The end of the eighteenth century found two basic Newtonian ideas triumphant. Scientists carefully experimented with natural phenomena and measured important features of these happenings, trying all the while to establish quantitative relations among the changing elements, The paradigm for this is found in Isaac Newton's (1642-1727) landmark 1704 work, Opticks. Another Newtonian paradigm was his theory of gravitation. Here one takes a mechanical model of small particles with forces of attraction or repulsion between any two of them, and then proceeds to deduce their behavior following from some basic force laws. Both the Newtonian experimental method and the Newtonian mechanical model of the universe were widely accepted by those investigating the physical world.

Physics

An amazing discovery occurred at the very beginning of the nineteenth century: electricity could be generated and made to flow in a current. Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829) immediately...