doppler effect
  The Doppler effect , named after Austrian physicist Christian Doppler who proposed it in 1842, is the change in frequency of a wave for an observer moving relative to the source of the wave. It is commonly heard when a vehicle sounding a siren or horn approaches, passes, and recedes from an observer...
  
  
• 1847 - Hermann von Helmholtz
  Hermann von Helmholtz
  Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz was a German physician and physicist who made significant contributions to several widely varied areas of modern science...
  
   formally states the law of conservation of energy
• 1851 - Léon Foucault
  Léon Foucault
  Jean Bernard Léon Foucault was a French physicist best known for the invention of the Foucault pendulum, a device demonstrating the effect of the Earth's rotation. He also made an early measurement of the speed of light, discovered eddy currents, and although he didn't invent it, is credited with...
  
   shows the Earth's rotation with a huge pendulum
  Pendulum
  A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so it can swing freely.When a pendulum is displaced from its resting equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position. When released, the restoring force will cause it...
  
   (Foucault pendulum
  Foucault pendulum
  The Foucault pendulum , or Foucault's pendulum, named after the French physicist Léon Foucault, was conceived as an experiment to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth.-The experiment:...
  
  )
• 1902 - James Jeans finds the length scale required for gravitational perturbations to grow in a static nearly homogeneous medium