"The law of gravitation extends universally over all matter. The fixed stars obeying central forces move in orbits. The milky way comprehends several systems of fixed stars; those that appear out of the tract of the milky way form but one system which is our own. The sun being of the number of fixed stars, revolves round a centre like the rest. Each system has its centre, and several systems taken together have a common centre, Assemblages of their assemblages have likewise theirs. In fine, there is à universal centre for the whole world round which all things revolve." (Johann H Lambert, "The System of the World", 1800)
"Given for one instant an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective positions of the beings which compose it, if moreover this intelligence were vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in the same formula both the movements of the largest bodies in the universe and those of the lightest atom: to it nothing would be uncertain, and the future as the past would be present to its eyes. The human mind offers a feeble outline of that intelligence, in the perfection which it has given to astronomy. Its discoveries in mechanics and in geometry, joined to that of universal gravity, have enabled it to comprehend in the same analytical expressions the past and future states of the world system." (Pierre-Simon Laplace, "Analytical Theory of Probability", 1812)
"Analysis and natural philosophy owe their most important discoveries to this fruitful means, which is called induction. Newton was indebted to it for his theorem of the binomial and the principle of universal gravity." (Pierre-Simon Laplace, "Philosophical Essay on Probabilities”, 1814)
"Primary causes are unknown to us; but are subject to simple and constant laws, which may be discovered by observation, the study of them being the object of natural philosophy. Heat, like gravity, penetrates every substance of the universe, its rays occupy all parts of space. The object of our work is to set forth the mathematical laws which this element obeys. The theory of heat will hereafter form one of the most important branches of general physics." (Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier, "The Analytical Theory of Heat", 1822)
"In order that a pendulum may continue to make the same number of oscillations in a given time, it must be shortened as it is carried towards the equator; and the variation of its length in different latitudes affords an accurate measurement of the force of gravity. But the force of gravity has known relation to the figure of the earth, which, therefore, may be determined, by observing the length of the seconds pendulum at different points on its surface." (David Brewster, [in "The Edinburgh Encyclopaedia"] 1830)
"Science and knowledge are subject, in their extension and increase, to laws quite opposite to those which regulate the material world. Unlike the forces of molecular attraction, which cease at sensible distances; or that of gravity, which decreases rapidly with the increasing distance from the point of its origin; the farther we advance from the origin of our knowledge, the larger it becomes, and the greater power it bestows upon its cultivators, to add new fields to its dominions." (Charles Babbage, "On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures", 1832)
"It is a mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble from my hand alters the centre of gravity of the universe." (Thomas Carlyle, "Sartor Resartus", 1836)
"Gravity. Surely this force must be capable of an experimental relation to electricity, magnetism, and the other forces, so as to bind it up with them in reciprocal action and equivalent effect." (Michael Faraday, [Notebook entry] 1849)
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