Isaac Newton formulated the three laws of motion published in his Principia Mathematica.
Newton’s laws describe how forces affect motion. The first law states that an object remains at rest or moves uniformly in a straight line unless acted on by a net external force. The second connects force, mass, and acceleration, commonly expressed as F = ma. The third states that forces occur in equal and opposite pairs.
Newton published these principles in Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687. The book also presented his law of universal gravitation, linking the motion of objects on Earth with the motion of celestial bodies. Its publication became a major milestone in the Scientific Revolution.
Newton built on earlier work by Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler rather than working in isolation. His laws remain highly successful for everyday-scale objects, although relativity and quantum mechanics are needed in extreme conditions or at very small scales.