Slide 7 of 8
Seventy years after Kepler formulated his empirical laws, Sir Isaac
Newton completed the synthesis started by the ancient Greeks and in
the process provided us with one of the greatest triumphs of the
scientific method. He started with a {\it hypothesis}, namely his
three laws of motion plus his Law of Universal Gravitation, then
deduced their consequences for the motions of the moon and planets
(inventing calculus in the process) and finally verified that they
were consistent with observation (i.e. Kepler's Laws). He was therebye
able to unify within a single, simple and elegant framework the motion
of heavenly bodies with their earthbound counterparts.