The Birth of a New Physics

The earth circles the sun every year and rotates on its axis every twenty-four hours. The earth does not stand still.

These are notions so basic to our view of life that we take them for granted. But in the seventeenth century they were revolutionary, heretical, even dangerous to the men who formed them. Culture, religion, and science had intertwined over the centuries to create a world view based on a stationary earth. Indeed, if the earth moved, would not birds be blown off the trees and w...